On Willis
by Todd on Jan 23, 2009 8:44 AM CST
in Football
Email
PrintSome thoughts on the hiring of James Willis:
1) For all the crap we are giving Auburn fans over their reactions, let's remember we were all a little taken aback that Lance Thompson would go to UT. I personally wasn't ready to pull out the MS Paint traitor brush over it since "more money for less work" sounds like a pretty darn good idea no matter where the job is at (that plus the unfortunate personal matters that were brought to light in the wake of his departure equals get the hell out of town to me), but there was a good number of people on this blog that were apoplectic that he would leave Alabama for the Vols.
2) That being said, I'm glad we had a reasonably proper attitude about Thompson, as opposed to the paranoid ramblings y'all have linked to. Personally, the idea that someone might actually believe that Willis is a super secret double agent sent by the Auburn powers that be to spy on Nick Saban "with current espionage technology" is a little far fetched, but then again I did (unfortunately) listen to about an hour of Finebaum the other day and at least 40% of the callers would be likely suspects to have posted that ridiculous load.
At first I thought posting a picture of a "redneck camera phone" and implying that was the extent of Auburn's "espionage technology" was too easy, but then I remembered where I blog and felt obligated to go for the cheap dig instead of trying to come up with something more clever. Auburn fans are rednecks.
I'm sure the reasoning behind Willis's decision to leave a program he has so many connections to for their in state betters rival went something like this: "I worked my butt off to keep the current recruiting class together during the coaching change, got fired for my efforts by the new coach (whom I've worked with while at Auburn, mind you), got rehired (though I reportedly had to pay back my severance from the firing) but somewhere along the way decided these jackasses weren't people I could really work with and certainly wouldn't feel any loyalty to me for sticking it out if Chizik should give a repeat performance of his glorious three year conquest of miserable failure in the Big 12 North, and decided to head somewhere with a little more stability that can springboard me into a better job in a couple of years." Sounds reasonable to me, just like Thompson's apparent motives were fairly reasonable. This is a business, after all, and no matter what the TET commentariat may think about "loyalty and the nature of The Auburn Man" all of that goes out the window when you have a family to feed and a career track to keep in mind. Maybe Willis isn't as keen on joining the trucking business in a few years as the rest of you.
3) With all that being said, the same "how can Lance Thompson go into a recruits home now and tell them that UT is where they should play ball after spending two years with Alabama telling them that UT omg sux lol " thoughts apply here. Yes, ultimately a recruit is committing to the school/program and head coach, not the position coach that is recruiting him, but how does an Auburn recruiter not tell a kid "don't listen to Willis, he's a traitor that doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself and you'll be just another cog at Alabama because that's how ALL of their coaches are"?
4) Auburn fans are rednecks.
22 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Totally
Agree with your thoughts on #4…
When you are an Alabama fan you are expected to hate Auburn, I hate Tennessee because I want to.
I have to imagine
I have to imagine that when James walked and told Chizik he was leaving this was the response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9oX-kZ_9k
Sorry, I know its corny, but it’s all I could think of all day the past two days, and I wanted to wait on the fire to die down before posting.
Excellent
For all the crap we are giving Auburn fans over their reactions, let’s remember we were all a little taken aback that Lance Thompson would go to UT
That is what I thought when all this went down. I hardly remember too many fans pointing out how it was business when Thompson left to go to UT.
The Willis situation is bizarre; to lose a coach over a severence package is crazy. I worked in quite a few jobs where we people have been fired, and then rehired almost immediately. I have never heard of an employer asking for a severence package back, under any circumstance. That athletic department is a completely dysfunctional unit. They have seemingly had no problem spending money to buy coaches and coordinators, but yet they try and penny-pinch a coach who was recently fired. Auburn has no leadership at all to speak of, and we can only hope that “Fail” Jacobs stays as long as possible.
Let's be fair
Thompson left on his own accord. Willis, on the other hand, more than likely left primarily because of the way he felt he was treated. There is a difference.
