First Impressions

How many times have you been told first impressions are important?  When you meet someone you’re supposed to smile and make eye contact.  We have many first impressions.  The first impression is strong and lasting.  When someone becomes your Facebook friend, follows you on Twitter or “likes” your page keep in mind what you do will leave a first impression.

Creating impressions with social media is not something to take lightly.  We all use Facebook or Twitter and most of us check it often.  With that traffic, you’ll create first impressions on new followers.  Treat every post like it’s the first time someone will notice you.  Would you go up to someone you’d like to meet and yell hateful things about another person or rant and curse? Of course not.  At least I would hope not.

One morning while checking Facebook, I noticed a new “family” member’s post on my news feed. This “family” member recently married my cousin.  I haven’t had the opportunity to meet him face-to-face and naturally I gave him the benefit of  the doubt.  I like to give chances.  I really had no opinion of him.  His post quickly shifted my stance.  It was a dagger thrown blindly and in no particular direction.  It’s threatening tone littered with “shits” and “damns,” among other words not worth repeating, was probably the worst first impression one could give.

This message should also be absorbed by athletes and celebrities.  They are the most followed.  I like to think of posts and tweets as they would show on a bell curve.  There will be neutral posts and some posts that generate emotion.  Rarely do you see a bad post or tweet from an individual that creates such a stir that it becomes news.  It does happen, however.

Those of us who aren’t famous yet should watch our impressions.  We may not affect many people but those we do affect are much closer to us.  Our community isn’t as large is theirs.  When it comes to social media please take a basic approach.  Treat is as you would treat speaking with someone in person.  Your words reach a greater audience than you realize.  Don’t be “that” guy.

Damage Control

Recently we’ve become accustomed to damage control from high-profile coaches, players and universities. Penn State. Suh. Boehiem. I’m sure you know of others.

In the wake of Penn State’s mess, Syracuse found itself in nearly the same shape.  Head coach Jim Boehiem made uniformed comments on assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine’s sexual abuse accusations. Of course he knew Fine for something like 30 years, so it’s understandable to deny some allegations that go against what you “knew” from those years. Lesson 1: You don’t know everything and don’t ever fool yourself into thinking so. To deny such rumors as emphatically as Boehiem did seemed idiotic. When questioned about anything you always tell what you know. Don’t speculate. Don’t assume. A good response should’ve been, “In all my years knowing Bernie I would never think he would do any of this.” That statement is easily forgivable. What isn’t so easy to forgive is calling a potential victim a liar and a person out for the spotlight. Ouch. Now Boehiem is backtracking faster than a cornerback on Randy Moss.

Boehiem quote according to ESPN: ‘”I believe I misspoke very badly in my response to the allegations that have been made,” said Boeheim, who spoke slowly and paused frequently during a postgame press conference. “I shouldn’t have questioned what the accusers expressed or their motives. I am really sorry that I did that, and I regret any harm that I caused.”‘
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Ndamukong Suh is.. Well.. Let’s just jump to Lesson 2. Actions speak louder than words my friend. It’s one thing to play aggressive and bend some of the League’s quarterback-friendly flag-football-like rules, but don’t stomp on a player’s head while they’re down and then say:
“My intentions were not to kick anybody. As you see I am walking away from the situation.”
Suh goes on to say he is trying to “get up off of the ground” when he is clearly standing up already. As if that wasn’t enough he claims he was trying to get his balance. Right. Listen, dude, just don’t. You’re making it worse. Great move afterward in calling Roger Goodell to apologize but it’s a little too late. That post-game conference was almost as bad as the kick.

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Now for Penn State. They had to face unprecedented allegations of sexual abuse that looks embedded beyond what we know. Not to mention the backlash that was a misguided show of support for Joe Paterno. The university found more trouble than it could handle, but you have to do what you can and act immediately. Lesson 3: Never halfway do anything, especially in a crisis. And you better have good reason for doing whatever it is you do.  Athletic Director Tim Curley and the VP of Finance and Business were charged in the scandal, while the school fired Paterno and former president Graham Spanier.  The school cited negligence and moving on as reasons for the firings.  While those are good reasons, the school definitely isn’t consistent.  If you’re going to do something, do it all the way.  Other people fall into that category but they want things to “play out” and wait for an investigation.  Either someone pulled the trigger too quickly or they know something they’re not saying.  Secrets don’t make friends in the court of public opinion (two clichés in one sentence is pretty bad).

Students rampaged in clear support for Paterno.  The aftermath left an image of a student body and fan-base who was completely insensitive to the real victims of this whole thing.  Penn State needs a complete make-over.  Time alone will never wash away the disgusting stench of everything that happened.  As an organization you need to draw a hard-line between ethical and non-ethical behavior.  You need to ask yourself “what if” and know that line and where you stand.  Anyone on the non-ethical side needs to go.  There’s no such thing as kind-of ethical.

College Football’s Dead Horse

Pac-16 or SEC or Big12?

Tradition or Progress?

Overall Competition or Overall Wins?

Chances are you’ve heard these questions before.  And you probably have your answer.  The biggest and most important question isn’t listed above.

Q: Does college football need a playoff to decide a true national champion?

A: Of course!

