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Paul Daugherty
Enquirer columnist files news and observations

Paul Daugherty
Paul Daugherty has been an Enquirer sports columnist since 1994 and has been chronicling Cincinnati sports since 1988. He has covered almost every major sporting event in America, as well as five Summer Olympics. Along the way, he has been named one of the country's top-5 sports columnists four times, and Ohio columnist of the year on seven different occasions. Last year, he was voted 2nd-best sports columnist in the country, by the Associated Press Sports Editors.

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Tuesday, December 05, 2006

MD 1 last time

Don't normally do this, but there seems to be some confusion out there about certain viewpoints, so here goes: I was OK w/Dantonio leaving a week ago Monday, when it was announced. Everyone has the right to better himself, financially and otherwise. That was before we discovered Dantonio wanted nearly his whole staff with him, and quickly. That was before the guy who professed his love for the school and his players hijacked most of his staff before the bowl game, then followed it up at the banquet Sunday with a bunch of "I love these guys'' nonsense. It was how he left that was the problem, more than that he did.

Also: Anyone who holds himself to high standards -- as Dantonio did -- is going to be questioned when he violates them. The honorable thing for Dantonio to have done would have been to coach his team in the bowl game they worked so hard to deserve. Failing that, ask the coaches he planned to take with him to coach in his stead. Dantonio chose neither option. It would have interfered with recruiting at Michigan State. And oh, yeah, God wanted him to help more people.

In comparison, Brian Kelly deserves credit today, for assuming the bowl-coaching duties abandoned by his predecessor. And Kelly has left some of his coaches at CMU to coach that team in the Motor City Bowl.

And I disagree w/the "that's-life'' approach to this. Asking players for loyalty while not demanding the same of yourself sends a lousy message. If you think that's life, that's a problem.

To the poster claiming to be a "very good friend'' of Dantonio: If he indeed felt bad that some sports at UC might be lost to pay his salary hike, why didnt he say so? Why didnt anyone? Why didnt he honor his contract? Oh, that's right, nobody does that, not even honorable coaches. Nor does your post explain what was so great about his departure and the departure of his staff. As for looking into his heart: I didnt do that. Didnt have to. His actions spoke for themselves. Clearly.

Living big. Moving on.


20 Comments:

at 5:22 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul:

You rose to this occasion, my friend. Your commentary this morning had a real impact. You nailed Dantonio for his piety and shamed Mike Thomas and Brian Kelly for their hypocrisy.

I don't believe for a minute that Kelly intended to get involved in that bowl in Toronto. And the difference between his conduct and that of Mark D was one of degree only. His employers, staff and players at CMU knew obviously that he was looking for other work since his interviewing at Iowa State and Mich State was widely publicized. Only thing that caught them by surprise was his bolting for UC. And he was willing apparently to postpone his raiding the football staff at CMU until after their bowl game on the 26th. Otherwise, both coaches and schools took care of themsevles without regard to the resulting impact upon the players of these teams. Bottom line, both coaches effectively doubled their salaries while conveniently ignoring principles of dedication, loyalty, and fair play that each had previously espoused to the players victimized in the process.

Give credit, however, to Kelly for attempting to ameliorate the problems inherent in this situation though not until your commentary focused so much public attention on it. Dantonio remains clueless however. Doubt that anybody ever gets from him at least the sincere apology that is owed.

 
at 6:30 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who cares about Dantonio. He had a mediocre record at UC and only got the job at MSU by divine intervention. If he ever coaches in a BCS game, I'll be completely blown shocked.

Plenty of coaches have beaten Rutgers over the years.

 
at 6:35 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dantonio's a bum anyway. We won't miss him. He is very replaceable.

 
at 7:16 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Prof
There should be a gentleman's agreement that in exchange for letting another team talk to (read steal) a coach, that coach must agree to coach the team he is leaving in a bowl game. ADs should also honor this agreement. This same scenario is played out across the country every year and it is the kids (and the people who pay to see the bowl game) who suffer. Some assistant, or in UCs case, somebody who doesn't know the players, coaches the kids in what is supposed to be their reward game. It seems a small price to pay for a coach that is being let out of a contract. Loyalty in this game died a long time ago. That was evident when Rick Minter was fired a year after he almost upset eventual national champion Ohio State and a month after he was the only coach truly excited to be going to the Big East. Minter's took the program from laughingstock to respectability, arguably tougher than Dantonio's trip from respectability to, well, respectability. "I've always dreamed of going into a kid's living room and tell him he had a chance to play for a national championship," were Minter's famous last words. A few weeks later he was gone. If we can't salvage loyalty, how about salvaging a kernel of decency for these kids who play so hard.

