Poll: Does Paterno Scandal Signal End of Untouchable Coach?
Joe Paterno's unceremonious ouster at Penn State has sped up a growing trend in college and professional sports.
With Joe Paterno's almost 46-year career at Penn State brought to an abrupt end in a scandal last week, Paterno's species -- the untouchable coach -- appears to be dying out. Paterno was the last coach in big-time football -- including the NFL -- with the clout to essentially tell his boss: "No, I do not accept your pink slip. Now, get out of my house." Local examples of coaches who didn't have that ability abound. Brian Billick coached the Baltimore Ravens for nine years, won Super Bowl XXXV and compiled an 85-67 record that included six winning seasons. But he was spiked after the 2007 season because he never got back to the big game. Ralph Friedgen, the former University of Maryland football coach, was kicked to the curb after going 75-…
Nonlinear
10:25 pm on Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The coaches are not dying out, political correctness is sliding through the birth canal at every possible entry. Instead of deal with Paterno as the case winds through the system, dying a natural death, it is snuffed out, "they" hope by firing him. Now it's worse, I think. As far as the other coaches listed, it seems they were not untouchable and were protected by the very system in which they … more ›