Doc's TML: UC has a life skills director?
The Morning Line
Paul Daugherty, pdaugherty@enquirer.com 10:32 a.m. EDT October 29, 2014

The TML home office is Jillian The Magnificent's old room. It faces east, toward a woods still golden with fall leaves, and a glorious sun arising. From this perch, I see squirrels, rabbits eating my hostas, all kinds of birds at the four feeders and the occasional deer. It makes me happy.

Which sometimes makes it hard to be crabby when I wanna be. Such, as you know, now.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, GENTLEMEN. I'm glad T-Tubs decided to crack down on the growing list of miscreant players on his roster. I'm really glad he took the subject head-on yesterday at his weekly presser. I should have gone. As an opinion-ist, what I choose to write about is as important as the words themselves. I fumbled at the 2-yard line on that one.

Anyway, I liked that Tuberville said this:

"No more second chances, bottom line," Tuberville said. "I owe it to the city, this university and this football team to put good kids on the field that are going to do what we ask them to do."

No mealy-mouthing. No waiting for some media hack to ask the question, no getting all defensive about it. Be proactive. All good.

Our TM story from UC beat maven T. Groeschen went on to explain this:

UC has a life skills director for athletics, and that the school is evaluating resumes to fill an open football player development/life skills slot.

A what?

This is the part where the OG slides the glasses down to the bridge of his nose and slams his cane on the kitchen table.

Did you have a "life skills director'' when you were in school? Did you have mentors and academic tutors and study tables and training tables and did you receive all that absolutely free of charge?

Or were you like me, and countless others, who worked 20 hours a week in the cafeteria, washing pots and slamming dishes through the Hobart machine, to pick up spending cash?

Worse, did you graduate beneath a mountain of loan debt?

Life skills director?

Please.

Here are your life skills, privileged UC football guy:

1. Go to class.

2. Go to practice.

3. Be grateful about it.

4. Rinse and repeat.

No one should need a Life Skills Director to understand that punching someone in the head is not a worthy life skill. No one should have his Life Skills Guy telling him, "Breaking and entering is against the agreed-upon rules.'' Nor is getting drunk and disorderly high on the Enviable Life Skills List.

You wanna be a typical undergrad? Have at it.

Pay your way through school (assuming you can get in), and feed Hobart five dinners a week, and on Sunday at brunch. That way, you can do all the stupid stuff you want and if you get run by the cops, there's a good chance it won't make the public prints.

Meantime, stop being a damned knucklehead. Is that hard? If you're having a hard time resisting the urge to get stoopid, dial up your Life Skills Director or something.

I feel better now.

.....

So you're a miscreant if you're out with your girlfriend and defend yourself when accosted by aggressive racists, or get caught underage drinking (which most of us probably did in our youth). Daugherty is a clown. I suggest he spend even more time staring out his window at squirrels.

You can't compare your typical student to a student-athlete (particularly guys from your revenue sports).

Paul Doc also fails to to comment that every FBS schools (and likely a lot of the FCS) have people in similar positions all over the country. This is not a UC problem.

(10-29-2014 11:29 AM)JackieTreehorn Wrote:  So you're a miscreant if you're out with your girlfriend and defend yourself when accosted by aggressive racists, or get caught underage drinking (which most of us probably did in our youth). Daugherty is a clown. I suggest he spend even more time staring out his window at squirrels.

Whether everyone does it or not, are you not still a miscreant if you are caught underage drinking? Perhaps Doc is a clown, I certai9nly won't argue that, but does that make him wrong on this?

(10-29-2014 11:31 AM)ctipton Wrote:  

(10-29-2014 11:29 AM)JackieTreehorn Wrote:  So you're a miscreant if you're out with your girlfriend and defend yourself when accosted by aggressive racists, or get caught underage drinking (which most of us probably did in our youth). Daugherty is a clown. I suggest he spend even more time staring out his window at squirrels.

