When you awake to a dreary day, it puts you in a bit of a mood. Especially when you’re a journalist, which for some of us is essentially a synonym for grumpy cynic. Considering we’re still more than four months way from Festivus and the annual Airing of the Grievances, let’s see if there’s room for a new summer tradition. Five Things That Are Bugging Me. In no particular order of irritation, they are Deshaun Watson, Scott Frost, parents who are poor losers, LIV Golf and the Big Ten’s massive media deal.
When you awake to a dreary day, it puts you in a bit of a mood.
Especially when you’re a journalist, which for some of us is essentially a synonym for grumpy cynic.
Considering we’re still more than four months way from Festivus and the annual Airing of the Grievances, let’s see if there’s room for a new summer tradition.
Five Things That Are Bugging Me.
Here we go (in no particular order of irritation):
— Deshaun Watson will return to the football field this season, albeit after sitting out an 11-game suspension, paying a $5 million fine and getting some long-overdue treatment for his shocking behavior.
The Cleveland Browns quarterback got off easy after being accused of sexually harassing and coercing two dozen women during massage therapy sessions while he was with the Houston Texans. A former federal judge who heard the case called Watson’s behavior “more egregious than any before reviewed by the NFL,” which is really saying something when one considers the league’s epic roll call of misbehavior down through the years.
Nevertheless, Watson got what he wanted most of all — a chance to get back on the field sometime this season. He should use the down time to make himself a better person, but we’re not holding our breath on that one.
— In what sounded like perverse bid to show how hard everyone is working to save his job, Nebraska football coach Scott Frost proudly boasted of his offensive linemen puking 15 to 20 times a day at practice.
Frost gave the credit — blame might be more appropriate — to their position coach, Donovan Raiola.
“It’s not because they’re not in shape – he’s just working them hard,” Frost said, according to the Omaha World-Herald. “I think they love it. He’s kind of freed them up to go be aggressive and I love the way they’re coming off the ball.”
Now, I’m no doctor, but turning your program into the Junction Boys is disturbing at the very least, if not outright abusive.
Frost is clearly in desperation mode after going 15-29 over his first four seasons at the helm of a once-proud program that is now just a laughingstock.
And maybe even a dangerous place to play.
— The debate over transgender athletes has taken a totally expected turn with news out of Utah that a girl was secretly investigated — without her or her parents being told — after high school officials received complaints from the parents of two girls she beat in a competition.
This wasn’t the first time, either. The Salt Lake Tribune reports the Utah High School Activities Association has looked into other complaints involving supposedly transgender athletes, with a spokesman saying some involved girls who “doesn’t look feminine enough.”
None of the complaints have been verified, of course, but overbearing parents now have a convenient excuse anytime their kid loses.
The issue of transgender athletes is a complicated one, and we’ve said before that any measures should be based on nuance, compassion and science. Instead, we’ve had a bunch of states hastily approve bans that are nothing more than an attempt to score political points. At least a judge put the Utah law on hold Friday while legal challenges play out.
Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican whose veto of the Utah ban was overridden by the Legislature, put it best: “My goodness, we’re living in this world where we’ve become sore losers, and we’re looking for any reason why our kid lost.”