And if you got the radio rout, I didn’t hear the Bama fans making the same statements as the boogs. We admitted he was a good recruiter, but they changed their opinion of him publicly once he left. I understand the point, but in fairness to Bama fans there is a difference, and it is closer to apples and oranges rather than apples and apples.
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Jan 23, 2009 10:29 AM CST up reply actions
I think it is more than a few select Auburn fans
I call it like I see it, and Aubies at work, buddies of mine, on the radio, and on the web are pretty much all saying this. I think rationality (he is leaving because he was treated poorly by Chizik/Jacobs, chance to work with Saban) is more the case rather than the conspiracy theories most in the Auburn “family” are touting.
What Would Don Draper Do?
by BamaReturns07 on Jan 23, 2009 10:48 AM CST up reply actions
Yeah
I have a pretty good set of Barners that I know I guess, most are fairly rationale… I guess I should thank my lucky stars for that!
"The game demonstrated the superiority of the Southern teams over any aggregation that the damn yankees could send across the Mason and Dixon Line." Sports writer Charles Israel of the Philadelphia Bulletin after the Tide's 61-6 win over Syracuse in the 1953 Orange Bowl.
God love 'em..
…just when they think they’ve got their ant hill rebuilt, Nick Saban runs over it with a lawnmower.
These
Aubies saying Willis is a spy are the craziest people ever.
However, I do think he contacted Saban first. I mean Saban has no connection with him and I just can’t see Saban calling Willis out of the blue to offer him a job. I would not be surprised if Tubs didn’t call Saban for Willis.
And as far as the “Auburn Man” stuff I remember baby Bowden saying he was “an Auburn man now.” What happened with that? There are some coaches that will be really loyal to a school they coach (Gene Stallings is an example.) But, if the school turns on them, that loyalty generally goes out the window. Auburn really turned on Willis.
Supposedly...
…Willis called a young man by name of Will Muschamp, who called CNS on his behalf. So it seems that the ‘spy’ theory is correct, just with CNS sending Muschamp to Auburn to spy on them while he went to Miami and prepared to fulfill his destiny at Alabama.
p.s. For those who don’t get enough irony in their diets, I was serious in the first sentence, not so much in the second.
by NiceLittleSaturday on Jan 23, 2009 3:07 PM CST up reply actions
I work with a barner.....
And he is orange and blue through and through, wears the t-shirts and jerseys EVERYDAY, and even he is perplexed by the reaction of many of the barners. I never knew much about the crazy blog conspirators before I became a part of the RBR and saw such utter foolish jibberish coming from sites like TET. As I read the rantings of some of the folks there, I truly had to wonder if the were the same UFO/grassy knoll people I’d always heard about.
And attaboy to brandonoh, because I would never have been able to contain myself with some of the shots taken at you by that trash talking female (and I use that term loosely)
They have truly gone off the deep end.
Everybody deserves a chance, even a former barner asst, so for me, Coach Willis do your best.
Well, are you gonna pull them pistols, or whistle dixie?
Conspiracy theories
In keeping with the super-cool spy camera phone, I guess we can call Willis “Double Naught James,” borrowing a page from my favorite, the Beverly Hillbillies.
marycontrary
If..
he ask for a martini, shacken, not stirred, should we give him the gold finger? ( sorry it friday)
Well, are you gonna pull them pistols, or whistle dixie?
Loyalty
I don’t want to get too serious here, but loyalty to a company or school to the exclusion of ones self-interest is dying in society as a whole. It seems that we have a coach who not only realizes this, but operates this way and we should be glad. Notice that people don’t work for corporations for lifetimes anymore, live in the same houses, cities, attend the same college for every degree—-they do what is in their BEST INTEREST!
Any school that is stuck believing that their football coaches will stay simply b/c they attended school there, need to catch up! We spent years at UA watching people leave that we never thought would go, so we gained first hand experience with the phenom.
The ONLY people left who are loyal are the fans—we have nothing materialistic to gain!
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
