Another Oregon player dismissed

#30
#30
I just got finished listening to the better part of a radio interview between Chip Kelly and John Canzano on the Bald Faced Truth. Kelly got absolutely grilled and just ended up doing nothing but stepping on his own toes.

Canzano's criticism, which I found entirely valid, said Kelly's problems concerned consistency and language used concerning suspended players to the mass media. He, in so many words, called Kelly a carbon copy of Jerry Tarkanian in that he had the same problem in lack of control (Canzano has also been a beat writer covering Tarkanian and Bob Knight).

Masoli and James end up getting in trouble, before getting charged and Kelly's stance is "Suspended for now, but wait for the facts to come out." The LB gets a DUII and immediately gets booted for the 2010 season. IMO this all extends from the Blount situation, and his reinstatement. The message Kelly is sending is "You will get disciplined, but if you are a major contributor to this team's on field performance, I will take a more lenient stance with you."

This problem is pretty pervasive in college football. James, at this point, is probably SOL with his charges. The local DA has pretty much said so. At that point, Kelly should have suspended James for the 2010 season, yet he kept saying "wait for the facts to come out." (Multiple times during the interview, he said he knew the facts... wat?).

Some coaches take a hard-line stance, and show no mercy if you're even implicated in something. Others wait and see. The only thing I demand from coaches is consistency. Kelly has shown absolutely none and will probably continue his "Thug U" tendencies based on what I've seen.

The one good point he made during the interview was the wait and see approach tends to be best, at least for waiting until seeing how the case is going to shape up. There are definitely instances where a player has been arrested and suspended, only for the police to come out a few days later and drop the charges and say the arrest was wrong.
 
#31
#31
Interesting. I just listened to the same show and got the exact opposite impression. Kelly schooled Canzano because he had no answer to Kelly's observation that he HAS been disciplining players harshly. He's kicked several players off of the team. Not suspending James while we're waiting for the investigation to conclude does not mean that he won't get disciplined harshly as well. So, it's simply false to suggest that he's getting a pass for being a good player.

How is being punished once the facts are in getting a pass? What value is a pass that lets you say you aren't suspended while people are figuring out what you did wrong?
 
#33
#33
Lexvol said:
I consider Milo to be one of our most objective members.
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I am also impressed by his input. However, I don't agree with him on this one.

To be fair, I think that Kelly made his case well. But, he didn't make the point that nobody can say James has a pass as clearly as he could have. He just said he will make a decision when all the facts are in and to have him back on the show afterward so Canzano could "apologize."

He should have clearly rebutted that nobody is getting a pass. If the facts come in that James did this crime, he's not getting a pass. If it comes in that he did not do the crime, he doesn't need a pass because he shouldn't be punished at all.
 
#35
#35
The language Kelly has been using is really the key point.

I'm also with Canzano on the point that Kelly believes what he is doing is right.

And you are also correct in believing that the "wait for the facts" comment has been a bit blown out of proportion.

I liked when Kelly started emphasizing that "Lamichael James is not with this team right now."

For the record, my stance is a bit inbetween the two. Canzano has to produce a good interview, which it was. Very chippy. I just felt Kelly got too defensive, and does not know how to portray himself or how he handles his program to the media. It really is all about language. Instead of letting the "wait for the facts" quote to get out, he should have emphasized that James is not with the team.

In the end, why this HAS to stop for Oregon, is recruiting. There are a lot of good football players who are momma's boys, and whatever the facts are, the appearance is that UofO football players tend to be trouble makers. More than properly disciplining players for their actions is having players who won't put themselves in these positions to begin with.
 
#36
#36
milohimself said:
Some coaches take a hard-line stance, and show no mercy if you're even implicated in something. Others wait and see. The only thing I demand from coaches is consistency. Kelly has shown absolutely none and will probably continue his "Thug U" tendencies based on what I've seen.

