Over the last few years, I’ve grown to really like Nick Saban. You watch enough slime in college sports, and you watch the legalization of dropping bags, and you start to appreciate a guy who is simply very, very good at winning games, and is capable of doing that without conducting himself in an evidently evil manner. Take, for example, the contrast between Saban and Urban Meyer. One of those coaches had 31 players arrested in a six-year stretch, allegedly engaged in a coverup of an assistant coach’s spousal abuse (privately crediting God the whole way through for leading him past the dangers of…Signing Day, if memory serves from those text messages that were released), and finished an embarrassing NFL tenure by kicking his own kicker. The other has been accused of being rude to sideline reporters in halftime interviews.
Is Saban a good guy? I don’t know. But the list of players who’ve gotten in trouble for violence under his leadership at Alabama is short. I can think of Jonathan Taylor. I can think of Jermaine Burton. Beyond that? None come readily to mind, and while I’m sure I could be missing a few, it’s a short list.
This is one fringy part of why the Brandon Miller situation troubled me.
When the details came out surrounding Brandon Miller’s involvement in the murder of Jamea Jonae Harris, one thing that came to mind was an unsettling question: Had Tuscaloosa police protected Miller because of his value to the University of Alabama? I don’t know if they did or didn’t. I do not intend to say they did. But the possibility came to my mind, and it hasn’t left, because if it’s true, it raises questions about a seeming success of Saban’s time in that town: His players have mostly behaved.
Again, I don’t know if Saban’s a good guy. I don’t know how the police handle their business in Tuscaloosa. I don’t know a lot of things. But in the wake of Tony Mitchell’s arrest last week (Mitchell, a freshman defensive back for Alabama, was reportedly driving 78 mph in a 55 zone, then saw police lights and accelerated to 141 mph before being stopped and found potentially high, carrying a legal but loaded gun), can you ask for a better response than this, from Saban yesterday?
“Everybody’s got an opportunity to make choices and decisions. There’s no such thing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’ve got to be responsible for who you’re with, who you’re around, and what you do, who you associate yourself with and the situations that you put yourself in. It is what it is, but there is cause and effect when you make choices and decisions that put you in bad situations.”
I don’t need to live in a world where every college athlete is a perfect citizen. That’s not a realistic world. These guys are kids, many come from traumatic upbringings, kids are going to make mistakes. But the accountability is the important thing. If we want to believe the best about collegiate athletics—and why shouldn’t we, we can hold ourselves to some sort of standard in life—we want coaches to lead these kids, and to mentor these kids, and to shape these kids. The death of Jamea Jonae Harris is the worst thing about the death of Jamea Jonae Harris, of course, but the worst thing about Nate Oats’s handling of the situation was his obtuseness regarding the notions of accountability and responsibility. Nick Saban might be a good guy, and he might be a bad guy. But he does seem to get it.
Some have called this a shot at Oats, and maybe it was, maybe Saban doesn’t like Oats. It’s also possible it was a well-crafted statement by someone at Alabama who at least gets optics and who’s also been coaching Oats: Say the exact opposite of what Nate Oats said. Literally. It’s perfect in part because Oats can’t be offended by it. Why would he be? He said himself that he should not have said what he said.
We aren’t here to fawn all over press conferences, and again, we aren’t here to toot Saban’s horn. We don’t know a lot about the guy. But he seems like he gets it. And right now, that seems like it matters.
USA vs. Japan
The World Baseball Classic has gone almost perfectly. So, so close to perfection. Let Edwin Díaz’s patellar tendon snap at anything but the worst possible time, and it’s been a perfect World Baseball Classic, right down to tonight’s championship matchup: The USA vs. Japan. The nation that invented baseball vs. the nation that invented Shohei Ohtani.
I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but the online engagement and the international ratings from this tournament have been outrageous, and it gets at a double standard facing the sport of baseball: When the NFL and NBA try to expand their footprint globally, it’s praised as proof of a bright future. When baseball does it, a chunk of the media talks about how the World Baseball Classic isn’t that popular here in the states. “Baseball is dying,” people love to write, but entire countries love baseball more than any other sport on Earth. This tournament means an immense amount to Japan, and the Dominican Republic, and others. That’s going to help it stateside, and it already is helping, because this game tonight is at least claiming a Tuesday night as its own. It’s a great way to start a season.
Tobin Anderson to Iona
Iona hired Fairleigh Dickinson head coach Tobin Anderson today, and it doesn’t sound like it was all about the game against Purdue. Which is probably good. You probably don’t want to hire a coach based on one game. Although if you’re going to do it? Yeah, that’s the game.
Anderson was reportedly one of three finalists when Iona hired Rick Pitino, so this isn’t entirely new, and while Fairleigh Dickinson was close to the bottom in Division I basketball power rating, they were close to the top of the NEC, which isn’t nothing. Also, Anderson’s recruiting strength should theoretically be higher today than it was a week ago, having won that game. That should mean something with recruits and boosters alike.
