The bosses won the pandemic

The football wars are a perfect microcosm of what's going on out there. 

Just over a month after the Big Ten became the first major conference to postpone the 2020 football season, the league reversed its decision Wednesday and announced plans to begin playing the weekend of Oct. 24.

The Big Ten will have medical protocols that include daily coronavirus testing and enhanced cardiac screening, the announcement said. The conference’s university presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to resume the season.

Most of the stories about this emphasize Trump and the role of the Presidential election.  Big Ten schools are in midwestern "battleground" states.  Trump can rile up the usual hooting hogs over something like this. Biden, meanwhile, because his strategy is all about peeling off Republican votes in those states, can't really complain too much. Nobody wants to be the grinch that stole football. Since Trump has the liberty of not actually caring about whether or not football is safe, he distorts the entire debate. In reality, we shouldn't have football this fall.  But because Trump departs from reality and says we can, then anyone who disagrees is trying to take something away from us.

That's all true enough. But it's also just the surface level electoral handicapping. Like every other policy debate during COVID, this is really about the balance of power in the labor market. We don't just have to have football because people like football. We have to have it in order to make the point that bosses can force people to work under dangerous circumstances.  It's the same reason we're insisting that schools return to "in-classroom learning" despite the concerns of teachers all over the country. It's the same reason Republicans keep trying to sneak liability immunity for employers into every relief bill.  The pandemic is giving the bosses a chance to alter the terms of employment to their advantage and every forced "reopening" is another point of leverage for them. 

College athletics is a megabillion dollar industry where the athletes, the labor that makes the whole business possible, still aren't even paid for what they do. Can they perform their extremely valuable but uncompensated labor in a safe environment?  Do we even care if they can?  It does not appear as though we do.

Orgeron said Tuesday that LSU's team has "about three or four guys" who currently are sick with coronavirus, and the team does not have "a lot of guys in quarantine."

"I think most, not all of our players, but most of our players have caught it," Orgeron said. "So hopefully they won't catch it again, and hopefully they're not out for games."

Hopefully they won't catch it again.  It's good to be hopeful, I guess. 

One other thing this Big Ten reversal should tell us is we're definitely going to end up forcing some kind of tourist event for Mardi Gras to happen this year because "the economy" (i.e. owners of hotels and restaurants) will demand it. The looming municipal elections will probably factor in that decision much as the Presidential election is part of the football war. But the real issue, again, will be how big a win can the bosses get and which political figures will work the hardest to get it for them.

Coach O: "Not me, us"

Go read this ESPN feature on the undefeated LSU head coach.  I hope Coach O wins ten national titles before he's through.

"My dad always told me, 'Son, you have to do everything twice,'" says Orgeron, who called some of his former assistants to apologize. "You live and learn. If you want it bad enough, you'll change, and I always wanted to be a head coach. I wanted to be a successful head coach, and I had to try it my way first to see if it would work. In those years I was out from Ole Miss, I just wrote stuff down every day. I changed, and it was a process. ... I had to learn to be a head coach."

For starters, he says he learned to treat people better. That meant handling players as if they were his sons and treating assistants the way he'd want to be treated, with respect. If he saw something wrong, "I'd bring the coach to my office and talk to him like a man," rather than airing things out publicly.

Next, he wanted to cultivate a leadership style that wouldn't be defined by anyone's self-interest. He had seen selfishness of players and coaches creep in during his time as an assistant at USC and LSU, and vowed to create an environment where that attitude couldn't exist.

"I see myself coaching from within," he says. "I don't want to coach from above. I don't want it to be me looking down on everyone else. Na-ah. I want it to be all of us together."

A steak in every pot

The Louisiana legislature is going back into session next week. (Yes, yes, run for your lives, winter is coming, abandon all hope, etc. etc.)  There's a ton of fun stuff to talk about with regard to that but we'll save that for later.  I only bring it up now in order to point us to HB 113 filed by Rep Walt Leger. Here is what that would do. 

