Finally! Miami Norland vs Boyd Anderson, Sat. @ 3 pm on Sun Sports

Finally!

The Miami Norland High School vs Lauderdale Lakes Boyd Anderson High School 6A title basketball game will be televised Saturday the 15th at 3 p.m. on Sun Sports.

Well, that would be the Boys' title, though Sun Sports described it as Girls...
Sun Sports' website read thusly,
http://www.sunsportstv.com/news.jhtml?method=view&news.id=532

FHSAA BOYS BASKETBALL FINALS
(Sun Sports)
This year Sun Sports will televise all 12 of the FHSAA Girl’s & Boy’s Basketball Finals. The boys Finals air this week on the heels of the girl’s Finals which wrapped up last week. Whit Watson calls the play-by-play action with Mark Wise serving as color analyst.
... Sat., 3/15 at 3pm Girls 6A: Miami Norland vs. Boyd Anderson

The encore telecast will be next Sunday, March 23rd at 4 p.m.

Finally, two weeks after the fact, you can see for yourself why the Miami Norland Vikings are
now ranked No. 25 in the USA Today Super 25 national poll.

Typically, with all the aplomb of a dying newspaper gasping on its deathbed, the Miami Herald doesn't even list this game in their Weekend Sports TV box on page 7-D in today's Herald.

But don't worry, they compensate for this slight by finding the space to list Sunday night's PBR Bull Riding event in Tacoma!

Over the weekend, I'll be commenting on the two-week delay in televising this ballgame, which
only highlights South Florida's continuing Banana Republic sports status.

I should mention here that within the next few days, l'll also be posting a series of essays that absolutely zeroes in on both WQAM and 790 The Ticket's station management, for their
continuing pattern of poor programming choices, especially for what they consciously choose NOT to do.

Sadly, for South Florida's sports fans, everything I'll say will ring 100% true.

I'll also take the Herald to the woodshed for a number of sports-related crimes of omission that, rather curiously, have never been examined to any real degree on WQAM or 790, despite the fact that they are self-evident in the extreme.
That's especially the case in the area of sports media! (Barry Jackson)

Such will be my quest, and trust me, I'll have more than enough ammunition to get it done.

Like low-hanging fruit, just waiting for somebody to come by and bash it like a piñata, my real problem will simply be trying to decide what to bash now and what to leave to a future date.

Though some of you might reasonably guess what some of these subjects might be, I suspect that much of it will cause you to say, "Hmmm... Now that you mention it..."

As with most things I've observed and found interesting or curious over the years, I've taken copious notes over the past four years since returning here from Washington.

I've shared much of what I've observed with several friends and acquaintances at the Herald who are either reporters or editors in other departments, as well as with other local media folks.

Without exception, the Herald employees acknowledge the truth of what I've told them since they've caught that same thing themself when reading the paper, or say, almost forgetting what they're implying, "Well, you think that's something, did you ever notice that..."

And trust me, it's not just other Herald employees in other departments who are well aware of the curious omissions and strange bouts of forgetfulness in the Herald sports section, since even when they're not wearing their Herald hats, they're still sports fans, too.

No, it also includes a handful of national sports writers and columnists I know or have a good relationship with, most of whom you'd probably either recognize by face or byline instantly if you're a real sports fan.

Honestly, at some point with the Herald under the McClatchy regime, it really stops just being about simple incompetence, and becomes the foundation for company policy.

Before you check out the game, check out Roy Fuoco's Lakeland Ledger story of March 8th on the declining attendance at the FHSAA basketball tourney in Lakeland, which, naturally, gets blamed on so many teams being from South Florida.
"[Polk County Athletic Director Don Bridges said] he knew it wouldn't be good news when he saw which teams qualified for the tournament."

Fewer Fans Make Trip To Finals
http://www.theledger.com/article/20080308/NEWS/565895247/1002/SPORTS

Meanwhile, Buddy Collings in today's Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orl-hsclanton1408mar14,0,582918.story
reports that Viking senior Antonio Hester and Head coach Lawton Williams are candidates for 2008 Dairy Farmers Mr. Basketball and Coach of the Year, respectively.