So? Good hire for Iona. The Gaels have a chance to be the titans of the MAAC, with good bones left in place post-Pitino. You could do make a worse bet than one on Tobin Anderson to keep it rolling.
I recently discovered The Barking Crow as I was fiending for NIT bracketology and contests in February and early March. So far, I’ve enjoyed the overall concept as well as your writing specifically.
However, I found your blog post today on Nick Saban, Nate Oats, Tony Mitchell and Brandon Miller to be lazy, trite and borderline asinine.
Let’s set aside the sloppy manner in which you introduce the “good guy” vs. “bad guy” concept as it pertains to college coaches.
You insinuate that Urban Meyer personifies “evil” in college athletics due to, in a single paragraph, the quantity of arrests of players on his teams due to violent crimes, covering up spousal abuse by his assistant coach, the fact that he mixes faith and football and the fact that he kicked a player while in the NFL.
Where, exactly, are you going with this? That’s quite a range from banal and common (faith/football mixing) to very serious (covering up spousal abuse). And you went on asides to your aside, just like I’m doing right now.
Then, in a plot twist, you reduce your “good guy” or “evil guy” measuring stick to, essentially, “how many players have gotten in trouble for violence while playing on your team, relative to how many years you’ve coached.”
Let’s pretend there aren’t tons of nuances there. (Is Tim Tebow also evil for the proximity to all the violent arrests? Or are we just saying Meyer is unlikeable, hypocritical and appears to lack a moral compass?) And let’s pretend that there’s a direct correlation between how “good” a person is and the precise number of violent crimes their 18- to 22-year-old athletes are accused of. Even with those huge leaps, we’re just going to rely on your 30-second, off-the-top-of-your-head memory to figure out how Nick Saban compares to other coaches on this bizarre “years coached to violent crimes committed by players” ratio? Because you kind of sort of think that he’d get a good score if anyone sat down, researched and measured?
This is a bit like the scene in Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail when they determine that if someone weighs the same as a duck, they’re a witch. It’s a totally nonsensical way to determine whether someone is, as a person, “good or evil.”
You are talking about a very serious subject with the same effort and fleeting thought as you may put into a late-night drive-thru order at Taco Bell.
Your blog only goes downhill from there: “Had Tuscaloosa police protected Miller because of his value to the University of Alabama?”
You willingly admit this is a thought you have. One of two things can be true here. Either you think that police around the United States willingly cover up crimes committed by college athletes as best as they can – in which case you need to write an entirely different story – or you think that this is much more possible in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, than in another state or city.
People from Alabama are used to being pigeonholed into stereotypes – uneducated, racist, inbred, etc.
But you are now insinuating that the Tuscaloosa police and the district attorney’s office potentially collude with a university athletic department to limit the public fallout of crimes. That thought came to your mind specifically about Alabama.
Again, that is quite a serious accusation to make. Especially when a representative from the district attorney’s office prosecuting Darius Miles and his friend has granted a public interview that paints a different picture. The testimony of the prosecution during the legal proceedings as well as the details that have emerged from people who have been allowed to review video footage of the murder are also available.
Those paint a clear picture of whether the police and district attorney’s office are in any way, shape or form inclined to help the University of Alabama athletic department one iota. In fact, if you take the time to ingest all of the minutia and nuance related to this case, it’s possible to make a cogent argument that the police and district attorney’s office are actually taking a slightly combative or vindictive stance toward the university’s athletic department in this case. And putting forth a narrative that cements a certain view in the public mind when compared to the facts of the case.
In addition, you question whether Saban “doesn’t like Oats.” I can’t say what Saban’s true feelings are toward Oats. But there’s a lot of public information. Saban attended an Alabama basketball game last month after the Brandon Miller involvement hit the national media and sat in the front row. Oats talks glowingly about how much help Saban has provided him during his time in Tuscaloosa. They’ve played basketball together on numerous occasions as well (Saban was famous for pickup games there before hip surgery).
All of that, again, is well known. But you throw out random speculation on their relationship willy nilly without bothering to ascertain any of that information.
You then pit Saban vs. Oats in some weird morality game of “who is the better human being,” this time with another bizarre rating system.
Oats said that his player, Brandon Miller, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Saban said of his player, Tony Mitchell, there’s no such thing as wrong place, wrong time. Therefore Saban maybe is a better human being than Nate Oats.
You say that Nate Oats displayed “obtuseness regarding the notions of accountability and responsibility.” But your scales of “good vs. evil” distill down to a single comment to the media from each coach, about totally different situations, to determine how they are as human beings. In this case, you are the one being obtuse.
Did Nate Oats put his foot in his mouth on one (and probably two or three) occasions during a press conference? Yes. However, so has Saban … and virtually every other college coach that has ever stepped in front of a microphone. Also, as you might expect, there’s a lot more nuance here that you’re conveniently glossing over.
