And What It Says About The Public
At 7:15 CDT, University of Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long announced that head football coach Bobby Petrino would be terminated effective immediately. All of this stemming from an improper affair with an employee brought to light after a recent motorcycle crash involving Petrino and the woman.
When it comes to college sports (except basketball being shared with Gonzaga), I'm an unabashed Arkansas Razorback fan. I was born and spent most of my life growing up within a two hour drive of Fayetteville. I currently live less than fifteen miles north of the U of A.
So when I talk about the Hogs, I don't say "the Razorbacks." I say "we." The teams are that much a part of my life because they are that much a part of the culture of Arkansas, especially Northwest Arkansas where I reside.
So, knowing that, you can imagine how excited I was about this upcoming football season after the past two under the tutelage of offensive guru Bobby Petrino.
We just had our first back-to-back 10 win seasons since '88-'89, our first top 10 ranking in the final AP Poll since '82, and our first top 5 ranking in the final AP Poll since '77.
We were one of the favorites to win the SEC, which meant we were one of the favorites to win the National Championship. We were going to be top 10, maybe top 5, nationally in the preseason polls.
Knile Davis was back at RB from an ankle injury after dominating the SEC two season ago. Tyler Wilson was poised to become one of, if not, the best QBs in the nation. Both were primed for Heisman runs.
We hired a defensive coordinator who, after only thirty days with the defense running a system that wasn't his, had us holding a dominating rushing team like Kansas St to less than half of their average in the Cotton Bowl.
An Arkansas Razorback team hasn't had this much national hype since Frank Broyles was coaching the team, long before my time on Earth.
All of that changed when Petrino wrecked his motorcycle on a curvy road in Madison County, Arkansas.
The nuclear bomb that followed wasn't what anyone expected.
He was having an affair with an employee. He may have hired her because of said affair. He gave her twenty thousand dollars of his own money to her for reasons I do not know. He lied to Jeff Long, his boss, about the nature of the relationship because of, in my opinion, the information about the affair becoming public.
I'm not going to comment on the morality of Petrino's actions, whether he should've had an affair with the woman or not, or even if he hired her unfairly or not.
Truthfully, that's the point of this piece.
I don't care about Bobby Petrino's private life. Why does everyone else?
In a Facebook conversation I had only a couple of hours ago, I asked the question: "If the public and press weren't so enamored by the private lives public figures, does Petrino feel the need to lie to Jeff Long about the nature of his relationship with the woman?"
As expected, many people ignored the basis of my question. One didn't. His answer was the following: "So now its the public's fault?? Lol"
And my answer is:
I don't know. Maybe it is the public's fault.
I look at the reaction to Ozzie Guillen's comments about Castro (see my comments here), which were wholly taken out of context and cost him a 5 game suspension and an apology he shouldn't have had to make, and it doesn't really instill a sense of confidence into the rationality of the public mindset.
People, many people in fact, were calling for Petrino's firing before any information about who the woman was became public. It wasn't that he violated a major NCAA bylaw, or the fact that he even broke a criminal law. He just did something in his private life with which those in the public didn't agree.
Maybe I'm too cynical and jaded. Maybe I hold much lower expectations for people unless I have known them personally for many years. But I don't care that Petrino gave $20k of his own money to the woman. I don't care that he had an affair.
It doesn't surprise me. It doesn't annoy me. I doesn't even bother me.
Petrino wasn't deciding something that would greatly affect my or my family's future like a politician does. He wasn't held up to the community as someone who we should model ourselves after in moral sense like a minister or priest is.
He coached football and football players. That was it. And he was one of the best at it.
I only expect very few things from the coaches of my favorite teams: 1) You treat your players fairly; 2) You follow the laws of the sports governing body (even the NCAA's draconian system); 3) You make the players and program/franchise better; 4) You win games.
Petrino, and no one has disputed this, had done all of those things as the coach of the Razorbacks.
I don't envy the decision Jeff Long had to make. I'm not even saying that he made the wrong decision given the hand he was dealt, because he too, like Petrino, lives in the public spotlight. Because the public is always so blood thirsty to attack people for personal happenings in which they disagree, he was really stuck in a hard place when it came to this decision.
On the other hand, I don't know if Petrino deserved to get fired. We as the public will never really have the full story. Just the opinions (yes, opinions) of a man (Long) who is in the public spotlight and had much more to lose by keeping Petrino at the moment than retaining him. I say at the moment because this would've blown over.
But that doesn't really matter now. Whomever Jeff Long decides to hire as the new Head Coach will have much bearing on which players transfer or stay and which recruits decide to opt out of their letters of intent. This is a decision I will watch closely because of the implications it will have on the program as a whole.
What many don't seem to understand, or just wholly ignore, is the Petrino firing, as well as the Ozzie Guillen scandal, harken to a much deeper psychological issue that affects the American public.
We as a whole, not necessarily individually, care too much about the personal lives, actions and words of public figures when they do not affect us in the slightest. And when something happens regarding those public figures causes us to disagree, we are too quick to be offended and play the victim.
It is an epidemic in this country, and that's the most important, annoying, and, sadly, ignored part about this whole situation.
Follow me on Twitter: @Jake_Collin
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