South Beach Hoosier hardly needs to tell his regular readers that one of his first friends at IU was James (Jim) Thomas of Ft. Lauderdale NOVA High School, the 1978-79 Florida Basketball Player of the Year. (Don't recall if they had a corporate sponsor back then.)

Jim was the immensely talented yet modest and steady guy who almost singlehandedly was responsible for dashing the hopes of SBH's beloved North Miami Beach Chargers in the FHSAA state basketball playoffs one year.

Sadly, that was the one year out of four when through dint of some hard work, serendipity and finally, some real height, the Chargers were not only a very good basketball team, but in the opinion of some, perhaps the favorite to win the Florida state championship.
Did I mention that the NMB-NOVA game was at NOVA's gym?

(I'd been there once before for a gymnastics tri-meet, and recall that for the vault, we had to prop open a door leading outside, so as to ensure enough distance to get a good running start.
That was very weird!

I can still picture my wonderfully talented and enthusuastic friend, Linda Zobler, such a bundle of positive energy, waiting anxiously outside the gym door jamb for the vault judges to signal with their hands that she could start her run.
Naturally, because Linda was a champion, she stuck the landing!)

On the chance that you've never noticed it before, here's what I've written about Jim on one of the anchor posts on the SBH front page:
#20, Fort Lauderdale Nova's James (Jim) Thomas, a member of IU's 1981 NCAA basketball championship team and the 1981 NCAA All-Final Four Team, and the 1978-79 Mr. Florida Basketball.

A forensics major who was self-less and generous to a fault, Jim was also one of my very first friends at IU, and a very talented and thoughtful guy who possessed a tireless work ethic and a sense of dedication that was palpable at all times.

Those qualities weren't just on display at Assembly Hall during IU's games and practices, but at many other times and places over the years, with yours truly as a witness, when there were no cheering crowds around.

For instance, on those cold days and nights when I'd meet Jim over at the HPER track, and we'd go up to the upstairs basketball court, where for about an hour, I'd help Jim with various skill drills by throwing or passing him basketballs and watch him go thru his paces: shooting, rebounding, passing and free throw shooting.

It was just Jim and his desire to be the sort of IU student & player who made his family, friends and teammates proud to be around him -and Hoosier Nation proud that he chose to wear the Hoosier cream and crimson with so much grace and dignity;

Michael Dell of Dell Computers ID'd as new bidder in Dolphins sale acc. to ESPN's Hank Goldberg

Sunday December 16th, 2007
10 a.m.

Within the past hour, on the Miami Dolphins pre-game show on WQAM Radio, Hank Goldberg of ESPN (and soon-to-be departed from WQAM at the end of the month) said his sources have identified computer entrepreneur and mogul Michael Dell of Round Rock, TX-based Dell Computers as the newest bidder for the Miami Dolphins team and stadium facilities.
See: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/biographies/en/msd_index?c=us&l=en&s=corp , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dell
and http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/54/richlist07_Michael-Dell_WJOB.html
In September, FORBES magazine listed him as the 8th richest American, with an estimated net worth of $17.2 billion.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/54/richlist07_Michael-Dell_WJOB.html

As you all know, starting this fall, the stadium's newest tenant will be the University of Miami football team, who played for 70 years at the City of Miami's Orange Bowl, which is slated to be demolished in the spring.
A place I practically grew-up at for Dolphin and Hurricane games from 1970-78.

Hank further stated that Related Group CEO Jorge Perez, the real estate mogul whose company owns many of the most valuable properties in South Florida -including many whom I regularly blast on my blog- who'd been identified in initial press reports early Friday evening as a possible bidder for the team, is NOT one of the two bidders who are currently in play.
The other bidder still in the action is Stephen Ross, one of Perez's business partners at The Related Group.