Tony Mitchell got arrested for driving more than 140 mph with an illegal substance and a gun in his car. Brandon Miller is a cooperating witness who was serving as a designated driver when a horrible set of circumstances caused a young woman to lose her life tragically.
Even if he knew his teammate was requesting his gun for protection – which we still do not know, as he received a text minutes before arriving and was already in route to pick him up – at worst, he’s responsible for a very poor split-second decision-making that happened to lead to some of the worst possible consequences. That’s at worst. At best, Oats’ characterization of him, though articulated horribly, is impeccably accurate.
I assume that Alabama knows where this falls on the spectrum to a higher degree of confidence than you or I. And there could be legal and moral consequences to punishing Miller as well in this instance.
(As the details of the case have emerged, it sure seems like the boyfriend of Jamea Jonae Harris and the shooter – Michael Davis – both share immense culpability … followed by Darius Miles to a lesser extent, at least ethically. Ions further down the list is, seemingly, Jaden Bradley – and then Brandon Miller. Nate Oats probably isn’t even on the list. And it’s been clear that the decision to not suspend Bradley or Miller has come from the university lawyers, president and athletic director, not Oats.)
Mitchell did something criminal that happened to end well. No one died when he drove more than 140 mph, thankfully. But again, he allegedly committed a crime. And got arrested. He didn’t just happen to have marijuana, a scale, a gun and cash in his car and didn’t just happen to flee from police at an insane speed.
Your piece concludes with an assertion. Nick Saban “gets it.” In other words, Saban handled a legal situation involving one of his players in a much more palatable way than Oats did when dealing with the media and when characterizing his player’s choices.
That’s a much different assertion than whether Saban is a better human than Oats. Or what scale we should use to judge whether a college coach is “evil.”
Overall, the entire blog post is filled with speculation, conjecture, a lack of knowledge about the facts and stunted logic that leans heavily on tropes and stereotypes.
It’s easy to turn these super serious topics into entertainment at the expense of Alabama because it wins a lot in football, it has a good basketball team this year and there are some funny negative stereotypes of people from the state.
You seem like a very intelligent writer. You’re better than this.
Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for reading. Clearly, this is something we should have given more time than we gave it.
It wasn’t my intention to say anyone is good or is evil—my comments about Meyer were intended to reflect on his behavior, not him as a person. To clear one thing up on that: I was not criticizing him for mixing faith and football. I was criticizing him for participating in a narrative, documented by text messages released by Ohio State, in which Meyer and other members of his braintrust portrayed themselves as being led by God *to execute a coverup of domestic violence in order to not lose recruits.* This is very different from mixing faith and football. I have no problem with coaches mixing faith and football. I have a big problem with coaches saying privately or publicly that it is God’s will for them to cover up domestic assault. Clearly, I communicated this poorly, making a reference to something not everyone reading is familiar with. But again, I was not trying to paint any single person’s morality as black or white, and I did a bad job of communicating that. That, and other things, clearly deserved more nuance than I gave them. I hope I did not give the impression that I buy into those stereotypes regarding the state of Alabama. Those are stereotypes I despise, and that we’ve written about elsewhere on this site regarding West Virginia and similar regions of the country. I will say: I don’t think the concept of police departments helping shelter college athletes or other people of prominence is new or specific to Tuscaloosa at all, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be concerned about the phenomenon existing as a possibility.
You and I have different views of the murder of Jamea Jonae Harris, and of facets surrounding it. Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions, and for reading The Barking Crow. I’ll try to do better in the future.
All fair.
If you haven’t already done so, read this story based on the transcript of the court proceedings and a journalist who reviewed video evidence of the murder. There are other stories and resources, including another Patch.com article and an ESPN article, based on the video evidence and the court proceedings. But I think this is the most objective, fact-based account I’ve seen so far.
https://patch.com/alabama/tuscaloosa/new-evidence-provides-compelling-account-bama-hoops-murder-case
Thanks for passing that along. I hadn’t read that specific article. Now I have. Interesting choice by the author to start the narrative with Miller’s stat line from the LSU game.
You’ve jumped to a lot of conclusions about what I think: What I think about the Brandon Miller case, what I think about Alabamans, etc. Some of your criticisms, as I said last night, are fair. But I’d like to ask you to reflect on why you have such a specific idea of what I think regarding Brandon Miller’s culpability when all I said regarding his situation here was that Brandon Miller was involved in the murder (factually true, he was involved, he delivered the murder weapon to the murder, intentionally or not), that I was initially concerned that the common trope of college town cops protecting stars could have happened (which I explicitly said was pure concerned speculation on my part, and again is not a unique concern), and that Nate Oats’s initial response was obtuse (Oats has criticized his own response, so I’m not sure why this is controversial). You sure speculated a lot for someone who came out so hard against speculation.