The one good point he made during the interview was the wait and see approach tends to be best, at least for waiting until seeing how the case is going to shape up. There are definitely instances where a player has been arrested and suspended, only for the police to come out a few days later and drop the charges and say the arrest was wrong.
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This seems like a contradiction. If you agree that it's best to wait and see if the charges stick, how can you disagree with Kelly's approach? How has he not been consistent in that regard?

Which act of discipline has he meted out that you know violates waiting for the facts?
 
#37
#37
How he handles it in terms of relating it to the media.

The impression I got from him is that James is not with the team. I'm fine with that.

Here's the way I look at it:

Kiko Alonso was arrested for DUII and charged. He's not been yet convicted because it just happened, but Kelly moved to suspend him for the 2010 season. That seems like a reasonable punishment. It's a potentially malicious and harmful crime.

Lamichael James is being charged with assault among other things, in my mind, that's roughly equivalent to DUII. Definitely malicious, harmful. Yet Kelly has not come out and said flatly "James is gone for the 2010 season." (side note: the judge for the case has ruled James cannot attend class at UofO Oregon football: Judge says LaMichael James cannot go to class | OregonLive.com)

That is 100% inconsistent. If I don't have my facts straight, then set me straight, please. But Kiko Alonso and Lamichael James are both in the process of being charged for malicious crimes, are both probably guilty, yet one was immediately suspended for the season and the other was not.

The Blount situation last season also smacked of inconsistency. He was suspended for the whole season, then reinstated. That is simply going back on the original punishment, there's no way around it.

Honestly, if the Oregon boosters can be talked into hiring a PR department for the football program, most of the public image issues would be taken care of.
 
#38
#38
milohimself said:
For the record, my stance is a bit inbetween the two. Canzano has to produce a good interview, which it was. Very chippy. I just felt Kelly got too defensive, and does not know how to portray himself or how he handles his program to the media. It really is all about language. Instead of letting the "wait for the facts" quote to get out, he should have emphasized that James is not with the team.
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Canzano is a sensationalist Beaver fan. It's true that his job is to get readers and listeners and this certainly will do that. Worked on me. But, I don't respect him at all because it's not really an interview. It's staged similar to the difference between the WWF and the actual sport of wrestling. He knows what conclusion is controversial and he knows how to act that part and be belligerent about it. It's not about getting to the bottom of the issue for him. As Kelly points out during the interview, he loves this kind of thing. His claim that he wants to be talking about the good things is a total lark. Anyone who has had to endure the guys input into the local media knows he's that guy.

That said, I agree that Kelly isn't the most composed speaker. However, that's true for a lot of coaches. I think the smooth media coach is the exception rather than the rule. He could do a better job of making his case. For example:

When Canzano asked Kelly, "What is the harm in suspending James while the investigation is ongoing?"

Kelly should have answered, "The potential harm is that if it turns out he is not guilty, I will have misjudged his character with incomplete facts."

milohimself said:
In the end, why this HAS to stop for Oregon, is recruiting. There are a lot of good football players who are momma's boys, and whatever the facts are, the appearance is that UofO football players tend to be trouble makers. More than properly disciplining players for their actions is having players who won't put themselves in these positions to begin with.
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I really don't think this will affect recruiting negatively. Throwing players under the bus to save your image could work against recruiting as well if you get the reputation of not sticking up for your players.

There was a lot of hysteria over the Blount situation last year and Oregon still picked up two 4* RBs and one 5*.
 
#39
#39
wheaton4prez said:
Canzano is a sensationalist Beaver fan. It's true that his job is to get readers and listeners and this certainly will do that. Worked on me. But, I don't respect him at all because it's not really an interview. It's staged similar to the difference between the WWF and the actual sport of wrestling. He knows what conclusion is controversial and he knows how to act that part and be belligerent about it. It's not about getting to the bottom of the issue for him. As Kelly points out during the interview, he loves this kind of thing. His claim that he wants to be talking about the good things is a total lark. Anyone who has had to endure the guys input into the local media knows he's that guy.

