With Friends Like This…

As habitues of SFN are well aware, our writers (including your obedient servant) get occasional rhubarbs from those decrying the site’s alleged “negativity” – cliched shorthand for, “writing things about NC State that fail to display blind optimism worthy of MAD’s Alfred E. Neuman.” Our “negativity,” these posters claim, causes harm to NC State.

Well, I’d argue that taken to extremes, certain head-in-the-sand types cause far more harm to NC State than anything scribbled by SFN’s electronic pens. This is particularly the case when the person in question’s a blithering idiot – such as, if his letter to editor in today’s N&O is any indication, this guy:

Ousting coaches reeks of ‘bottom line’

UNC and NCSU administrators’ actions by firing coaches John Bunting and Chuck Amato is a clipping violation on the 50-yard line, in clear public view.

The N.C. State personnel act was kicked out of the game. The gridiron became the board room with the bottom line — money.

Such action is odiferous protocol. The coaches have higher moral and ethic principle than those that dismissed them from servicing the youth that play the game.

Emmett Bailey Jr.

Henderson

I’ve cringed for years at the screeds submitted to the newspapers by some of our more bumpkineque supporters, but this incohent and risible letter takes first prize for Gumpism. Letters such as Mr. Bailey’s do far more damage to NC State’s reputation than someone on this site pointing out little issues such as Sendek’s record against Carolina or Amato’s media gaffes.

Please, Mr. Bailey, don’t write the newspapers any more. With friends like you (assuming you are a friend, and not a Tar Hole fan displaying that breed’s frequent level of literary eloquence), NC State doesn’t need enemies.

General

64 Responses to With Friends Like This…

  1. MrPlywood 12/04/2006 at 2:26 AM #

    Funny thing is…

    Sid is proving that Herb couldn’t get the best out of his OWN recruits, therefore adding validity to the argument that it was good idea for Herb to go. Herb was stagnated, the perfect illustration of the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Herb had risen to his, and was not going to progress any further. Makes no difference how nice a guy he is, he was at his plateau, and that was that.

    Go Sid…

  2. scoots 12/04/2006 at 3:17 AM #

    “I think Packer was one of the….but I didn’t get to see the entire game.”

    Of course, any halfway knowledgeable ACC/NCSU fan who watched even 5 minutes of the game would KNOW Packer wasn’t one of the announcers.

    Kinda puts this guy’s affinity for LF in perspective, now doesn’t it?

  3. bTHEredterror 12/04/2006 at 4:44 AM #

    I’m not sad about the loss to UVa, The guys played hard, and just couldn’t get a rebound on the defensive end in the 2nd half. I’m excited to see Ferguson get some time, anybody who can nearly average a triple double (26 pts, 8 rebs, 7 assts Sr. year of HS) on any level of basketball has got to have something to contribute. He’ll be avaialable to play against Mt. St. Mary’s, right?

  4. bTHEredterror 12/04/2006 at 4:49 AM #

    Tim Brando and Gminski were calling the game, and the reference to Sendek implied if you have to have a short bench, it’s not bad to be left with versatile players. Brando made the comment, and as a true professional, managed to be deferential to both coaches at once. Funny what a litlle thing like professionalism can do for a ballgame (Dykes take note). I think the FSN camaramen are still expecting Sendek ball from us though, because there were a couple of plays where guys beat the camara down court.

  5. Pack Laddie 12/04/2006 at 7:35 AM #

    “Tim Brando and Gminski were calling the game”

    Do some of you even watch the game? It was Brando and Dan Bonner on the call. Gminski was in Miami at the Canes-GaTech game.

  6. RAWFS 12/04/2006 at 8:31 AM #

    Mr. Plywood —

    Great point, though it will be harder to get people to accept it after a loss. Gavin Grant went from a nervous player to an almost certain draftee in the NBA. Costner is stronger and more assertive. And so forth and so on.

    The NBA is a matchup league, and Sidney Lowe is using the same techniques to put his team in favorable positions. He is a solid recruiter in his own right — look at the harvest he got this year after an incredibly late start and with little reputation to boot. Now, as he’s proven his game plans are malleable (unlike Sendek) and his teams are tenacious, he’ll get even more recruits.

    Finally, it seems that the blind squirrel (Fowler) found a really good acorn in Lowe. Why he was not second choice behind Barnes is in hindsight a mystery.

  7. Mr O 12/04/2006 at 8:46 AM #

    GRANT a certain draftee???

    That is a stretch at this point. I would call him a “likely” draftee, but unfortunately he may still lack a position in the NBA.

    Costner didn’t even play last year.

  8. redfred2 12/04/2006 at 8:49 AM #

    Scoots

    I listened to the game on the radio, it was my buddy who first said Billy Packer was calling the game on the tube. Then someone here said it was Brando/Giminski, then it was Brando/Bonner. I don’t know how my buddy got Billy Packer out of any of those combo’s but one thing seems certain, we may never get to the bottom of who in the hell was actually calling that particular basketball game. Good game though! 😉

  9. redfred2 12/04/2006 at 9:53 AM #

    Mr Plywood

    It would only be rubbing salt to bring them all up again now, but this early scenario with this small group of players especially, shines a blaring light on too many of the things that have been discussed over and over again, for years here on SFN. Sidney Lowe and staff are definitely exceeding all of our expectations in an absolutely unbelievable way!!! But what some of us have been expressing as just matter of fact all along, these guys are now convincingly proving to everyone out there, including every soul in the media, and just as we have been saying it could have been all along at NCSU, for years now.

