A Fair Reply

I just read a column by a pretty good Journalist named Kevin Scarbinsky. Mr. Scarbinsky just ripped Auburn a new one for building fairly expensive and duplicate statues of it's Heisman Trophy winners plus one of the immortal John Heisman, for whom the trophy is named after. Coach Heisman was one of the great men that shoved the rolling stone that is Auburn Athletics down the hill that is Collegiate sports. Well this action by our athletic department apparently seems to make our celebratory statues hypocritical being that Alabama honor their National Championship coaches by bronzing them in front of Bryant-Denny stadium. Being the great Journalist that Mr. Scarbinsky is, he criticized Auburn in a similar fashion that he did Alabama after they started erecting statues to honor the living and the past. This quote did bother me just a bit;

"This is the same AD who dismissed the notion that Auburn would copy-cat Alabama by expanding Jordan-Hare Stadium."
                                -Kevin Scarbinsky

As much as this seems to be true, it's not completely that black and white. If Jay Jacobs copied anybody I would say it's Athletic Director Jeremy Foley about 5 hours southeast of the rolling plains of Alabama. The Gainesville Gators of the University of Florida just placed three statues of their Heisman winning athletes in front of the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium sky box seats entrance just this spring. The timing of the announcement that Auburn is building these statues is debatable being that Alabama is revealing Coach Saban's statue for A-Day. College football has always been a fight of money being thrown at whatever possible just to stay ahead of the next new thing. If you have a good idea, some other school is going use it, throw some make-up on it, and call it different. No better example of this is Alabama's version of the Tiger Prow,l or how every school has a cheaper version of Auburn's Tiger Walk. College football is politics, where you do whatever you can to stretch rules to stay ahead of the politician down the street; even if that means visiting something that has already been done, or releasing some information that seems to take the news cycle from your opponent. These athletic directors are attempting to win the support of boosters who write endless checks usually for the sole reason to be able to brag to their golf buddies and co workers how Cam Newton, Mark Ingram, or Tim Tebow himself destroyed your team and brought the glory of championships to their favorite team's history books. Oh but in politics you can't forget about your independents who win you the election. These wild cards are the 18 and 17 years olds who cherish the idea of a lot of Swag and the opportunity to see themselves idolized for as long as that university shall stand. I don't believe Jay copied what Alabama is doing, but rather he's trying to find a way to unite all his voters under one banner. So I don't agree with Mr. Scarbinsky when he used the example of Jacobs not blowing money to build a stadium Auburn could not possibly fill, just because Alabama's stadium is bigger. Even though this is a race to have the best facilities (in which the NCAA has rules holding the University responsible for not having facilities up to date that allows athletes to compete at same level as other schools) these directors have to have fiscal discipline to make sure they don't hurt the progress of their programs. Speaking of fiscal discipline, this is what Mr. Scarbinsky said next.


"In a state that comes up short in education, child care and so many other areas that really matter, don't we honor football players and coaches enough? How much is too much? Thanks to details Jacobs provided, we now have a measure. It's a bronze likeness 1 ½ times life-size that weighs about 1,900 pounds." - Kevin Scarbinsky 

Well that's the same argument that politicians have used to answer the lack of educational budgeting that they seem to have under their possession. The athletic programs in this state that spend big money completely stand on there own two legs. Meaning they make enough money to support themselves without the money that they have to take from the university because of laws like title 9. If anything is true it's this, that without Alabama and Auburn the state of Alabama would be Mississippi. The revenue generated by thousands of people fitting into an area that cannot hold them is what gets these small businesses through the year and these small businesses is what support the educational fund through their payment of taxes and the payroll taxes that are taken out of their employees checks, and through the many other ways that tax revenue is collected. These Athletic Departments influence spending from fans who want to be notice as affiliates with there favorite team superstar, to the coach's houndstooth hat, and even down to the truck they drive. Lets not forget the large work force employed by College Athletics that contribute money that spins the wheels of the pinto that is Alabama's economy.

Our problem with education has nothing to do with what Mal Moore and Jay Jacobs decided to do and what Dr. Jay Gouge and Dr. Robert Witt permits them to do. The problem lies at the base of the lack of incentives that teachers have to work. Especially when they have no allotted money to support their classrooms (unless designated by their school boards), and continue to have their retirement nickeled at as they are scheduled to lose 1 percent of the matched retirement system this May and another percent in October. Let's add the fact that teachers haven't had a raise since close to 2000, thats ten years of the same income during a inflationary period. Some would even go to talk about coaches salaries vs. teacher salaries, but if you can show me someone that can generate as much money as Nick Saban and Gene Chizik generated for their respected schools then I too would do whatever to keep them around also. A lot of what they bring to the table is why these schools have been able to withstand the mighty struggles that shake their foundation. The truth is that what our teachers lack in Alabama's High Schools is why Football players fail when they arrive to our Universities. When great teachers would prefer to be secretaries for businesses than use their god given ability to teach. Then you tend to have athletes and regular students that don't do so well at the next level, players who go on HBO for some money and attention, and I wouldn't be afraid to link this to the fact that some of them run into houses to rob people. If anything, these programs give these kids a chance to have a better life than the place from which they were raised. Athletics is a trick from universities to entice them to come get an education in order to play in the NFL. That's why more than anything, Alabama needs these Athletic Departments.

"Building a statue of Newton at this point borders on reckless. Isn't it wildly premature to start work on that tribute before the NCAA investigation into his recruitment is closed?" -Kevin Scarbinsky 

 I have worked within the confines of the athletic department for 4 years and I have traveled to every game with the team since 2006. Through all the frustration, joyous moments, and trials I've been through with this place, the one thing I will take with me is the fact that Auburn is uniquely consistent. The Cam situation has been no different, Coach Chizik, Jay, and Rich Mcglynn have done their homework and they have stuck with their guns throughout this entire thrashing. If they were to deviate from that consistency in anyway, there would be so much media innuendo about why Cam didn't have a statue. I would even get suspicious myself because the first thing a school does in any instance of trouble is distance themselves from the situation to protect it's prestige. Auburn uses family as the base to whatever they build and they try to be careful to what they add to that structure. Sometimes they judge right and sometimes they completely miss, but if you do the right thing in life, Auburn will support you in whatever endeavor or criticism you may face. I've gotten a couple of recommendations from Jay Jacobs and Coach Chizik for an athletic department job at a small college in Nashville, they have done more than I could ever ask as far as helping and meeting with me. Jay has extensive background as a Christian and Coach Chizik gives a lot of money to charities and his wife travels around the world as a missionary. So they believe in the christian principle of what you do not do for the least of these you do not do for Jesus. With all that said, Auburn made a decision about Cam a long time ago and I can't foresee anything that will change that. All efforts led by the NCAA have fallen short and all allegations against Auburn are from some people whose stories just don't fit no matter how you measure them. The NCAA will say that they are investigating this particular subject until the Sun turns into a white dwarf, because if they don't the fallout will be tremendous especially after the hit the they took for the Ohio State fiasco. 

I think Mr. Scarbinsky is an unbelievably, talented, fair, and tough journalist but just like everyone else has done in life. He missed on this one.