That said, I agree that Kelly isn't the most composed speaker. However, that's true for a lot of coaches. I think the smooth media coach is the exception rather than the rule. He could do a better job of making his case. For example:

When Canzano asked Kelly, "What is the harm in suspending James while the investigation is ongoing?"

Kelly should have answered, "The potential harm is that if it turns out he is not guilty, I will have misjudged his character with incomplete facts."
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- I don't get the impression that Canzano is a Beavers fan. He's not from the area, he's simply a journeyman beat writer who happens to be a world-class agitator. There is room in the world for those people. He covers the Ducks because that radio station is affiliated with UofO, and their coverage of the Ducks to Beavers falls at about a 10:1 ratio. If OSU were on top of the Pac-10 right now, going to the Rose Bowl, in the public eye and officially affiliated with 95.5, then he would be grilling Mike Riley instead. It's his job.

I said I did like Kelly's point about wrongfully suspending a player if charges are dropped or something similar to that happening. However, at multiple points during the interview he claimed to know all the facts. He said it. If he knows the facts, the punishment needs to come.

My honest impression is that he is taking a "wait and see" approach with James because he is such a huge contributor vs. Alonso who immediately got the boot, and is not a major key to the Ducks' success.

Answer this yes or no:

Are James and Alonso in roughly the same predicament with the law; that is currently being charged and likely to be found guilty of roughly equivalent crimes?

If yes, then why is it that Alonso gets suspended immediately while James gets to "wait and see"?
 
#40
#40
milohimself said:
Kiko Alonso was arrested for DUII and charged. He's not been yet convicted because it just happened, but Kelly moved to suspend him for the 2010 season. That seems like a reasonable punishment. It's a potentially malicious and harmful crime.

Lamichael James is being charged with assault among other things, in my mind, that's roughly equivalent to DUII. Definitely malicious, harmful. Yet Kelly has not come out and said flatly "James is gone for the 2010 season." (side note: the judge for the case has ruled James cannot attend class at UofO Oregon football: Judge says LaMichael James cannot go to class | OregonLive.com)

That is 100% inconsistent. If I don't have my facts straight, then set me straight, please. But Kiko Alonso and Lamichael James are both in the process of being charged for malicious crimes, are both probably guilty, yet one was immediately suspended for the season and the other was not.
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Kelly addresses that in the interview when he says that he spoke with each player. In other words, Alonso probably told him that he did it and James probably said that he didn't.

If a player is charged with a crime and then admits to Kelly directly that they did it, there is no reason to wait for the legal process to finish in order to make a team punishment. If a player is charged with a crime but says that it's not true and that they are pleading not guilty, there is reason to wait for the legal process to finish before making a team punishment. 100% consistent with knowing the facts.

I haven't seen anything that suggest that James is probably guilty. He may be and then he will deserve to be punished. However, sometimes, things aren't what they appear. As Kelly pointed out on the interview, just last year, he had a player charged with a crime (Dewitt Stuckey) who was later cleared.

milohimself said:
The Blount situation last season also smacked of inconsistency. He was suspended for the whole season, then reinstated. That is simply going back on the original punishment, there's no way around it.
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The original punishment was a product of rushing to judgment under pressure from the media. Kelly changed his mind in order to correct a mistakenly excessive punishment. That was the right thing to do. His handling of this current situation shows that he learned from that and is not letting the media which is automatically hysterical about everything decide how he should handle discipline matters.

milohimself said:
Honestly, if the Oregon boosters can be talked into hiring a PR department for the football program, most of the public image issues would be taken care of.
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Possibly. Do the other programs with similar issues who don't get the negative attention have PR departments?

I think this article does a good job pointing out how this type of thing is not uncommon and not treated consistently by the press: LaMichael James, arrests put Oregon, Chip Kelly in negative light - Stewart Mandel - SI.com
 
#41
#41
wheaton4prez said:
I really don't think this will affect recruiting negatively. Throwing players under the bus to save your image could work against recruiting as well if you get the reputation of not sticking up for your players.

