Auburn Ticked Off Walker's Rants

Yeah it really is a disgrace what happened down there at Auburn. To add to it even Chizik looked embarrassed about being hired in his press conference because he knows that he is not qualified for the job. What is more hurtful for me is the precedent that is being set in College football. Three years ago Notre Dame fire Tye Willingham (granted he has proven to be a lackluster coach) and they have stood beside and even extended the contract of a man who has had less success than Willingham. Out in Kansas State you have Ron Prince fired after just two season I believe because he failed to put up big numbers in the Big 12, and then rather than holding an extensive search to find his replacement KSU brings in the 90 year old guy who was the former coach and the aid to the president. Now you have this crap down in Auburn. It's absolutely sickening to see what is going on in college football. The numbers tell the story 4 out of 119. There is no excuse for that. I am not an advocate of affirmative action because people should be rightfully qualified for the job they are working at. But when someone who is obviously not qualified to fill a position is hired over someone who has the credentials it just sickens me.

If Auburn made a bad decision, racially motivated or not, they'll be punished for it on the field as they get abused by Alabama and the rest of the SEC.

I love Rawb's point...sports are the essence or meritocracy Given nothing else, as BigP suggests (But when someone who is obviously not qualified to fill a position is hired over someone who has the credentials it just sickens me.), if Chizik is indeed inferior, then the proof will be in the proverbial pudding...

essence of*

Auburn may be properly punished on the field, but that doesn't do anything for Gill. This is incomplete justice.

RawB your remarks concerning Wade Phillips is the exact reason that Chizik should not be a head coach. Some guys are meant to be coordinators it is what they are good at. Phillips is that way, Norv Turner seems to be that way and Chizik appears to be going down that same path. Ive never heard of a guy going on a 10 game losing streak and then getting a promotion. Gill won at Buffalo effing Buffalo you cant tell me that is a program that is know for its fierce football tradition.

I agree with you. Gill is a great option to help return a team to greatness. If he could turn around UBuff, it follows that it'd be even easier to turn around Auburn.

But you also have to realize that schools make retarded hiring and firing decisions all the time, not all of those dumb decisions are racially motivated.

Being punished on the field for a mistake of this nature simply is not enough. I don't care if Alabama beats them for the next 30 years running. It's just a game, it cannot heal the injustice that took place.

But how do you KNOW it took place? It doesn't look good, and it merits suspicion and investigation, but you can't convict Auburn with just an accusation.

I may not be able to convict them, but I can damn sure lead the prosecution at their trial.

Haha as a Southern boy I take a lil offense to that comment, but overall you are right though.

Typical south, it's criminal for a white woman to marry a black man, but it's OK for her to marry her brother. Talk about irony...

Oddly enough taking the Syracuse job is almost a lateral move for Gill considering the location and current make up of the two programs. In addition, I have heard from more than a few people who blame Gill and the rebuilding of the Buffalo program as part of the downfall of the Syracuse program. Cuse would allow Gill a bigger audience and a bigger stage playing in the Big East. Also it would not take long to rebuild that program I dont think. Especially because the Big East is often in flux with no one dominating team that needs to be knocked off.

Syracuse's recruiting competition isn't limited to Buffalo. Rutgers, UConn, and BC have all done better recruiting in the Northeast, specifically New Jersey. And the region doesn't overflow with talent like Texas or Florida do.

True Syracus's recruiting region is not limited to Buffalo, but Cuse should dominate that area considering it is their back yard. Jersey and that area are flush with teams coming in and pulling out talent, so it would take time to establish a foothold in that region. There is solid talent in the North east to pull from, and with their athletic facilities, Cuse can once again become a threat.

Too much competition

Rutgers is right there

Penn State is nearby and Temple is also beginning to make moves

Plus, numerous Boston/Mass/new england area colleges have been picking NY clean for years

There's talent in the Northeast, but not enough for so many programs to have much depth. Cuse gets squeezed by BC, UConn, RU, now UBuff, Pitt, PSU, etc. Then all the solid I-AA programs in the region: UMass, Deleware, Villanova, UNH, etc. Lots of kids go there where they know they'll start, instead of Syracuse where they'll be benched.

And I went to school in Central New York, the area is hardly a draw in and of itself. It's cold, there's not much to do, it's cold.

You're missing this.

Or you could just read the chain of comments with me explaining why it is raciest.

I did None of them really support your argument

If he was not hired because he has a white wife and he is a black man, which there is a very likely chance that is why he was not hired, then that is racism.

And where are you getting that he was not hired because he was black and/or married to a white woman? That's the fact I'm missing here...

