The Not So Happy Valley

Isn't it amazing what can happen in the span of a week?  Not only can an entire program be put under major scrutiny, but also a legendary head coach is fired, the president of the university resigns, and the entire campus makes the hit Three Days Grace track "Let's Start A Riot" sound like something out of a children's tv show.  Seriously though, Penn State fans and students are just nuts. 

However let's not forget about the victims in this whole situation.  From a personal opinion, Paterno did everything he was suppose to do.  He covered himself legally and he did the right thing by promisiing to retire at the end of the season.  The board of the university however saw things a bit differently.  Not wanting to deal the mess that it would cause having Paterno coach the last 4-5 games of the season, the decision was made late last night to fire the 84 year old head coach of Penn State who's been a coach at the program for the past 61 years. 

While I do not condone the actions of Paterno's staff in the slightest, the way this situation has been handled has been purely dreadful.  Joe Paterno took responsibility for his staff's action and told the board that he will reitre at the end of the season in order for them to not worry about forcing him out or not.  He did the right thing.  The board on the other hand did not.  While I've never been a Penn State fan myself, I still recognize the fact that this man is a legend in the sport world and an honorable thing to do would've been to let him finish this season the right way.  Not like this.

Joe Paterno gave 61 years of his life to this program.  He won 2 National Championships.  He holds the records for most bowl appearances and wins.  And he's the winningest coach in NCAA Football history with 409 wins.  You can't let this man go like this after everything he's done for this university.  I understand the reasoning behind it, but sometimes reasoning is just not enough to change public perception. 

NBA Lockout: The State of Flux Continues

It's officially been 123 days into the NBA lockout and so far, the entire 1st month of the NBA season has been canceled.  The NBA owners and players have made agreements on close to every issue except for 2 important ones.  Those issues being the salary cap debate and the league revenue split. 

To start off with the salary cap, the idea of anything other than a hard cap being implemented into the league is a complete joke.  The NBA does have a salary cap at this point, but it isn't as hard as other leagues.  If the NBA wants to make their product interesting, they need to make the league more balanced and to do that, the hard cap is the way to go.  If you look at the NHL right now, their system is a hard salary cap.  Now while, hockey may not be as popular as basketball is in this country, you can't argue the fact that after the NHL Lockout and the implementation of a hard salary cap, the NHL has become a much more balanced league and more entertaining in this blogger's personal opinion.  The NBA can still manage to have teams with 3 All-Star players, but the hard cap will create some better and tougher competition for those teams. 

As for the league revenue split, whoever agreed to give the players 57% of the revenue in the previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, should really be looked at with disdain.  57 percent? Are you kidding me?  Players should not be getting more revenue than the owners in any type of professional sports league.  If you ask me, the whole story of how 22 of 30 franchises last year lost money in one of the NBA's better seasons can be blamed simply on the fact that players were making most of the money, not the owners who have to fund these franchises. 

The bottom line is simple.  The owners need to demand 50-50 revenue split and a "very" hard salary cap.  Players will protest and be angry obviously, but players need to realize that the owners agendas, at least in this blogger's mind, are the absolute right call.  I wonder how Kobe and LeBron will be spending their extended time off?