At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old man, what in tarnation is going on in college football these days? When did everyone get so politically correct? It's almost enough to make a guy long for the days of leather helmets and drop kicks.
Down the coast at Georgia Tech, coach George O'Leary is under siege after he punished second-string offensive lineman Dustin Vaitekunas last month in practice for missing too many blocks. The institution of punishment in practice is certainly not a novel concept for anyone familiar with up-downs or wind sprints. O'Leary, however, had four defensive linemen charge toward the 6-foot-7, 314-pound Vaitekunas to show him what a quarterback sack feels like. Only two of those linemen heard O'Leary tell them to stop before they reached the kid, whose mom called for criminal charges against O'Leary.
Perhaps O'Leary was not thinking especially clearly when he ordered the code red, but as Jack Nicholson put it, "You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall." Everyone wants a tough, hard-nosed, winning football team, but no one wants to talk about the tactics that go into molding that team. Suck it up and get back in the huddle, Dustin.
But the Yellow Jackets have nothing on Duke when it comes to P.C. overreaction. Thursday, a Durham jury awarded Heather Mercer $2 million, ruling that she was cut as a placekicker from the Blue Devil football team in 1996 solely because of her gender.
Evidently these jurors have never watched a Duke football game. The Devils need all the help they can get. If Mercer could have contributed to a win or two, don't you think Fred Goldsmith, Duke's coach at the time, would have kept her around?
Six other kickers who were on the team testified that Mercer just didn't have the skills to kick in Division I. Goldsmith said he "decided to judge her like a man who was not making a contribution to the team."
In fact, Goldsmith intimated Mercer's gender was the only thing that got her a spot as a walk-on in the first place. She was not particularly impressive when she tried out as a freshman in 1994, but Goldsmith figured she was better than her tryout indicated and also admired her attitude.
"It was obvious she was trying to do something special," Goldsmith testified. "I probably would have been a lot more brutal with a male. I would have said, 'Sorry son, you just don't have it.'"
Of course, women's sports advocates are springing from the woodwork, championing Mercer as a martyr to the cause.
"This court decision is consistent with federal court decisions in that girls need to be allowed to play on boys' teams, especially when there is not a team for the girls," Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, told The Associated Press.
Just kill me now. Slip some arsenic into my Snapple today, because if football teams are going to have to sign up women just to be fair, I don't want to be around to see it. Ladies, please try out for football. I'd love to see some tough mother (literally) on the gridiron - and not just as a kicker. But if you don't make it, don't whine about sexism. Revisit my advice to young Dustin Vaitekunas: Suck it up and get back in the huddle.
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