I have a source who works within the media down in SEC country who talked to several people last week both before Gill came onto the Auburn radar and then throughout this whole situation. This information is coming from them.

To me, that's not enough to convict the Auburn athletic department of racist hiring practices.

what information?

I want to believe you but here's what I'm hearing

1) Auburn fired Tuberville

2) Auburn interviews candidates as replacement, namely Gene Chizik and Turner Gill

3) Gill, a former WR coach with Green Bay (and Nebraska) has successfully turned Buffalo into MAC champs, Chizik is a former coordinator from Auburn, went 5-12 in two years at ISU

4) Auburn hires Chizik

5) Not hiring Gill was racist

Do I understand why Gill wasn't hired? No, I don't know why. Do I think he should have been? Yeah probably. But this assertion that one means the other doesn't add up in my opinion...Some type of evidence...an account of a discussion...anything, would be nice

I knew this would happen when I wrote this, and so I can only blame myself for pissing myself off, but whatever, it needed to be said.

This is the exact reason why so many blacks become so frustrated when working through the system in this country. You do everything right, you put all the pieces in place and you do the right thing. Then something comes up along these lines. It doesnt feel right, it doesn't look right. For all intents and purposes it could be right or wrong, but to you (myself) personally it does not feel right. Yet you cannot prove it you just have that gut instinct. Then you take it to the masses (white people) you are told eh it could be, maybe so, I dont know, prove it, you cant prove it, you didnt see what you thought you saw or experienced.

Completely frustration. Somethings you just get a feeling for in life, you get a sixth sense for them as a result of experience. Again, most don't understand that feeling because they simply don't have the experience to have giving them that sixth sense. This is one of them.

I am done with this topic, and for that much I regret bringing it up to this community.

Some things never change.

there's a quick way to piss me off...that was it

Piss you off, how are you pissed off?

BigPPup, neither JuT or myself are saying you're wrong here. We just don't know. You're right, we don't have that extra sense. I think it's suspicious and Auburn deserves some scrutiny, but I'm not gonna convict them in my mind unless there's something more than circumstantially based suspicions.

There are decent reasons to hire Chizik. They're not my reasons, and I'd take Gill over Chizik, but there are reasons. Auburn did interview Gill. They didn't have to do that. Maybe they wanted to do the token interview to dissuade suspicion. I don't know. But Gill is a 13-12 2 year head coach in the MAC. Maybe he got shafted because he married a white girl, and if that's the case, then fuck Auburn. But right now, Auburn deserves a spotlight on them, not a flamethrower.

And it was a very good article, it started a great deal of discussion which this site needs. You're an excellent contributor here and I'd hate for you to hold anything back in the future.

Thx RawB, no it's fine, my comment was meant more as me yelling at myself. I knew exactly how this whole thing would play out, and how it would make me feel, yet I still did it. So think of the above comment as an "aside" sorry I read Hamlet last night guess I still had some good ole Shakes left in me. I'm not leaving the site, and I hope no one else leaves the site. It's fine that we disagree and argue its the whole point of this place, and it's what makes the site interesting. I get sick and tired of reading trade transactions and hot stove analysis. So it is good to shake things up here and there.

And its not that I disagree, I just see a leap here and it doesn't make sense I mean, more often than not, we've seen good coaches (of any color) get passed over for former/current coordinators because they're in the family. Is this different simply because Gill is black?

Proves nothing, JuT. Gill's coaching record is better. Wins and losses. That's not circumstantial.

Yes JuT, because the NCAA has a grand total of 4 black coaches out of 119 NCAA Division I schools. Exactly 1 coaches at a BCS school and that is Randy Shannon.

Auburn is in a southern state.

That link I showed you mentioned that Gill would never be hired because he was married to a white woman.

You can't just call it one gigantic coincidence.

I'm not calling it a coincidence...

you guys are already lighting the torches and grabbing your pitch forks and your proof is what exactly?

I think Rawb and I are on the same page here...

What you guys are drawing on is essentially a set of circumstances...

Problem is these circumstances have occurred in a similar fashion in cases not really involving race...

Go ahead and investigate (probably a fair step), but if civil action of any kind is taken and the evidence is because Auburn picked the coach the public deemed to be less qualified is racism, then I have a feeling the recourse will be weak at best...

The people I know close the Auburn program said last week on Friday evening and Sat Am. Auburn would not hire Gill because of his wife, and that is a situation that Auburn is shaky on supporting. As a result, Auburn did an 180 and hired Chizik and tried to pass him off as the qualified guy for the job when he obviously is not.