In case you forgot or didn't know about it, Dell Computers bought Miami-based Alienware last year, http://www.alienware.com/ , to help it target consumers and businesses seeking the highest-performance computing products, so I expect at least a few enterprising reporters here to try to talk to Alienware's execs and get some first impressions of Michael Dell.
Well, they should, whether they will or not is the question.
http://www.alienware.com/sub_pages/contact_alienware.aspx

For more info on Alienware, see Dell contracts to buy Alienware, March 23, 2006
http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2006/03/20/daily33.html

Personally, I'd love to see Michael Dell buy the Miami Dolphins.
__________________________________________
excerpt from The Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/614/story/335616.html
Dolphins losing, but fans are still watching
By Barry Jackson
December 7, 2007

AROUND THE DIAL
WQAM (560) is focusing on out-of-market candidates in its search for a successor for Hank Goldberg, who leaves at the end of December instead of taking a 60 percent pay cut.
Former UM lineman Dan Sileo removed his name from consideration because he said he's getting a lucrative new contract from his Tampa station. WQAM, incidentally, is closing in on a five-year deal to retain UM rights.
____________________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/616/v-print/story/278408.html
The Miami Herald
Hank Goldberg leaving WQAM
By Barry Jackson
October 20, 2007

Sports-talk host Hank Goldberg, a South Florida radio presence since the early 1970s, will leave WQAM when his contract expires at the end of December, his agent said Friday.
An official close to the discussions said Goldberg, 67, refused to take a pay cut in the 50 to 60 percent range.
''I can make more elsewhere,'' Goldberg said. ''I don't have that many more years to work.'' Beyond money, Goldberg said, ''I've kind of had enough of this. I've got a lot of ESPN work. I have an idea of something national I want to do.'' Goldberg declined to say what that would be.
Goldberg said he doubts he would work at another South Florida station: ''There's nothing I know of I would be interested in.'' Joel Feinberg, owner of 790 The Ticket, said he won't pursue Goldberg.
WQAM general manager Joe Bell said he and Goldberg are ''at an impasse regarding finances'' but Goldberg can stay if he changes his mind.
Goldberg has been a talk show host on WQAM since November 1992. Two months before that, he was fired from his jobs as a talk-show host and Dolphins color analyst on WIOD because he refused to cancel a guest on his show (novelist/screenwriter Elmore Leonard) when WIOD's program director insisted he talk only about Hurricane Andrew, three weeks after the storm.
Goldberg, who predicts NFL games and does horse racing analysis for ESPN, previously was a sportscaster at NBC 6 when it was WTVJ-Channel 4.
Bell said he will look nationally and locally for a new host to replace Goldberg, who works 4 to 5 p.m. with Jim Mandich and alone from 5 to 7 p.m. Local candidates include WQAM's Kim Bokamper and Orlando Alzugaray and Palm Beach-based sportscaster Evan Cohen, who hosts UM post-game shows for WQAM.
Meanwhile, Bell said he has told Neil Rogers' agent that he will offer the longtime midday host a new contract beyond his current deal that runs through 2008.
____________________________________________
To understand what the alleged incident behind the contretemps below was about, see reader comments at:
http://www.majorwager.com/forums/mess-hall/1059-hank-goldberg-per-herald-2.html
______________________
The Miami Herald
Hank Goldberg back on WQAM
By Barry Jackson
March 10, 2004

Hank Goldberg returned to his WQAM talk show Tuesday after a weeklong absence following an off-air incident involving the station's general sales manager, Luanne Winick.
In an amusing skit, Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt opened Goldberg's show and said, ''We're going to talk about everything except the Dolphins,'' then said he was taking a call -- from Goldberg, who proceeded to interview Wannstedt.
Goldberg said on the air that he was ''glad'' to be back. ''It was lonely without you all,'' he said to his listeners. "I just want to put the whole thing behind me. It was something that just got out of hand and shouldn't have.''
WQAM general manager Greg Reed met with Goldberg on Tuesday morning and said, "Everything was resolved.''
_______________________
The Miami Herald
LOCAL/COLLEGES ROUNDUP
Meeting could decide WQAM fate of Goldberg
Staff and Wire Reports
March 9, 2004

