Okay, so before you read anything else in this post, I want you to watch approximately two minutes and thirty seconds of this clip from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," give or take a few seconds. You are allowed another 15 or 20 seconds if you become particularly enamored with Robert Morse's incredible singing and acting skills, but no more than that.
Enjoyed that? Great! Now, fill a glass or cup with approximately 8-10 ounces of cold water (or milk, your preference), and then dump it on your head.
"Why is there water and/or milk on my head?" you ask. "I was enjoying this delightful song and dance number about togetherness and human kindness despite the shortcomings of others, and you made me stop. Why, Johnny, why?"
Because Frank Loesser is full of crap, that's why. When he wrote the lyrics "They need a brother's leadership/ So please don't do them in/ Remember mediocrity/ Is not a mortal sin" he clearly did not anticipate the high stakes world of college football coaching in the 21st century. A pretty foolish oversight on his part, especially in light of the drama going on at Penn State recently.
WILLIAMSPORT -- Penn State is seeking almost $900,000 from former defensive coordinator Bob Shoop, and the university doesn't expect him to pay up, according to court documents obtained by PennLive.
Shoop left the Nittany Lions in January 2016 to become the defensive coordinator for the Tennessee Vols.
A clause in his contract stated if Shoop resigned before his contract expired on Feb. 15, 2018, he had to pay Penn State liquidated damages of 50 percent "of his base pay" for the remainder of his contract, according to the court documents. The contract stated Shoop wouldn't have to pay PSU back, if he became the head coach at another university within one year of the date of his resignation.
The university claims that, with over two years remaining on his contract when Shoop resigned, he owes $891,856, the court records state.
Shoop has countersued Penn State, saying that he signed his contract "under duress" and that working conditions deteriorated as time went on. I'm trying and failing to envision a scenario where someone is demanding that I sign a work contract worth millions of dollars and I'm really angry about it, but since I don't know the particulars of the case or the kind of ship James Franklin runs in Happy Valley, I'm forced to assume that there was a clause in Shoop's contract requiring him to build and destroy thousands of tiny effigies of Bill O'Brien or something.
Anyway it's a big mess that's going to have to be settled in US District Court, which I'm guessing is not a phrase that Penn State fans are super eager to hear.
What's interesting about this incident to me is that since taking over as head coach of Ohio State, Urban Meyer has cycled through a number of assistants in various ways. Some have been shuffled around to different responsibilities before ultimately leaving, others have gotten coaching offers they couldn't pass up, and sometimes, like in the case of Ed Warinner and Tim Beck, they get fired in all but name and end up doing pretty much the same thing in another place.
In retrospect, Warinner's departure could've (and some might say probably should've) been way, way messier than it ended up being. He had gotten a ton of praise early in his tenure with the Buckeyes, and it wouldn't have been shocking if his portrayal as ineffective was taken as an insult. But instead of an acrimonious blowup, Ed simply announced:
“It was time to try a new challenge,” Warinner said via text message.
And that was it, he was on his way to Minnesota. Kevin Wilson, who had been waiting in the wings for some time, officially stepped in to Warinner's spot as offensive coordinator, and all was well. Fans were happy, because in our eyes the man we had praised as an offensive line coaching god had morphed into an offensive coordinator goat (and as a bonus, Tim Beck was gone too, to Texas and Tom Herman).
The fact that these coaching changes and others like them haven't devolved into something uglier speaks to the professionalism of everyone involved, but that also doesn't mean that Ohio State is immune from the potential problems that are now staring Penn State in the face. The Buckeyes have rarely seen the kind of staff turnover, for both good reasons and bad, that the Urban Meyer era is presiding over, and while the transitions between coaches have thus far been incredibly smooth it requires a deft hand to maintain that kind of continuity.
Hell, Ed Warinner still has a profile page on the Ohio State coaching staff, to go along with his profile page at Minnesota. No one is protected from coaching whiplash, not even the schools that employ them.
Who knows what the future looks like? Urban Meyer has extremely high expectations for both himself and his assistants, but as long as they're able to maintain an environment of mutual respect (if not necessarily blind faith), Meyer should be able to navigate turbulent coaching waters ably.
But the fact remains that in college football, and especially at Ohio State, mediocrity is absolutely a mortal sin. As long as that's the case, a true brotherhood of man will always be out of reach and the risk for a Shoop-like situation in Columbus will always be there.