 
at 7:36 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can't say it any clearer than that!

 
at 7:51 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul,
Thank you for speaking up for such esoteric concepts as ethics and integrity. What pap when these coaches sign a contract and then bolt, insulting us with platitudes of being called to a higher position, returning to one's roots, or some other lie. Whatever happened to honoring a contract and looking only when it expires? And what of an administration that doesn't hold the employee to his contract (his word). What does that make them?

 
at 8:36 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm with ya, Paul. But seriously, who cares about Dantonio anyway. He is getting way too much attention at this point. He's an average coach at best, and will last less than 4 years in the Big Ten.

 
at 9:08 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul, just as you say you could see into Dantonios heart by looking at his actions, your heart is revealed by your words. For some reason, you believe that life should be problem free, and that people should always be reliable, trustworthy, and consistent. Is this how you see yourself? If so, that's the beginning of the problem. We live in a broken, messed up world.

You argument is flawed. It's okay for someone to better himself, financially and otherwise, that is unless you are an assistent coach of a college football team.

If you would have attended the banquet on Sunday, you would have heard Dantonio tell the players it was up to them. If they wanted their old coaches to coach the bowl game, it was their decision.

Asking coaches to be loyal while the local media is not, there's some consistency as well. Let's show how proud we are of our UC boys beating Rutgers by putting OSU/Michigan on the headline of the sports.

What is the problem with breaking a contract that was written with a buy out clause? That is almost as bad as firing a coach and having to pay him for the university breaking the contract.

Will the real santimonious sports editor, please take a bow?

 
at 8:08 AM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul--
I agree with what you've written about MD save one detail. I think we're in dangerous territory (I write "we" because I've been guilty myself) when we question or allow red flags to go up when we hear someone mention God, their faith, etc. as a contributing factor to a recently-made decision. We so often collectively groan, roll our eyes, and think "another one of these guys..."

When you wrote "And oh, yeah, God wanted him to help more people." I think you were unfair. I enjoy so much your writing and your columns, but I thought that line was a bad one. I do understand skepticism for those who spout the Lord's name and their lives perpetually don't support their alleged deep beliefs. But Evander Holyfield (many children fathered behind his wife's back) Mark Dantonio is not.

Recently you intimated regret about how you wrote about Dave Shula at times, finding out that it affected his children when they were at school. You do take the high road when you think you've been unfair in the past. It's one of your strengths. I hope you re-think "And oh, yeah, God wanted him to help more people."

 
at 8:59 AM Anonymous Anonymous said...

9:08,

"...you believe ...that people should always be reliable, trustworthy, and consistent."

Belief and Expectations are two separate things. Many (hopefully most) believe people should be reliable, trustworthy and consistent. Expecting all to be this is unrealistic. That being said, calling people out for their inconsistencies or lack of integrity is one way of hopefully making our world less broken and messed up.

On another note, OSU/Michigan would be the headline on EVERY newspaper in America. And I suspect the outcry would have been HUGE if this wasn't the case in Cincinnati.

 
at 9:50 AM Blogger Nathan said...

Really disagree with you on this one. You don't blame him for going-cool. At a larger profile school (hell-any school these days) a Head Coach has about 3 years to prove himself (sometimes less, see: Harris, Walt). MSU expects a winning record out of Dantonio.

So Dantonio has 2 options.

1) Take a staff he knows well, get them involved in the program. The recruiting at MSU is probably in the crapper due to the lame duck coach, so he must do everything he can to save this year's class. Assistants are intimately involved in this (probably to a higher degree than a Head Coach who could not do the job on their own in the modern era).

OR

2) Take the job, use some of the left-over assistants from Lewis (yes-I am sure they'll be enthusiastic knowing that they'll soon be out of a job). Do a crappy job recruiting because you don't have people like Narduzzi going around recruiting...fall behind other midwest teams in general. Not a good start to a high-pressure job.