Hank Goldberg's status at WQAM could be determined during a meeting today with general manager Greg Reed. Goldberg has been kept off the air since March 2 following an off-air incident involving Luanne Winick, the station's general sales manager.
If the meeting goes well, Goldberg could be back on the air at 4 p.m. today. But Reed said Monday he has not decided whether to retain Goldberg.
''I don't know what will happen,'' Reed said. "It depends on how the meeting goes.''
Said Goldberg: "I will hear what he has to say. I've talked to Luanne. We're OK. It was a misunderstanding. I'm contrite. I just want to go on.''
On another matter, Reed said he was ''exploring'' the possibility of adding Howard Stern's morning show if Clear Channel's Big-106 does not resume carrying it.
-- BARRY JACKSON
________________________________________
The Miami Herald
WQAM's Goldberg waits for station's decision
By Barry Jackson
March 7, 2004

Hank Goldberg said Saturday he would like to return to his WQAM talk show, but station general manager Greg Reed said he has not decided if or when Goldberg will return to the air.
Goldberg has been off the air since Tuesday after an off-air incident involving the station's general sales manager, Luanne Winick.
''I want to get this over with,'' said Goldberg, who's in the last year of his contract.
"I cursed out a fellow [employee]. I thought I was provoked. I went too far with it. I've apologized for it. It could have been resolved in five minutes if [Reed] had called me in the office, and I would have agreed I was out of line.
"When I was sent home, I was in limbo. He didn't communicate to me directly, so I went to my attorney. I have to protect myself. . . . I haven't been told anything, whether I'm suspended, whether I'm suspended with or without pay. . . . If they want to fine me, OK. Things like this happen all the time in the workplace. I said it won't happen again.''
Reed was noncommittal about Goldberg's future with WQAM.
''I want to take some time and talk to my corporate people,'' Reed said.
"This could have been resolved in a day or two but because of the actions of the attorneys, it has forced us to look at the totality of Hank's contribution to the radio station and his performance.''

Nick Saban the Interloper

After Dave Wannstedt was finally fired, it was hard to find a reasonably sane person down here who didn't agree with the-then conventional wisdom that the Dolphins were lucky to have outbid numerous NFL competitors in grabbing LSU head football coach Nick Saban, just as he was finally willing to make the jump up to the next coaching level.
That Saban was "The Answer," someone who'd help turn the Dolphins around and pull them out of their longstanding doldrums, became, overnight with his hiring, a 'given.'
That there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel went the unspoken assumption.
But as the maxim goes, "be careful what you wish for," since now we recognize that, thanks to Saban's questionable coaching strategy and personnel moves, it was a locomotive barrelling down on us in the tunnel, not a light out of the tunnel, and for our troubles, we just experienced two completely bad years for nothing, because the train engineer bailed out on us.
Now, with the 20/20 vision that hindsight always affords, we recognize that we were all, to differeing degrees, unwitting test subjects in an uncontrolled case study of community hysterical amnesia. Not like that's a first for South Florida!
Now, though, we all see Nick Saban for what he is, and undoubtedly always will be: a very smart but humorless football coach whose particular Achilles heel is that he's not just a belittling lying opportunist, but also chockablock with personality complexes of yet undetermined origins, complexes that will surely get their deserved notoriety once his track record becomes better known nationally while he toils at the University of Alabama.
Fortunately, the Crimson Tide fans will get a taste of their own medicine: they wanted him in the 'worst' way, and that's exactly how they'll get him. In the worst way. Saban's personality quirks, and the consistently shoddy way he treated people who were NOT high-profile folks within the Dolphins organization, like injured player Will Poole for instance, but also including office staffers, will someday become "common knowledge" nationally.
It surely will become a staple of CBS-TV's future football telecasts featuring Alabama during slow-moving third quarters. Then the real debate will begin: are Saban's extra-large bag of personality quirks and lies, like Terrell Owens', ever worth the trouble?
That's a question for another time in the future for most of the country, even while South Florida tries to recover from the petty tyranny of "the Nick-tator," while new Dolphin head coach -and former Hoosier QB and head coach- Cam Cameron continues to charm South Florida media and Dolphin fans in the present by simply being honest and forthright, a nice change of pace after Saban's neverending mendacity.
(I'll be posting my own "Six Degrees" connection to Cam Cameron in just a few days, which in my case, is or more accurately was, just one person removed while I was in Bloomington.)