Whether everyone does it or not, are you not still a miscreant if you are caught underage drinking? Perhaps Doc is a clown, I certai9nly won't argue that, but does that make him wrong on this?

Isn't a miscreant considered a bad and vile person? Does drinking a beer if you're under 21 really make someone a vile human being?

(10-29-2014 11:31 AM)CliftonAve Wrote:  You can't compare your typical student to a student-athlete (particularly guys from your revenue sports).

Paul Doc also fails to to comment that every FBS schools (and likely a lot of the FCS) have people in similar positions all over the country. This is not a UC problem.

OSU probably has 5 mentor life skills people, Michigan has 350 employees in their Athletic Department. When you have a team with 110 players from all over the place, coaches constantly recruiting, and players putting in hours close to a full time job yeah it is a good idea to have a life skills mentor position.

(10-29-2014 11:39 AM)JackieTreehorn Wrote:  

(10-29-2014 11:31 AM)ctipton Wrote:  

(10-29-2014 11:29 AM)JackieTreehorn Wrote:  So you're a miscreant if you're out with your girlfriend and defend yourself when accosted by aggressive racists, or get caught underage drinking (which most of us probably did in our youth). Daugherty is a clown. I suggest he spend even more time staring out his window at squirrels.

Whether everyone does it or not, are you not still a miscreant if you are caught underage drinking? Perhaps Doc is a clown, I certai9nly won't argue that, but does that make him wrong on this?

Isn't a miscreant considered a bad and vile person? Does drinking a beer if you're under 21 really make someone a vile human being?

There was some chatter by university presidents, a few years ago, where they were hopeful to have the drinking age lowered to 18. It is legal to drink in many states under the age of 21. In Ohio if your parents or guardian are present you can drink at 18. In La, 18 minimum, you can even drink in a restaurant if parents are with you.

What this is about is what Tommy said, they are ball players and they are held to a higher standard.

I guess Ivory Tower Paul also doesn't seem to realize that some of these guys would never even be in college, much less on scholarship, if they weren't good football players. Being a college football player in and of itself is a full time job and some of these young men come in ill equipped to deal with the demands. So you can either get people to help them manage their time and responsibilities so they remain eligible, which let's face it, is the true goal, or just do shortcuts like UNC did.

I worked full time and went to school full time and I didn't need anyone to direct my life skills. What I didn't do was go out at 3am and get into a fight.

(10-29-2014 12:01 PM)Dannyboy Wrote:  I worked full time and went to school full time and I didn't need anyone to direct my life skills. What I didn't do was go out at 3am and get into a fight.

Good for you. I bet if you polled your classmates the percentage that got liquored up and got into a fight is higher than the percentage on this football team.

The difference is the media didn't care to report it because nobody cared about Joe Blow getting into a fight at a bar near campus.

Only Doc could find a way p!ss all over CTT's stand against knuckleheadedness. I guess he has that special ability (or perahaps, he is simply "special").

(10-29-2014 12:01 PM)Dannyboy Wrote:  I worked full time and went to school full time and I didn't need anyone to direct my life skills. What I didn't do was go out at 3am and get into a fight.

I'm sure you also walked up hill both ways to school, and in the snow.

I'm not encouraging underage drinking, but I also know we're not all Mormons.

(10-29-2014 12:01 PM)Dannyboy Wrote:  I worked full time and went to school full time and I didn't need anyone to direct my life skills. What I didn't do was go out at 3am and get into a fight.

Worked part time, in the National Guard, school full time, my mentor was the asst Dean at DAAP (very helpful to me) and I did get into a few fights in the AM. They all deserved what they had coming.

After doing a few minutes of research I found "Life Skills Coordinator" staff listed on the Xavier, UK, and OU (Athens) staff directories, and "Player Development" staff on the O$U and UL directories. I only searched those 5 universities, but I'm sure most D1 schools have such positions. Google makes investigative journalism quite easy, but I guess Dr. D***head wasn't up to the task. It's beating a dead horse around here, but the journalism in this city is pathetic.