There was a lot of hysteria over the Blount situation last year and Oregon still picked up two 4* RBs and one 5*.
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I mean that only in so far as it WILL be used as a negative talking point when other coaches go into the living rooms of players Oregon is also courting.

That logically has to hurt Oregon recruiting to some extent with every player they're looking at, and obviously does not help.
 
#42
#42
milohimself said:
- I don't get the impression that Canzano is a Beavers fan. He's not from the area, he's simply a journeyman beat writer who happens to be a world-class agitator. There is room in the world for those people. He covers the Ducks because that radio station is affiliated with UofO, and their coverage of the Ducks to Beavers falls at about a 10:1 ratio. If OSU were on top of the Pac-10 right now, going to the Rose Bowl, in the public eye and officially affiliated with 95.5, then he would be grilling Mike Riley instead. It's his job.
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Canzano talks about the Beavers just as much as the Ducks. Just in a completely different light. Have you been listening/reading Canzano for long? When OSU, not long ago, had a similar number of arrests in one off-season (players fighting guardsmen, DUIs, etc.) did Canzano grill Riley about it?

milohimself said:
I said I did like Kelly's point about wrongfully suspending a player if charges are dropped or something similar to that happening. However, at multiple points during the interview he claimed to know all the facts. He said it. If he knows the facts, the punishment needs to come.
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That's not what I heard. He said repeatedly that he doesn't know all of the facts. He implied that he knows things from his talks with the players but he said repeatedly that he is waiting to hear all of the facts before judging. He said that he can only hear one side of the story due to the legal process. In other words, James is telling him that he is not guilty. Alonso most likely didn't deny the DUI.

milohimself said:
My honest impression is that he is taking a "wait and see" approach with James because he is such a huge contributor vs. Alonso who immediately got the boot, and is not a major key to the Ducks' success.
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Alonso is pretty important. He's behind Matthews. So, if he were to be hurt, Oregon would be very thin at MLB and they won't have experience there next season when Matthews is gone.

I believe that he's not taking a wait and see approach with Alonso because Alonso hasn't denied that the charges are true.

milohimself said:
Answer this yes or no:

Are James and Alonso in roughly the same predicament with the law; that is currently being charged and likely to be found guilty of roughly equivalent crimes?
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No. James plead not guilty. As far as I know, Alonso is not pleading not guilty and has said as much to Kelly.
 
#43
#43
milohimself said:
I mean that only in so far as it WILL be used as a negative talking point when other coaches go into the living rooms of players Oregon is also courting.

That logically has to hurt Oregon recruiting to some extent with every player they're looking at, and obviously does not help.
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Yeah. I'm sure that other teams will try to use that and it could hurt. I think it depends on the player. I imagine that some players buy into those types of arguments and some don't.

However, it could go both ways. Why would a player want to go to a school where the punishments are more harsh if they do mess up. They may think that the coach will throw them under the bus.
 
#44
#44
wheaton4prez said:
Kelly addresses that in the interview when he says that he spoke with each player. In other words, Alonso probably told him that he did it and James probably said that he didn't.

If a player is charged with a crime and then admits to Kelly directly that they did it, there is no reason to wait for the legal process to finish in order to make a team punishment. If a player is charged with a crime but says that it's not true and that they are pleading not guilty, there is reason to wait for the legal process to finish before making a team punishment. 100% consistent with knowing the facts.

I haven't seen anything that suggest that James is probably guilty. He may be and then he will deserve to be punished. However, sometimes, things aren't what they appear. As Kelly pointed out on the interview, just last year, he had a player charged with a crime (Dewitt Stuckey) who was later cleared.
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Thank you for reminding me of the name of that player.

I'm glad that Kelly does wait for the input of his players, but I also find it a bit fallacious to always take a player at his word. James said he didn't do it, but it's shaping up like he is going to be found guilty. Kelly needs to be conscious of that.