Yesterday, the Miami Herald's Israel Gutierrez, in perhaps the funniest AND most truthful thing that's been published in the Herald all year, summed it up quite succinctly.
His column precedes excerpts from an email that I sent last December 27th about Saban to some knowledgable folks I know up in the DC area, who usually never miss a thing -but hadn't yet heard about the Poole fiasco.
It's just Saban being Saban.
_____________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/632/story/114559.html

Miami Herald
May 22, 2007
Local recruits hold no grudge toward Saban
By ISRAEL GUTIERREZ

This can't possibly sit well with parents.
Knowing that Nick Saban, a unanimously hated figure in South Florida, has come back to town to get his grubby hands on your kids, trying to convince them to move 750 miles to Tuscaloosa, Ala. He will spend anywhere between zero and four years teaching them the value of cowardice, the practice of not following through on your commitments and the lost art of telling bold-faced lies in front of large groups of people.
Yet here he was last week, strutting back through the scene of the crime, hopping from Northwestern to Krop to Dillard to Chaminade-Madonna on high school recruiting trips, having the audacity to move on with his life and his new job in a place where the level of disgust for him hasn't weakened even a little in the four months since he took his tired act to Alabama. The Dolphins haven't even played a preseason game since he bailed for the cash-lined safety net provided by the Crimson Tide, and here he was, throwing his new job in everyone's face, probably sporting a ''Got Twelve?'' T-shirt under his dress shirt that brags about Alabama's tradition-rich football program.

NOT SO FAST
No kid in his right mind would fall for a pitch from this guy, right? Not this soon after he became the biggest villain in South Florida sports history, right? No high school coach would push his players in the direction of a man actually wielding a pitchfork, would he?
Wrong, apparently.
Saban might have disgraced the position of coach of your beloved Miami Dolphins, then somehow turned that into a lucrative college coaching position and left trails of deceit and insincerity the entire way out the door. But to these Division I prospects, he's just another big-time college coach offering a playing opportunity on a big stage. And to these high school coaches, Saban is just another man trying to do right by those kids for the next four years.
One horrific experience with a professional football team isn't going shape their opinions on the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

NO BIG DEAL
''Those kids, they didn't have no hatred toward him because of the Dolphins,'' Dillard coach Keith Franklin said about Saban's visit to his school. ``To be honest, there are a lot of kids who don't even like the Dolphins.''
Fans or not, there would seem to be an easy argument against Saban for student-athletes who witnessed firsthand what he did with the Dolphins. Loyalty and integrity would seem to be principles high school athletes look for in a coach they are about to commit four years to. Saban is hardly a man oozing those qualities these days. It can't possibly be easy to trust a man who just duped an entire sports community and is somehow convinced he did nothing wrong.
But there are no such judgments being made on the recruiting trail -- not even down here. Maybe it's because these students and their coaches have come to terms with an idea that is commonly tossed around in their world: There is no loyalty in sports.
Why worry about Saban's integrity and the possibility he will leave this job, too, when not even the most honorable of coaches can truly promise they will be around for the next four years?
Northwestern High School coach Roland Smith was recruited to the University of Miami by then-coach Jimmy Johnson, who was only around two more years before leaving for the NFL.
Krop coach Rick DiVita sees loyalty and commitment as two-way streets.
''The baseball coach at FIU [Danny Price] was the head baseball coach for 28 years and he got fired [Saturday],'' DiVita said. ``That upsets me more as a coach. Nobody's loyal to you.''
So when it comes to Saban, they will overlook his disastrous exit from the Dolphins. And the kids?
''I hope they're not shallow enough to judge somebody because he made a job choice and moved on,'' DiVita said.
Added Smith: ``You can't fault the man for following his heart.''
So as much as it might disgust Dolphins fans that Saban was back in town, parading in front of high school athletes and selling himself and his latest university to them, it's not worth getting upset about. Because not only do the athletes and coaches still accept Saban, some of them still believe he actually has a beating heart.
If it's any consolation, Saban wasn't welcome onto the St. Thomas Aquinas campus. That has less to do with Saban and everything to do with athletic director and football coach George Smith's disagreement with the way Alabama treated its previous coach Mike Shula, but it's a small victory.
Take that, Saban.

© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company
______________________________________
the aforementioned email from last December, a few days following a Dolphins' Monday Night Football encounter:

"...I say that because I know the AP version of the story you guys would probably read in the Washington Post would necessarily neglect the abject sense of ridiculousness about this latest case of Saban's poor treatment of underlings, morphing into someone from within the Dolphins organization finally deciding that a MNF perch was the perfect venue to drop-the-dime on Saban and the team's funk behind his back.
What goes around goes around, indeed!
Apparently, those bad feelings have been festering for weeks and months, from the absurd to the sublime, with example number one usually being Saban's policy that makes his assistant coaches veritable hostages, unable to speak to the press about anything.
(Such a contrast with the Shula years, glory and not-so glorious years, when Carl Taseff, Bill Arnsbarger, Monte Clark and all the others were always available at some point in the week to help offer some insight to Shula's thinking or coaching technique thru the local media so that the Dolphin fans would have a better idea of what was going on and not be so anxious.)
There are apparently other examples of him undermining people, but they have yet to become public.

In many ways, it reminds me of Mark Maske's lousy, time-delayed coverage of the Orioles at the Washington Post for years, when the late Johnny Oates was Manager, where Oriole fans didn't find out what was really going on with the team until the spring training after he'd been fired. For instance, how Oates and his pitching coach continually undermined the younger pitchers' confidence, with all sorts of stupid comments and actions that only made a shaky staff more insecure.
(As if the Orioles needed more probelems while competing within the same division as the Red Sox and the Yankees, and their loyal fans who make Camden Yards their second home when they came into town, much to Peter Angelos' neverending consternation, as they lead cheers for these teams and drown out loyal Oriole fans, who continue to turn out in lesser numbers every year for a bad product.)

Apparently, Saban's sort of self-absorbed philosophy, month-after- month, with no tangible positive results to show for it on the field, the only result that counts, has finally led some folks behind the scenes within the Dolphin organization to become so upset that they actually hope Saban fails, and say as much to local media.
Yes, the South Florida sports media, the usual suspects cowed by Saban even more than the team's fans, who, par for the course and what experience has taught us about them, kept some of the most shameful and egregious examples of Saban's ire and quirky behavior to themselves, lest they write or talk about it about it and suffer the 'slings and arrows' of Saban's 'outrageous fortune.'
The latter sounds very much like the bad old days last year with Hoosier Nation, under Mike Davis, even though everyone knew he was personally, a very good and classy guy.
The idea that both Saban and Mike Davis are now in the same state, somehow seems delicious irony to this Hoosier!

In an ideal world, equipped with your office answering machine phone number, I'd have at least been able to provide you all some quality/contentious audio clips to hear for yourself, while you prepped your dissection of NFL Weekend # 16.
But since I didn't have it, I couldn't even leave thirty seconds of nuggets on the answering machine, assuming it would give me that long. Here's why I mention this.

My usual routine after a Dolphins game is to throw in a blank cassette and start rolling once WQAM AM-560 Radio's 'Real post-game' coverage begins, hosted by Orlando Alzugaray
http://www.wqam.com/index.php?page=328 and former Giant & Hurricane linebacker Michael Barrow, who are both extremely more knowledgeable and opinionated than these types of football postgame shows usually are around the country.
I like them because they are also MUCH more -when appropriate- insightful/critical of the Dolphins' players and organization, game in and game out, than the Dolphins' current official broadcast partner, WAXY, AM-790.