    I’m just wondering how many more times Coach Fowler there, will foolishly bring up his former basketball coach at public forum or in an interview, before he clues in and actually realizes all of this for himself.

    Any guesses? Possibly an educated guess from Wolfpack4ever?

    Fowler is stubbornly stuck, just like his two previous coaches were both stuck, not budging and not moving forward. Hmmm? Now, I wonder where that kind thinking involving NCSU athletics, has been radiating from over these past few years?

    Any guesses? Possibly another educated guess from Wolfpack4ever?

  10. Cardiff Giant 12/04/2006 at 10:39 AM #

    “Do some of you even watch the game? It was Brando and Dan Bonner on the call. Gminski was in Miami at the Canes-GaTech game.”

    Nonsense. It was Brent Musberger and Keith Jackson.

  11. Wolfpack4ever 12/04/2006 at 12:33 PM #

    Rf2 says: Fowler is stubbornly stuck, just like his two previous coaches were both stuck, not budging and not moving forward. Hmmm? Now, I wonder where that kind thinking involving NCSU athletics, has been radiating from over these past few years?

    Any guesses? Possibly another educated guess from Wolfpack4ever?”

    Although from experience I know that question is meant as a personal dig at me and my frequent defense of Fowler when he is publicly supporting one of his coaches, it is a fair question.

    Every since institutional controls were established to rectify some of the perceived problem with athletics at NCSU, the AD gets his “thinking” from the Chancellor. The AD is not an independent operator as some would have us believe, but instead carries out the policies established by the Chancellor and the BOT. Hello? Oblinger is not Mary Anne Fox and comes from an entirely different place as far as NCSU being in the top etchelon of athletics. Hard to image Oblinger firing LF for carrying out the policy of the University.

    I can’t argue the unfortunate continuing to mention HS but I do argue that the content is not nearly as nefarious as is made out to be. Most of what is said would not be discerned to be even out of order were it not for the ongoing insistence of SFN to poing our with a negative nearly everything LF says.

    It is unfortunate that SFN is so blind to the general attitude about sports even in the NCSU community. The writer whose letter appeared in yesterdays Boos and Disturber — the writer SFN denigrated so vehemently in another thread — likely is closer to the point of view of the Chancellor than anything that gets written here. While I thought the exaggerated parallel of the clipping at mid-field was a bit much, I recognized his point of view as a valid one — just as SFN has a valid point of view. And similar to the writer who exaggerates and makes a mountain out of a mole hill, SFN does its point of view little good with similar making mountains out of mole hills.

    What I really don’t understand is why I get such enjoyment from taking the unpopular stances I take here or why I am intrigued by the knee-jerk reactions that occur when any poster says a kind word or even suggests letting up on LF during the search. The is something not being said that is driving the compulsive hammering that is being given Fowler.

    I have said many times here on SFN that Fowler is not the best AD that NCSU could possibly hire but he is the AD we have. Any of us who have played sports knows the difference a positive energy makes. That’s why the players raise their arms and exhort the fans to cheer and make noise. They feed off that positive energy. It is the home-field advantage.

    And so that is why I take the time and energy to encourage us to get behind the AD as long as he is the AD. And that is why I go to the trouble to counter negative and hurtful expressions of dissatisfaction whenever I can. The notion that I take the opposite point of view simply because I don’t take the join in the bunny-bopping that goes on here is ludicrous.

    If the fan base wants a change in coaches, creating the kind of cascade of ridicule for that coach is a bad idea. Why? It’s simple really. We create an environment where the AD is forced to publicly support his coach as is expected of him by his superiors.

    I could go on but my fingers are getting sore. 😉

  12. Wolfpack4ever 12/04/2006 at 12:37 PM #

    ^Most of what is said would not be discerned to be even out of order were it not for the ongoing insistence of SFN to point out with a negative spin nearly everything LF says.

    Miss a few letters there 4ever?

  13. scoots 12/04/2006 at 5:30 PM #

    redfred…sorry… was referring to 86ncsu95, who relentlessly defends Uncle Jed, but often plays fast & loose w/history and facts.

  14. redfred2 12/05/2006 at 12:48 PM #

    Not necessary, but thanks scoots.

    4ever, man, that was a looong post there buddy.

    BUT, it’s just a fact of the matter, job performances aren’t graded UNTIL AFTER an apptitude has been demonstrated.

    You are back at the age old horse/cart adage. But with your cart well out in front again.

    “What can we do, we have Duke and Carolina next door ya know?,”…”lunatic fans,”…”fearing for their own personal welfare,” and still to this day almost, on and on with the inevitable “Sendek…Sendek…Sendek,” Those are just a very,very few and they are all derrogatory and self serving and self sustaining statements. Ones that present NC State in a terrible light and represent a reoccurring train of thought that is NOT what NC State, or it’s fans, are all about.

    Shit goes out, shit comes back.

    One demonstrates, over and over again, fans react. It’s just that simple.

Leave a Reply