Provides that at all regular elections of governor and lieutenant governor, the candidates for such offices shall be elected jointly in such a manner as provided bylaw so that a single vote shall be cast for a candidate for governor and a candidate for lieutenant governor running together.

He wants the Governor and Lt. Governor to run together on one ticket. I'm having trouble seeing the benefit. The Lt. Governor's power is (mostly) limited to oversight of the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. Even in cases when the offices are occupied by rival or ideologically opposed individuals, it would be rare to find them working at cross purposes. It's true the current Lt. Governor has some pretty unsavory ideas about privatizing many functions of our state parks. It's also true that he's been trying to figure out how to put monuments to white supremacy recently removed from view in New Orleans back on public display.   But if Governor Edwards has any strong opposition to any of that, he hasn't bothered to let it be known.  It's generally easy for the the two of them to stay out of each other's way.

At the same time, it's hard to identify much downside to Leger's proposal.  Probably the biggest loss will be to politicians and the.. well.. industry of politics since it effectively takes one prestigious (if ineffectual) statewide elected office off the board. It's one less opportunity for candidates to show they can win a race of that scope. One less chance for staffers, consultants, and other hangers on to make a ton of money helping them do that. Maybe this is a good idea after all.

Both the Governor and Lt. Governor are up for reelection this fall but this bill won't affect any of that.  It's a constitutional amendment and would have to be ratified by popular vote first and there's no time for that before the current cycle. In a way, that sucks for John Bel because imagine the ticket he could put together here.

It’s no secret that Gov. John Bel Edwards and LSU coach Ed Orgeron have a special bromance. They’ve often appeared alongside each other at events promoting Louisiana and LSU.

On Thursday, Orgeron introduced Edwards at a fundraiser for Edwards’ re-election campaign, calling the Democrat incumbent “a man of great character, great integrity.”

Man that is an intimidating prospect. Coach O really knows how to give the people what they want.  

“Let ’em have their cell phones and headsets,” Orgeron said in a recent interview with SB Nation. “Let ’em dress the way they want! Let ’em be who they are, as long as it’s respectful. Don’t put shackles on them. And I know it works. I know it works. I had kids at USC hugging me, crying, when I left. Begging me, ‘Don’t leave.’"

In that same interview, he added that part of being both a good and impactful head coach starts with showing players that you actually care about them.

“Before, I didn’t let them know I cared. I was the D-line coach. You can’t coach a receiver like a D-lineman. I just realized, here are some of the things I’ve got to change. I started writing, and I came to a realization: If I treat these boys like I treat my sons, I think we’re gonna be fine. How do you treat your kids? When my boys come home, I cook ’em a steak.

Vote Edwards/Orgeron and they'll cook you a dang steak!  Nobody wants to run against that.  No wonder John Kennedy is so mad.   

“I don’t want to watch LSU football and have to wonder if the coach is a Democrat or Republican. I’m so angry at this,” U.S. Sen. John Kennedy said during a five-minute diatribe on Baton Rouge radio Friday morning – a day after Orgeron introduced Edwards during a breakfast fundraising event. “It is a horrible mistake to politicize LSU and LSU football. I’m stunned that the candidate would even entertain, much less accept, the endorsement.”

Is that really the problem, John?  Politicizing LSU football?  It's not like that's never been done.  That very same article goes on to point out one recent example.

Former LSU coach Les Miles attended an event in honor of then-Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign in 2015 and celebrated at Jindal’s re-election victory party in 2011.

There's also the obvious.  

To generate excitement for LSU, Long’s first step was to quadruple the size of the marching band (from 28 to 125) and develop a first-rate football team. He became the state’s most prominent ‘Tiger fan’ – coaching plays, giving locker room pep talks and personally recruiting top talent for the team. LSU fever swept the state, as reduced tuition and need-based scholarships allowed students from all regions to flock to Baton Rouge to study. 

We could go on and on about Huey, in fact.  His impact on the band alone is legendary.  T. Harry Williams devotes a chapter to Huey and LSU titled "I've Got  A University" emphasizing Long's sense of ownership over the school, the football team, and everything else there.  Also there is this quote from Glenn Jeansonne's less good book, Huey Long: A Political Contradiction that seems to fit here.