Auburn of course will never come out and say "yes we do not support interracial marriage and that is why we chose not to hire Turner Gill."

However, it is why Auburn backed away from Gill. The same story is being played out in several media outlets, as my source is not the only one who was given the same information.

It is not a circumstance it is life, it is the south, it is the United States of America.

There will be an investigation, little be be found because Auburn can cover their tracks, and it is difficult to prove racism because no days short of a lynching, people don't want to admit there are raciest acts in this country. So once again, people are force fed censory denial and told they did not hear, see or experience what they really did. It is a typical story here in this country a damn shame.

and now for the cynicism

What source?

Who else is reporting this...send me a link...

Someone placed a link to it earlier, I'm not revealing my source because it is not a link but rather a phone conversation and to give up that source would kill my link to the SEC. It is also mention by one of the reporters on ESPN's Outside the lines from over the weekend, so the story is making its rounds through the media and I am not shooting out of my ass. Raw B and JT, I know you guys want a smoking gun to convict someone and that's fine and it's a great test and standard to hold many things to. However, is situations like this you are not going to get that smoking gun. There's not going to a recorded phone conversation, there is not going to be some email trail. That's not how these matters play out.

I already did.

I understand your cynicism...and its engaging to have a dialogue here for once in 3 months...

Its not that I find it improbable that this could happen, but I have my own cynicism when people cry racism over a hire

And that's why I ask for proof...or at least something substantial. This type of fact pattern is consistent with a lot of things (like hiring in the family).

Just because there is no possibility of a smoking gun doesn't give license to convict a football program of racist practices.

Is Auburn's decision questionable? Yes. Is it suspicious? Yes. Does it warrant investigation? Yes. Are your accusations anything more than circumstantial? No. And I'm not saying you can't write about it, or point it out, or even mention your source(s) and what they said. But to label Auburn "racist" with permanent ink is going a step too far, IMO.

Why doesn't your source blow the whistle and tell the SEC or NCAA or NAACP?

Kelsdad, I know you have trouble with this sometimes, but people who disagree with you aren't automatically wrong. I think hiring Chizik was a mistake, but there are reasons Auburn would want to hire him. He was defensive coordinator for them back when their defense was stellar. He was co-coordinator of Texas' defense when they won the title. He knows Alabama better than Gill does and knows the recruiting base. It's also possible AU wanted a defense-minded coach, and Chizki has spent his entire career coaching defenses.

Chizik was 5-19 at a subpar program. ISU's had 1 winning coach since 1920. They play in the best conference in college football. And I remember one football coach who had a poor record for a poor team and went on to be a winning coach. He's pictured in my avatar. So taking two seasons of a head coach's career and labeling him a bad one is very premature.

Gill's done a great job of turning the Bulls around, but he's 13-12 with UBuff, hardly a stop the presses record.

Again, I think Gill would've been the best choice. At the very least, it gets some new blood into Auburn, pumps up the boosters, and gets the program some much needed excitement. If you guys think you're pissed at this hiring, Auburn's fans are even more upset. And as I mentioned above, there's a lot of smoke around this hiring. But you can't just assume the nature of the fire from the smoke.

Well said...again, someone says it much more articulately than I have

That's what happens when you go to business school.

as compared to law school...where you just borrow someone else's language over and over and over?

I don't see any disagreements here, Rawb, other than why Gill wasn't hired.

It can't be proven. Even if a reliable source overheard a conversation between the boosters or whatever, as JuT pointed out, it's circumstantial.

Which is unlike the evidence that Barry Bonds took steriods, because he actually admitted it. So unless the Auburn AD comes out and says so, all we can do is speculate.

And use our own common sense, because it's so obvious.

By nature this is the problem with racism. We all know obvious racism when we see it. Jim Crow laws were wrong, Im pretty sure everyone here can agree with that, if you cant, fuck off. However, it's the smaller or the not so obvious stuff that becomes difficult to understand and to handle. KD is right there will never be a smoking gun in this situation. If you want racism of this nature to pass through a 100% test that shows that Auburn has a policy of not hiring blacks because it does not think they are capable or performing at a job, or because they do not support interracial marriage then you're not going to find that. It's just not going to happen. However, to sit back and give them a free pass till proven otherwise is not the way to handle the situation.

The NAACP is the biggest load of crap ever. They can't and won't help out a black person in need, because they have knee capped themselves years ago once the Civil rights movement died. No one takes the talking heads seriously within the black community. Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, they are too busy furthering their own agendas and being personalities on CNN to help out a person in need. Sadly the most out spoken and notable spokesperson the black race may have is Charles Barkley, (and yes I know he can be wrong) but at least he has a set of balls to open his damn mouth.