Maybe Dantonio is letting his players down by taking the assistants, but if he didn't he would be failing himself, his new school, his family, his new players, MSU, and perhaps others. Sounds like a double-edged sword but I'd wager that most schools wouldn't have hired Dantonio if he would have behaved in the manner you prefer.

 
at 12:13 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul,
Just getting a chance to read this from yesterday.
One thing people have to realize is whether we like it or not, this is sports. Its not Corporate America where the norm is to give your two weeks notice before moving onto greener pastures. If College Football didn't take a month sabatical every December, then Mark would have been able to "do the right thing" and stay put until the bowl game was complete. But football coaches are not afforded that luxury. There was no way Michigan State was going to let him stay down in Cincy for 5-6 more weeks and miss out on a month of recruiting. In sports there is no loyalty(ok, there is some but they are few and very far between). Coaches change jobs all the time. Coaches get fired all the time. And lets not forget about the athletes themselves. They jump ship all the time. They sign sign Letters of Intent for 4 years. How many of them actually honor that commitment? Do we blame them for packing their bags and running to the Pros for $$? No we dont. Do we always make the right decisions in life, no. We do what we think is best(at least most of us do).
Here is a solution for this, so that it doesn't happen to other schools...Adopt the NFL rule. No head coach can be approached for a job until their respective teams season is complete(regular and post season). That way, there is no confusion and nobody is left hanging in the wind.

 
at 12:46 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about a new Sports Journalism Principle--"Separation of Church and Sports."?

I am sick to death of all the "God" and "Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior" referenes by athletes and coaches. It is all totally irrelevant to any sports story unless ou are writing a personal profile or biography.

If you believe in (insert your diety here), do you really think that (insert your diety here), favors one team over another? One player's performance over another's? One coach's future over another's?

For some reason, this issue seems to be at its zenith in the NFL, where there are bad boys and Jesus boys and, seemingly, few in-between. When the bad boy runs out of options and is on the verge of being thrown out of his lucrative profession, he promptly finds Jesus and is immediately granted absolution by the League, Coaches and many of his teammates.
(It is very PC to never question anyone's sincerity for "accepting Jesus.")

So, let's not publish these references when spoken by our sports icons and then let's not refer to the individual's references to them when they screw
up.

Fair enough?

 
at 3:58 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

When your "good friend" Skip Prosser left Xavier he took his entire staff to Wake Forest with him. He came back for the banquet and said I love you guys to all of the Xavier players and fans. You still call him your good friend. Last week you compared UC football and XU basketball as "stepping stones". Stepping stones should expect their coach to leave and then find the best coach available to replace. Given this how can you blame Dantonio or Kelly for anything they did?

 
at 4:10 PM Blogger Paul Daugherty said...

Anonymous 3:58... Prosser left after his team's season was done. Huge difference, my friend.

 
at 5:30 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Paul--I'm skimming through these and, wow, what a small firestorm! I am interested to your thoughts to what anonymous 8:08 wrote. I think he/she put things pretty good about your comment about Dantonio's bringing up God. I know your not required to answer anything, but how do you answer that post? I'm not the poster, either, by the way. I just thought it was the most honest and fair and provoking thing written on this "comments" page. kudos to the poster.

 
at 5:36 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Football is different than basketball, coaching jobs in football become available after the regular season ends and before bowl season begins, football signing day is in February, there is not an early signing period in August before the season starts. Circumstances dictate the actions of Dantonio and Kelly. If you want change convince the NCAA to move the signing date for high school players back to March and not allow any contact from college coaches from Thanksgiving Day to the last Bowl game is played. So blame the NCAA not the coaches.

 
at 4:50 PM Anonymous Anonymous said...

Waiting for Doc to apologize for calling out Dantonio's religious reference? I hope that apology never comes. Religious references are cop-outs. Period. It's a shame we are so accepting. Sadly, this is a pretty accurate reflection of society today. No one wants to take responsibility for the decisions they make or the actions they take. Have the guts to explain your decisions as if you made them of your own free will. LORD KNOWS we would all appreciate a little honesty.

Jasper

 
at 5:45 AM Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't take Daugherty's comment's as a slam on God or religion. I took them as a slam on the misuse of God.
Why doesn't God ever "lead" anybody to a job making less money or a job with less prestige?
The answer is that God does lead us sometimes to places we don't want to go but we just say no.
When we get greedy it is easy to say God wants me to have more money or God wants me to be happy.
I agree with Paul- using God as a cop out when you are simply taking another step up the company ladder is sad.

 
at 7:57 AM Blogger PATRICK LYSAGHT said...

Have you forgotten the fact that this all takes place at the school that did everything it could to keep its basketball team out of the NCAA tournament last year and then kept it from winning the NIT post season tournament and then sent coach Kennedy packing unceremoniously? Coach Dantonio was not real high on my list but the school got what it deserved from him.

 
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