Long hired the best football coaches money could buy and then told them how to run the team, although he had never played football himself. He housed gifted players in the Governor's Mansion, where he fattened them up on milkshakes and sirloin steaks.

 Milkshakes and steaks 2019.  Nobody wants to run against that. 

Atomic Cannon

Vice President Nixon: "Congratulations to this young weightlifter or whatever."



Because Menckles is not from Louisiana, yesterday I found myself in the unusual position of having to answer the question, "Who is Bill Cannon?"  That took a while to explain but I think I started with, "Paul Bunyan but for Louisiana football," or something like that.  Anyway, this is a better explanation.

Nationally, LSU’s best known sports figures are probably “Pistol” Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal. But on the home front, Cannon is the legend of legends.

Nearly 60 years after he stepped off the field at old Tulane Stadium after his final college game in the 1960 Sugar Bowl, Cannon remains the standard by which all LSU football players are judged. It is easy to get all hyperbolic over the latest five-star recruit as being the best this or that. But there are still plenty of Tiger fans who will look at the helium-filled recruiting rankings and huff, with justification, “He’s great, but he’s no Billy Cannon.”

The window flags on every RV in the state are gonna be at half-mast for the rest of the year. 

Fear not for the fading of your myths, though, Tiger fans. Legends do indeed continue to walk this earth. 

They're rare at LSU, famous for its night games. All but three were played in the evening last year with one 11 a.m. tucked in Nov. 11 against Arkansas. A handful of former Tigers recalled the locker room scene that preceded that brunch in Baton Rouge.

Ed Orgeron got primal before that morning game.

"He walked in there and said it's time to set your jaw," said former Tiger offensive lineman K.J. Malone. "And started punching himself in the jaw."

Astros pitcher Ken Giles recently went viral for smoking himself in the face. That was punitive.

Orgeron, LSU's 56-year old head coach, sacrificed for motivation.

"Punch yourself in the face in the morning if you're not ready," center Will Clapp remembered was the message.

Self harm is kind of the unofficial state passtime anyway.  We'll be right back at it tomorrow, in fact.

Ditkaesque

I'm still enjoying Coach O as the LSU team mascot and everything. (Let's face it. That covers the bulk of his job description.)  But I swear this thing today feels an awful lot like the press conference where Mike Ditka named Danny Abramowitz as his offensive coordinator.  Lots of backslapping about how it was done in the olden days combined with suspciously unrealistic expectations for the quarterback. 

Not trying to be too pessimistic. Whether they get the job done or not, I'm sure it will be funny.  But I can't imagine there's a very deep well of patience among the fans for Orgeron and Co to draw on at this point.

They won an actual bowl of citrus

What with the busy holiday and everything, this is a fun fact I must have missed.

LSU’s celebration of the 29-9 win over No. 15 Louisville swallowed Camping World Stadium on Saturday afternoon, moving from the field, to the locker room and spilling out into a tunnel underneath the 65,000-seat structure.

Orgeron was doused in a post-game Gatorade bath. In an on-field celebration, players tossed lemons and oranges into a small, but roaring, LSU fan section, swiping the fruit from the bowl of the Citrus trophy and hurling them into the stands.

They danced in the locker room, their coach doing a jig that had players chuckling. They celebrated with fans during the walk from the locker room to the busses, and their coach, in the same tunnel, posed for photos with his mother, Coco, and other family members.

“Bayou comes to Orlando!” Orgeron yelled while hugging his mother.

Also, Ed Orgeron is a complete nut. But that fun fact has been lost on no one. 

I really wanted Coach O to make it

It seems like Orgeron would have enjoyed being the head coach at LSU more than any person on the planet.  He's also a proven recruiter which, I can't stress this enough, is about 90 percent of the job anyway. But even if he beats A&M he's probably not going to make it now.

So here we go with the long process of disappointments as Joe Alleva and the boosters learn that not everybody actually wants that job as much as Coach O did. Expect Jimbo to be the first of many to turn them down.  (Although... a lot of surprising things have happened this year.) 