It is not easy to topple a system. We have face civil rights issues since this countries inception, and as we stand just over 30 days from the inaguaration of the first black president, we are still fighting the issue of racism in this country. It is something that won't go away, it is something that will always be there.

It has just changed forms that's all. I highly doubt I will fail to get a job because of my race, the days of those hardnosed practices are gone. However, I do see the looks I get from blacks and whites, when I walk down the street and hold my white girlfriends hand. I see the looks I get when I sit down to dinner at a resteraunt and the server assumes I won't tip well because of my race. Those are all realities.

Having lived the majority of my life in the south, and having gone to countless board of trustee dinners, I know what that environment is like, and how hard it is to remove that old guard and that old way of think. You must remember, the same people who are now running SEC schools, are the ones who were attending, them when George Wallace stood on the steps and blocked the doors. Old habits die hard.

However, to sit back and give them a free pass till proven otherwise is not the way to handle the situation. Guilty until proven innocent?

Danny Ferry's father, (Bob?) used to be an executive with the Baltimore Bullets. The Ferry family is white, and lived in a mansion ACROSS THE STREET from Georgetown University, coached by John Thompson, a black man. Georgetown is located in an upper middle class neighborhood with an almost 90% white population in and around the area.

How many white players played for Thompson at Georgetown? Ferry's father practically begged Thompson to give Danny a scholarship so he could play at home. Danny Ferry ended up at Duke, proving he was both academically AND athletically qualified to attend Georgetown, yet Thompson instead chose to give a scholarship to an illiterate, illegal immigrant by the name of Patrick Ewing.

Racism works both ways, and you don't need a GPS to find it.

Just two good eyes and a brain.

I know I am railing on Auburn like there is no tomorrow, but there is no other way to approach the situation. You have to call light to the topic but going after them. If they can prove themselves innocent then so be it. I'll fully admit I am extremely biased on this topic, as it has affect me more so than any of you commenting on this thread. So if my zeal puts me in the wrong then so be it. I rather go down swinging for what I believe in rather than stand by and told what to do.

Let me put it this way

I don't want to go into Legalese but

If you can't prove anything (in effect, in a court of law) than what right would you or a governing body have in imposing sanctions (i.e. punishment)

I mean, if the NCAA launches an investigation (seems reasonable), what would they cite as proof (given that their terms are probably easier to appease than a legitimate court)? I'm not asking for a smoking gun as you would say, but if you don't have any evidence beyond "black guy wasn't hired" then I'm not going to buy it

Look, I know we don't live in a perfect world. Its easy for me to see this as black and white (excuse the pun) especially given that I am white. But to draw conclusions based on nothing but the circumstances I described below seems awfully suspicious in its own right, in my opinion

While you are 100% correct about racism going both ways KD there is more to that Georgetown story than what you just gave. Mainly Ferry did not fit Thompson's system or what he wanted to do with GT. Not saying that JT did not favor black players, I've met the man plenty of times and he will admit openly that he used his position to help get blacks into school adn that it was a priority to him.

He wanted Ewing because he wanted to create Hoya paranoia. Look at JT's legacy big centers strong defense run the offense through the big man. That's not Ferry.

For what it's worth John Thompson also saw Mark Price in high school and threw the kitchen sink at him in an effort to sign the kid.

While you are 100% correct about racism going both ways KD there is more to that Georgetown story than what you just gave. Mainly Ferry did not fit Thompson's system or what he wanted to do with GT. Not saying that JT did not favor black players, I've met the man plenty of times and he will admit openly that he used his position to help get blacks into school adn that it was a priority to him.

Now let's apply that to the situation at Auburn

That being said, I'm more interested in what Barkley has said with respect to Auburn's basketball coaching search (though, I can't say I agree with him lobbying for a black coach based on the idea that the coach is simply black...I'd settle for qualified)

You don't need to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt, but circumstance alone isn't enough to enforce a punishment.

Racism exists, and is very widespread, it's just gotten more subtle. It's important to be wary of it without becoming paranoid.

And here I was thinking his subpar performance with the 2nd largest payroll in MLB...

Well done AGM linebacker.....you bring something back to life and then sack it. ;-)

Usually the death comes before the resurrection. Kudos for being different :-)

Eh, if the site wasnt dead before this discussion it was on life support so I like to think I at least took it off the breathing tubes, even if it was only for a few hours.