James is probably going to be successfully convicted. If that happens, Kelly has no choice but to suspend him for the season, at least.

Canzano was right for that point. It will not hurt at all to say "Lamichael James is suspended for the 2010 season" and later rescind that suspension if he turns out to be found not guilty. He's not with the team now anyways, and won't be until his name gets cleared. He HAS to get a message across. He's not, and Oregon football is looking bad because of it.

IMO that's the only time a coach should be allowed to go back on a suspension, is when the facts of the situation change.

The original punishment was a product of rushing to judgment under pressure from the media. Kelly changed his mind in order to correct a mistakenly excessive punishment. That was the right thing to do. His handling of this current situation shows that he learned from that and is not letting the media which is automatically hysterical about everything decide how he should handle discipline matters.
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You can go back and search on here when the Blount story happened, I originally said that suspending him for the whole season was initially too much. This is Kelly's program, and if he overreacted due to media pressure, that's on Chip. But if you're going to suspend a player for the whole season, then suspend him for the whole season.

Again, it goes back to image. And the image the rest of the country got from that, if you ask nearly ANYONE who is not a fan of the green and yellow, is that Kelly takes a loose approach with players who might be significant contributors to the football team.

Instead, he screwed up the situation about as worse as he possibly could have. It doesn't matter that he initially overreacted. He had the most talented player on his roster, suspended him for the whole season, then went back on HIS OWN WORD and brought him back right before the biggest game of the season.

For the record, I did believe at the time that suspending Blount for the first half of the season was the right move.



Possibly. Do the other programs with similar issues who don't get the negative attention have PR departments?

I think this article does a good job pointing out how this type of thing is not uncommon and not treated consistently by the press: LaMichael James, arrests put Oregon, Chip Kelly in negative light - Stewart Mandel - SI.com
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You're right, the press is not consistent with it either. I completely think that Oregon football is getting an unjustly large amount of negative spotlight.

As for programs using PR departments for this scenario, I'm not sure. I know that some athletic programs do employ outside PR departments at times for one reason or another. I'm sure Oregon getting one for this situation would not be the first time It's happened.
 
#45
#45
Thanks for the quick replies (you must be mashing the refresh button), and you're at least better-spoken about the issue than most people I know around here are.

I think we both know where the other stands.

Most are either Beavers fans saying "Kelly is out of control" or Ducks fans saying "There is absolutely no problem with the way Kelly is running things." Admitting Kelly doesn't know how to handle the media is more honest than nearly every other Ducks fan I know.

As always, the truth lies somewhere in between. I do believe that Kelly does have better control over the team than most seem to think, but that 1) he needs to do a better job of relaying how he's handling things to the media and 2) send the message that discipline will be the same for everyone, which goes back to point number one, really.

Somebody else on 95.5 made a good comment on it yesterday I think, saying that he's still in "coordinator mode." He sticks up for his guys and worries about the program, and acts like public relations need to be left up to someone else to handle. If you're the OC, you've got the head coach to relay things to the media for you. Now that Kelly's the one in the spotlight, he's got to learn how to portray himself and the program to the media.

It seems as if most of the discipline issues at UofO have been botched by Kelly and co. Whether or not they really were, it most definitely seems that way and that's going to put a negative spotlight on the program, which brings extra attention from investigators, both independent and on behalf of the NCAA.

Things haven't been handled quite that poorly, but IMO there is room for improvement and things Kelly could have done better in the situations that have happened.

The comparison to Tark is apt to some extent, because fact is the program is getting attention and unwanted pressure, and the never, ever, ever brings anything but bad things to a program. It's up to Kelly and Belotti to shed this whole thing somehow.
 
#46
#46
milohimself said:
I'm glad that Kelly does wait for the input of his players, but I also find it a bit fallacious to always take a player at his word. James said he didn't do it, but it's shaping up like he is going to be found guilty. Kelly needs to be conscious of that.

