New York Jets assistant coach Sal Alosi has been suspended without pay for the rest of the season for an incident you have all likely seen either in live motion via ESPN and You Tube or frozen in still frame in any number of tabloids or long sheets. This past Sunday, Alosi clearly stuck his knee out and tripped the Miami Dolphin's defensive and special teams player, Nolan Carroll, as he ran to cover a punt.
Good old Sal's actions bring me back to my youth, as it likely does most of my peers, as I remember one of the greatest college football coaches of his era, Woody Hayes, and the sideline punch that drove him to retirement. Hayes won 3 national championships during his reign at Ohio State (1954, 1957 and 1968). One could argue his coaching tenure ran roughly 10 years too long, but it was the 1978 incident in which Hayes smacked an opposing player in the Gator Bowl that created the necessary crescendo. He was promptly fired.
So, how is it some just unheralded strength and conditioning coach is still employed?
Once again, professional sports manage to set the tone for all that is wrong today, not only in athletics, but in society. A coach, a leader and example to players, let alone the children and fans who watch and play the game, hoping to emulate the passes, catches, runs, tackles and interceptions of their favorite stars, behaves in a manner so devoid of sportsmanship that it leaves one gasping. In this case, Coach Alosi, later claimed in quick response to his diabolical actions that he sought remedy by apologizing to both the wronged player, his coach Rex Ryan and the opposing coach Tony Sporano for "the lapse in judgment". Lapse in judgment? That is the best he could come up with. It was downright dirty. Idiotic. Any number of other adjectives could be applied here. Does an apology cover the act. "Oops, I did something stupid". "Oops I got caught". "Oops I apologized". "All better". Not so fast.
It was also, as I have written before, a sad, sad sign of the times. Where million dollar babies do not have the sense to leave the car at home when drinking (despite their more than enviable salaries and the ability to hire a driver for the evening). Where spoiled stars sit on the bench in petulant displays of dissatisfaction over pay packages that rival the GDP of small countries (and you want to complain about Wall Streeters?). Where gangsters and hoods beat their wives and girlfriends, rack up children out of wedlock like cars in a garage and generally fail to set any sort of example. Then again given millions of dollars and substandard educations, what does one expect.
It was Charles Barkley who said "I am not a role model". Correct. Charles was a heck of a basketball player and a very funny man, at times, but he is anything but a role model. He is at times a lout and a buffoon, and his loutish behavior, and that of many of his fellow athletes, is not just the playground of professionals in sports. They happily share this space with politicians, actors and many in our own communities. This, however widespread, does not make it right.
I coach year round. The guiding principles of my coaching are simple: discipline and respect. As one of the gentleman I coach with (a former Marine and a current teammate and friend of mine) will always bark at the kids to start a practice: "Who do you respect". The answer is always the same: "Yourself, your coaches, your teammates and your opponents". There is no middle ground, no gray, no second chances. The dictum is clear. Conduct yourself as a gentleman always, even in the roughest of sports. If you cannot, then be prepared to reap the consequences.
So, as I look at Sal Alosi, punished by only a suspension until the end of the season, which may be approaching sooner than Jets fans would like given their recent run of play, I have to ask: "Why do we tolerate his behavior". Or anyone else's?
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