Don't throw Bebe out with the bathwater just yet

Ok so he didn't beat Alabama. But I don't think that result should be seen as a dealbreaker for Ed Orgeron in his bid to keep the LSU job.  Let's wait and see how the team responds to the tough loss before we decide on that.

Besides, Orgeron's team played a hell of a game last night. They were clearly up for it. They played hard. And mostly, they played smart. Two wasted timeouts were the glaring exception to that but otherwise the team didn't make the kind of mistakes that indicate they weren't prepared. They played toe to toe with the top ranked team in the country.  The game broke on one Alabama drive extended by a questionable late hit call and which culminated in a touchdown run aided by several uncalled instances of holding. That's tough. But the point is they showed up.

The question that affects Orgeron now is can he get them to show up again.  Getting the team focused after a loss like that to face a daunting series of opponents is arguably a truer test of the coach's mettle anyway.  Let's keep watching. 

Populist football

There are a lot of compelling aspects to the DACOACHO storyline taking place in Baton Rouge this year. There's the obvious hometown boy facet. There's the improbable coincidence of Orgeron finding himself in the same situation at LSU he once was in at USC.  But the best story is probably the "second chance" narrative about a man who has gotten his break once and failed coming back a little wiser this time.

Specifically, Orgeron's story is about learning to be less of a dick.

At USC, he would do simple things like cater Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles for his players and have people like Dr. Dre and Ray Lewis talk to the team. He gave hand-written notes to every member of the USC band, thanking them for what they do.
Trojans safety Dion Bailey spoke in 2013 about how refreshing Orgeron was:

He really emphasized that this time around being a head coach he wants to do it the right way, he really learned a lot from his time at Ole Miss, he asked us our input about a lot of things on the team, and he really inputted our input into the schedules and event-planning, things like that. He's always looking out for what's better for us, what makes us comfortable, taking care of our bodies. That really made us appreciate him, and from then on, guys have been behind Coach O and would run through a brick wall for him.

At LSU, he’s using those same practices.

“Let ’em have their cell phones and headsets,” Orgeron said in a recent interview with SB Nation. “Let ’em dress the way they want! Let ’em be who they are, as long as it’s respectful. Don’t put shackles on them. And I know it works. I know it works. I had kids at USC hugging me, crying, when I left. Begging me, ‘Don’t leave.’"

In that same interview, he added that part of being both a good and impactful head coach starts with showing players that you actually care about them.

“Before, I didn’t let them know I cared. I was the D-line coach. You can’t coach a receiver like a D-lineman. I just realized, here are some of the things I’ve got to change. I started writing, and I came to a realization: If I treat these boys like I treat my sons, I think we’re gonna be fine. How do you treat your kids? When my boys come home, I cook ’em a steak.

“That’s my motto now: Treat ’em like you would your sons. And hey, I’m Cajun. We eat a lot."

There you go, Coach. Give the people what they want. A steak in every pot.. or something like that. We can get behind that. 

With this going on at LSU and the Saints seeming like they're at least going to be interesting to watch as they struggle to 7-9 or thereabouts, football season is suddenly looking fun again. 

Coach O, we'll hardly know ya

Gonna be so sad when LSU inevitably disappoints Orgeron again because the boosters are gonna demand a Big Name Guy.

The Tigers had signed him to a football scholarship out of South Lafourche High in 1979 and brought him to training camp as a freshman lineman. But homesickness soon drove the small-town kid back to the bayou.

His father, in the construction business, put him to work the next day.

“I was digging ditches by the side of the road,” Orgeron says. “People would drive by and yell ‘You quit.’ It was the worst time of my life.”

A former high school teammate — quarterback Bobby Hebert — persuaded Orgeron to join him at Northwestern (La.) State, where they both had successful college careers.

For years afterward, whenever Orgeron drove across the Horace Wilkinson Bridge and saw the LSU campus along the river, he told himself: I’m gonna make it back there someday.

Maybe not quite as sad as having to put down Mike. But, well, it's a similar situation.