The talk about whether Oklahoma State University and University of Oklahoma should go to another conference is revolving around how successful they will be.  It’s all being debated.  Lets get real.  Isn’t the goal to win a national title?  In the current system you have rank #1 and #2 in the BCS to get there.  How does one get to #1 or #2 in the BCS?  You can go undefeated and still not make it!  Why?  Because someone somewhere doesn’t think you scored enough points or won by a big enough margin?  Seems a little wrong.  It’s wrong because those same people assume that winning by a point in the title game is good enough to win, as opposed to winning “good enough.”  College football needs a playoff system.

So how do we get there?

Creating these “Superconferences” will certainly be a huge step.  OU and OSU don’t have to stay together for this to happen.  There’s no question it would be nice.  The rivalry can stay intact even if they split.  So putting that aside,  let’s say OSU goes to the Pac-12 and OU goes to the SEC.   OSU would have an enormous opportunity to win right away, and not just in football.  The same opportunity will arise for OU in the SEC.  When the Big12 dissolves, the BCS will have a great decision to make for the bowl games creating havoc for the current system.

If OU and OSU join the PAC-12 there’s no doubt the two would probably dominate the conference.  Today, which member of the PAC-12 would consistently beat either one of these programs?  USC is out of the picture.  Oregon has already shown weaknesses.  Stanford is the only one who could hang with OSU and OU.  My cocky side would love to see the two schools join another conference and still decide who goes to its title game.

If OSU and OU go to the SEC together it’s probably enough to declare the conference champion as national champion; much like the Big12’s South Division was with the Big12 championship.

But the least talked about scenario is for the Big12 to stay intact and become a leftover conference.  I apologize to Iowa State, Kansas (except for basketball), Kansas State and Missouri but nobody needs you.  I already forgot Colorado left.  Nebraska was a worthy foe but they’re not missed.  Texas A&M looks like they’re just running away.  The Big12 is a joke.  It’s a ghost.  It’s an old idea.

If OSU and OU leave for another conference they may hold the keys to a playoff system, but they will certainly need help starting the engine.  Other schools and smaller conferences need to consider merging.  BCS is the enemy. I’m tired of beating that horse.  Without change, nothing happens.

P.S. – If Texas wants to go Independent, let them.  It’s done Notre Dame a whole lot of good recently. That’s my hint of sarcasm.  Maybe Texas can bank off high school sports with the Foghorn Leghorn Network.

National Bullheaded Association?

The NBA has locked-out its players.  The public has vastly seen athlete’s salaries as ridiculously high.  Honestly, I’ve included myself in that majority.  I cringed when a player complained about getting several million dollars.  Why don’t we hear about the owners complaining?  Well, we hear all we can handle in lockout situations.  To better understand this “situation,” lets look at what a lockout is.

A lockout is simply the result of an employer preventing employees from working.  The NBA, NFL and NHL have had lockouts before and the NHL is the only one that has canceled an entire season due to a lockout.  The NBA is heading down that path.

Five of the current NBA owners also owned NHL teams during that canceled hockey season and are pushing for the same result in basketball this year.  Why?  Those five owners claim the canceled season will break the players and get them to agree to their terms.  They believe a year away from basketball won’t hurt the NBA.  That’s crazy to think.  Imagine if you’re a business owner and closed up shop for while.  I know the owners have lots of money but when a small business closes its doors they lose customers.  When the NBA does it they will lose fans and damage a reputation.  Looking at the NHL lockout, they still haven’t recovered.  This will be a huge gamble for the NBA.  Of course it has die-hard fans but it’s the families and fans-on-the-fringe who will walk away.  After officiating scandals and rumors of bankruptcy, the owners need to find a better strategy.  A better argument is vital to the 2011-12 NBA season.  Threatening to cancel the season was a horrible idea.

Owners are crying because the players’ salaries amount to 57 percent of total revenue.   While that may seem outrageous, lets remember it’s the owners who agreed to that amount.  A study by the New York Times with information from Forbes and Financial World shows the owners with their pants down (figuratively, of course).  Since 2000, players have never received less than 57 percent.  They’ve actually received more than that every year but 2002 when it was exactly 57 percent.  So why are the owners whining at all?  Imagine if your boss came to you and said they’re decreasing your salary because your boss made some poor business decisions.  I can understand if the company is losing money you might see that but why should the percentage be less.  It just doesn’t make sense.

We’re starting to see players sign contracts with foreign teams.  All-Star Deron Williams will play in Turkey and Serge Ibaka will play in Spain.  Dwight Howard claims to have serious interest in playing overseas and rumors have Kobe Bryant and Amare Stoudemire talking with other teams.

The NBA needs to find a solution to this mess.  Some have suggested revenue sharing because some teams’ profits exceed the claimed losses by the rest.  The NBA will meet with the player’s union on August 1, so we’ll all have some more rumors and ideas to mull over.  Hopefully the two sides gain ground and follow the NFL’s example and end this foolery.

What were they thinking?!

This section might be my favorite once I get started actually writing for this page.  “What were they thinking?!” focuses on decisions and actions where people completely failed in the common sense department.  These decisions and actions generally won’t be the initial ones, they’ll be the ones that follow up the original dumb decisions and actions.  Hopefully a satirical review on these events may shed light on just how easy it may be to avoid a train-wreck.