James is probably going to be successfully convicted. If that happens, Kelly has no choice but to suspend him for the season, at least.
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I don't get the impression that this is shaping up to him being guilty. I've heard quite a bit that suggests that he may not be guilty.

We don't know what Kelly knows. As someone with direct access to James, there may be information he's aware of that would change our perspective as well.

milohimself said:
Canzano was right for that point. It will not hurt at all to say "Lamichael James is suspended for the 2010 season" and later rescind that suspension if he turns out to be found not guilty. He's not with the team now anyways, and won't be until his name gets cleared. He HAS to get a message across. He's not, and Oregon football is looking bad because of it.
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Suppose it comes out that James is guilty and Kelly kicks him off the team. Do you think anyone is going to look back and think, "well, if I get caught for this crime, I will at least not be kicked off the team until the legal process finishes."

The hurt it could cause to suspend James prematurely is that it will indicate to the players that the coach doesn't trust and stand by them.

milohimself said:
IMO that's the only time a coach should be allowed to go back on a suspension, is when the facts of the situation change.
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We don't know the facts of the situation. So, it wouldn't be going back on something due to changed facts. It would be making a mistake and then doing the right thing based on the facts. The facts are always the same and we either know what they are or we don't. Right now, we don't.

milohimself said:
You can go back and search on here when the Blount story happened, I originally said that suspending him for the whole season was initially too much. This is Kelly's program, and if he overreacted due to media pressure, that's on Chip. But if you're going to suspend a player for the whole season, then suspend him for the whole season.

Again, it goes back to image. And the image the rest of the country got from that, if you ask nearly ANYONE who is not a fan of the green and yellow, is that Kelly takes a loose approach with players who might be significant contributors to the football team.
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I believe and agree with you about the Blount punishment being excessive.

I disagree though that he should stick to it if it was wrong. I don't understand that. If a player suffered a wrong at his hands, it's his duty to correct that, no matter what the cost to himself or the program.

milohimself said:
Instead, he screwed up the situation about as worse as he possibly could have. It doesn't matter that he initially overreacted. He had the most talented player on his roster, suspended him for the whole season, then went back on HIS OWN WORD and brought him back right before the biggest game of the season.
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I think it would have been unjust to allow a player who isn't a position to defend themselves to suffer the consequences of his mistakes so that he could avoid scrutiny.
 
#47
#47
milohimself said:
Things haven't been handled quite that poorly, but IMO there is room for improvement and things Kelly could have done better in the situations that have happened.
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I agree with that. As good of a coach as he is, I think he would be the first to admit that media relations is not his strong suit. He clearly doesn't enjoy that aspect. But, he's also making an effort to find his style and figure it out.

The thing is, it will quiet a lot of things if he just keeps winning. And he's good at that. :)

Gotta run for now. Thank you for the intelligent debate.
 
#48
#48
The end of all this is the way the players end up going through this and growing. Is Oregon going to be a program that wins and does things the right way? Or are they going to follow the way of the Jail Blazers and produce good to great teams with guys of questionable character?

The fact that James did get in this trouble and not half a day later there's a DUII arrest does not speak well for the program.

Some of the most beloved coaches have also been great disciplinarians, and guess what? None of them have been loved by all of their players. They have had guys play for them who hate their guts and leave. Those guys tend to be trouble makers.

When you've got key guys getting accused of theft, assault, DUII, and other such charges, there is obviously some poor judgment going on there and when it comes from athletics, time and again, the thinking is such that "I'm a key player, I can do this and get away with it." Consciously or subconsciously. And that happens because the message that "If you get in trouble, you WILL NOT suit up." is simply not strong enough with the players. That's it. That's all there is too it. Maybe his whole team does have his back. That's good, but at the cost of having players believe they're above punishment? Which they CLEARLY believe, or else they wouldn't have gotten in trouble to begin with.

Good debate. Later.
 
#49
#49
kelly will have them on probation by the end of his tenure. he's a redneck dumbass win at all costs style coach.
 
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