Usually, about 30-45 minutes after the game, once the players and coaches have said their peace and beat a hasty retreat from the locker room, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's terrific Dolphin beat reporter Alex Marvez comes on and connects the dots on lot of things you wouldn't have known while the game was going on, that, in almost every case, the network TV talking heads doing the game never mentioned -or knew in the first place.

(Did you happen to catch ESPN's Mike Tirico's two rather obvious errors last night? Nobody's 100%, of course, but these ad lib comments were such obvious screw-ups that I was momentarily taken aback, since he's usually on top of things.
Tirico mentioned that the only Dolphin father-son pairing in history was former DL Randy Crowder and current LB Channing Crowder, forgetting that -HELLO!- Brian Griese was once here not too many months ago.)

Well, this time, Alex really outdid himself, providing an account of the Steve Young-Daunte Culpepper exchange that was very un-like the Herald's coverage that morning, which seemed even worse than usual because it was both a MNF game and a holiday.
Alex on the other hand, calls it pretty much as I usually see it, so I take his
take more seriously than anyone else's.

Last week, Marvez was the first reporter in South Florida to give Dolphin fans the unvarnished truth behind the horribly embarrassing Will Poole publicity disaster, mentioning on the WQAM post-game show, minutes after the 21-0 loss to the Bills, linking it in Dolphin fans' minds as just the latest in a never ending series of Saban screw-ups: Poole's release is news to him

Since Saban subscribes to the Bill Parcells philosophy that says that coaches should be able to pick the groceries they want and cook the meals themself, the fault in the Poole story resides with Saban alone, adding to the lore of his errors of judgment and signs of NFL imbecility.
I wonder if Saban will develop a fear of red hankerchiefs once he gets to Alabama?

Do you remember how I commented in a recent email how things under Saban are rapidly approaching territory that I thought I'd never see again, i.e. the bad, sad and lean Redskin days under Richie Pettibon?
Well if you do, you'll also remember that I said that despite the criticism of Richie's coaching or bad decision making, even the most ardent -yet-critical- Redskin fan always liked or loved Richie the man. Of that there was never any doubt.
They wanted him to succeed.

Well, judging by the caller phone calls I heard -admittedly, not the scientific standard I usually employ, as I usually cringe myself when I hear an insipid caller comment- I'm starting to think that think even I understated the depth of public anger towards Saban and his simple refusal to learn from past mistakes, since Team Saban never publicly accounts for things than a
fair-minded yet knowledgeable objective observer would have to call him on the carpet for.

Saban has done nothing to endear himself with fans or media, from his refusal to allow his assistants to speak to the media -the Mike Mularkey Protection Act if you ask me- to his inability to project even a scintilla of sincerity, promising on even his own childrens' lives at a press conference that he was telling the truth and not bound for Tuscaloosa.

Alex previewed his own SFSS blog on the radio show by connecting these
interesting dots, which speaks volumes:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/football/pro/dolphins/

December 26, 2006
No news conference for you
For the first time in a decade since I've been covering the team, the Dolphins coach will not hold a news conference the day after a regular-season game.
According to a Dolphins spokesman, the reason a news conference wasn't held today is because Nick Saban's time is more limited than usual because of game-planning responsibilities in a short week, stemming from having to play the Jets on Monday night.
That never kept Jimmy Johnson, Dave Wannstedt or Jim Bates from addressing the media the day after a Monday night game.

SBH

P.S. While down the road in Aventura this afternoon at a nearby Starbuck's , I saw the police escort down Biscayne Blvd. for what I thought at first was Tony Blair, who got into town last night. But it was actually the fabulously tricked out Orange Bowl charter buses escorting the Louisville Cardinals football team.
Not sure if they'll be staying up the street from me at the Westin Diplomat, or whether that will be Wake Forest's home away from home.
Should be a great game!