Except Tommy G, of course.

(10-29-2014 12:01 PM)Dannyboy Wrote:  I worked full time and went to school full time and I didn't need anyone to direct my life skills. What I didn't do was go out at 3am and get into a fight.

Congrats. I only worked 25 hours a week. No one ever had to remind me that nothing good happens after 1 AM unless it is alone with a coed.

Even in the hood they know breaking a window of someone else's crib will cause the man to make you a perp.

(10-29-2014 12:49 PM)TubaCat Wrote:  After doing a few minutes of research I found "Life Skills Coordinator" staff listed on the Xavier, UK, and OU (Athens) staff directories, and "Player Development" staff on the O$U and UL directories. I only searched those 5 universities, but I'm sure most D1 schools have such positions. Google makes investigative journalism quite easy, but I guess Dr. D***head wasn't up to the task. It's beating a dead horse around here, but the journalism in this city is pathetic.

Except Tommy G, of course.

You hit the nail on the head. This is a common position at pretty much all universities. He is either lazy, incompetent or both. Most of the media in this town does not understand college athletics/administration, other than what they pick up from espn. P D ouche should stick to topics he can understand, like writing about his kids.

(10-29-2014 01:33 PM)bearcatmill Wrote:  

(10-29-2014 12:49 PM)TubaCat Wrote:  After doing a few minutes of research I found "Life Skills Coordinator" staff listed on the Xavier, UK, and OU (Athens) staff directories, and "Player Development" staff on the O$U and UL directories. I only searched those 5 universities, but I'm sure most D1 schools have such positions. Google makes investigative journalism quite easy, but I guess Dr. D***head wasn't up to the task. It's beating a dead horse around here, but the journalism in this city is pathetic.

Except Tommy G, of course.

You hit the nail on the head. This is a common position at pretty much all universities. He is either lazy, incompetent or both. Most of the media in this town does not understand college athletics/administration, other than what they pick up from espn. P D ouche should stick to topics he can understand, like writing about his kids.

Local media really knows nothing about college athletics.

(10-29-2014 01:33 PM)bearcatmill Wrote:  You hit the nail on the head. This is a common position at pretty much all universities. He is either lazy, incompetent or both.

This is P-Doc we're talking about... He's both, plus a UC hater who poses as a "I love UC..." guy. The only time he's got something "good" to say about UC is when things are bad (reread the "Tommy Tuberville Deserves More Time" article) and even then usually has some "back-handed compliment" in store. All the other times, he's pretty much negative on UC.

This is just the type of low-hanging fruit he loves.

(10-29-2014 01:33 PM)bearcatmill Wrote:  

(10-29-2014 12:49 PM)TubaCat Wrote:  After doing a few minutes of research I found "Life Skills Coordinator" staff listed on the Xavier, UK, and OU (Athens) staff directories, and "Player Development" staff on the O$U and UL directories. I only searched those 5 universities, but I'm sure most D1 schools have such positions. Google makes investigative journalism quite easy, but I guess Dr. D***head wasn't up to the task. It's beating a dead horse around here, but the journalism in this city is pathetic.

Except Tommy G, of course.

You hit the nail on the head. This is a common position at pretty much all universities. He is either lazy, incompetent or both. Most of the media in this town does not understand college athletics/administration, other than what they pick up from espn. P D ouche should stick to topics he can understand, like writing about his kids.

Well, all you have to do is read the frilly, saccharin prose of the first paragraph to figure out what PD is likely all about. It seems like he thinks he's the next Updike or Fitzgerald and just needs to crank out his 1st great American novel so he can leave this lowly sports crap behind. The pap he wrote about his dog last week was embarrassing to be run in the sports section.
He's kinda like Mo "Know-it-all" Egger, who seem to think journalism=being contrarian.

Why don't you all post these comments on the actual article. He actually reads those and maybe if enough UC fans came after him hed stop pushing this crap