Sunday, November 25, 2012

Coaches, Fathers, and Other Figures


Aubie & A Truly Great Coach
We doubt too many are honoring Gene Chizik today, but lest any feel too sorry for this one-time icon at Auburn University, the Birmingham News is reporting some very interesting details concerning his days as head coach, especially after the university's national championship. Here's a few interesting revelations:

* Almost all mandatory workouts became optional.
* Many players stopped attending classes and/or doing classwork.
* Private security became the norm--players had to be forced to follow Chizik's dictates.

In  other words, when the annals of this decade's Southeastern football are written, Gene Chizik will be considered Auburn's answer to Mike Price.

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Years ago Gary Crosby, son of Bing Crosby, penned the story of his life growing up with a famous singer/actor for a father. It wasn't pretty. It seems when informed of the sudden death of his famous father, he simply finished the golf game he was playing at the time.

Often we see those honored in local or even national media and we know their private lives were nothing like their public persona. If you want to know what a man...or woman...is like, ask their children.

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Other figures? Let's arbitrarily use an institution as a "figure." The print media today is in serious trouble. We don't blame even our local paper, if you can call it that, for scrounging for every reader it can get.

Yet, while local news once predominated the TimesDaily's online headlines, that's no longer so. Click on many stories thinking you'll find something of local interest and you'll instead be confronted with national stories that have little to do with us in the Shoals.

Obviously we should want to know what's going on nationally and internationally, but the TD is not the first place most of us look for that kind of news. That's why we're glad to have the Quad-Cities Daily and Pen-N-Sword to fall back on...no, wait, to make our first choice for what's happening in the Shoals.



Shoalanda

2 comments:

  1. The TD and many once fine local newspapers no longer even reflect the values or or attitudes of the local population. They adopted the big city values of their corporate owners like the New York Times. The print media has made itself irrelevant by doing this. I can remember as a boy back in the 1960s being proud to deliver the Florence Times paper. I was always hustling to sign up more customers and to increase my route size. My green canvas bag with the Times logo on it was something I was so proud of. Those days are long gone and I would not even pay the price of a delivery today. SAD!

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    1. Larry, we wholeheartedly agree with you. While your comment was on our third item of the day, we're going to mention the second item.

      We recently honored Larry for his military service to his country. Friends tell us Larry is also an excellent father. Thanks, Larry, for being the person you are.

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