We hope to not take too many controversial positions on this here blog … doesn’t sit well with management when you piss off the readers … but we couldn’t help saying something about the angst-ridden pieces about Bill Self post-championship. It was like a couple of these guys got together at a bong bar to smoke unfiltered and bitch about reality:

Wojciechowski: It’s like - why do you have to be a slave to the corporate master? Huh? All they want to talk about granfalloons, like “alma mater” and “money”. Those things are false groups, man. They are false. They aren’t real.

Shanoff: Yeah, man. I mean, who the fuck tries to turn SUCCESS into MONEY? That’s just the corporations talking, trying to keep the little man down.

Whitlock: Who the fuck let you in here?

[adjusts tie] Are these guys fucking serious? Really? We know that a couple of them have axes to grind (Whitlock works for a KC paper; Gene W. grew up in central Kansas), and we hate to be found agreeing with Simmons (a capital crime in the blogosphere to be sure), but what a bunch of hypocritical crap. More bitching after the jump.

As a starting note, nothing we say below should be construed as critiquing Kansas fans from some legitimate melancholy right now. We’re avid fans too, and we would hate it if our coaches left for greener pastures. (We were apoplectic when Coack K was considering leaving Duke for the Lakers in 2004.) So, Kansas fans, please feel free to have as much angst as you deem appropriate over this whole issue.

But you - sports writers - have no such standing. We understand that your job is to take a stance and defend it, but we don’t understand why would take a stance on what essentially comes down to a profoundly personal issue - and then place your own value on that choice, and deem the actual decision-maker morally bankrupt if his value aren’t the same.

For instance, an actual quote from Gene W.’s piece for tWWL:

Alma maters are overrated. So is money.

Now, Gene went to Tennessee, so maybe he doesn’t understand the value of either alma mater or money. (Burn! But we kid.) But these are the values upon which he judges Bill Self - and he closes the piece by saying that if Self ranks alma mater and money higher than he does, that he is essentially a bad man for holding such preferences and will live to regret it.

First, blaming someone for being interested in going home to work makes little sense to us. We’re not coaches or players, so maybe we just think differently - but even as a lowly attorney, we can say with 100% certainty that if one of our alma maters (sadly, we have three) offered us a position as General Counsel, we would think very, very seriously about leaving the city and heading back to College Town, USA. It’s an emotional and personal decision, and belittling the personal aspects of it because they don’t match your personal preference is borderline unprofessional.

Second, what exactly would Kansas fans have to complain about if he left? Unlike Roy Williams, he brought home a championship before heading home to alma mater. Even after NBA departures, the cupboard would still be full of good players for whoever steps into his place on the sidelines. And did we mention he just won a national championship?

Third, let’s take the alma mater thing out of it and just consider the money. Just what makes seeking a higher paycheck bad? Haven’t we moved pass the paternalistic articles about student athletes who leave school early for the pros? Sure, everyone wishes they would stay in college and get a degree, but ultimately it is their choice to seek the secure short run option over the riskier long run option. Isn’t this the same thing? So, do Gene, Dan, and Jason think that it is OK to be paternalistic with middle-age white men but not with late adolescent (and predominantly) black men?

Fourth, and most importantly, how exactly did Self “making the story about himself” after the championship? Oh, really? He did that? We weren’t aware that (a) he started the rumors that OSU would offer him a huge contract and (b) he wrote the damn stories that went out across the wire services himself. Like ol’ Roy before him, Self was in an unenviable situation, and did what he could to manage the story while staying in the moment with his team.

We aren’t saying that the media should never give opinions about personal actions. Saying that it’s bad when athletes and coaches engage in criminal activity? Totally fair game. But scorning a man who faces an agonizingly difficult decision immediately after reaching his professional pinnacle, simply for recognizing the decision as difficult? Hack. Hack hack hack hack hack.

[/rant]