Used to be, increasing technology of televisions and sound systems made you feel almost like you were at the games.
Now, somehow, the sales pitch has become the exact opposite. The Miami Dolphins' stadium renovation includes something called "Living Room Seating," which allows well-heeled donors to feel as if they're home on the couch.
Yes, there's something wrong with this.
What, for an extra 5 grand they'll give you a remote control to throw at the television?
Here's the story from the Palm Beach Post.
For high rollers, the club added 32 four-person “living room boxes” costing $75,000 per season, or $1,875 per ticket. All went within about six weeks, Garfinkel said.
A few Wednesday links:
-- In Dallas, an update on Chad Morris' rebuilding project. Here's a one-liner I'm not sure we heard when he was at Clemson:
“It doesn’t matter who we play, where we play or what time we play,” he said. “Just tell us when. … If you want to play the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 4, we don’t flinch. Whatever it is, don’t flinch.”
Moreover: “When we step out on the field, you’re going to have to kill us to beat us.”
Morris also made a couple of references to how different his approach is to what the players are used to. The former staff brought a laid-back vibe with them from Hawaii and believed in repetitions in practice more than physical contact.
“Football is a tough sport played by tough people,” Morris said. “A lot of these guys are understanding that right now. We’ve hit more in the last week than they’ve hit in five years. Big deal. It’s football — that’s just part of it.
“You have to learn to play the game, learn how to tackle. How do you learn how to tackle? You got to tackle in practice.”
-- Pat Forde was at Notre Dame's media day yesterday and typed this column.
I asked him a follow-up question: What are those strengths and weaknesses? That answer was interesting, too.
"Well, I think the strengths are we develop depth within the program, and I think that's probably something that has taken time and one that we've really committed ourselves to in terms of not straying what we believe are the right fits here at Notre Dame," Kelly said. "Those that recognize the value of a degree here at Notre Dame and are committed to what a Notre Dame education is about and playing for championships. So that's taken some time. That's the foundation of our strength.
"Our weaknesses, I think we have to continue to look at ways as we continue to move the bar academically here, we have to continue to support our student-athletes and continue to look for ways to make sure that our kids are solid, solidly supported academically, and I think we're making great progress there. Those would be a couple that come to mind right away."
So in terms of academic support, is Kelly asking for Notre Dame to modernize? Or compromise? Does it need to commit more resources, or lower its famously high standards?
Know this: Brian Kelly's Notre Dame is a harder place to successfully blend elite athletics and elite academics than was Knute Rockne's Notre Dame, or Frank Leahy's, or Ara Parseghian's. And for three straight offseasons, we have seen the struggle.
In 2013, starting quarterback Everett Golson was suspended for the season for academic fraud. In 2014, four players were suspended all season for academic fraud – some of them key contributors. This summer's academic casualty was No. 2 running back Greg Bryant, who is gone for the year.
Kelly didn't blame those specific academic losses on insufficient academic support from the school. But his comment could lead you to that assumption.
Kelly's message seemed to be this: If Notre Dame is going to sign national championship-caliber players who might be an academic reach, it needs to give them every chance to compete with all the gifted students on campus. That message seems to have resonated with the administration, which is proud of the football program's academic progress rate (a strong 978 score in NCAA tabulations last spring) but acknowledges that some modifications can bolster its athletes.
-- In Tallahassee, Corey Clark gives his take on the social media bans on the run.
Last week the Clemson football program announced that its players would be banned from social media during the 2015 season. Judging from the reaction of some media folks on Twitter, you would have thought Dabo Swinney told his players they couldn’t vote.
“Another institution teaching kids about the future by putting duct tape over their mouths,” tweeted ESPN’s Darren Rovell.
“Just got a text from a coach seeing this. ‘It’s nuts. Come to Clemson. We’ll treat you like you’re 8 yrs old,’” Fox Sports’ Bruce Feldman tweeted.
USA Today’s Dan Wolken added: “Banning unpaid amateurs from social media, which is a part of life like it or not, is just goofy on every level.”
Who knew Twitter was such an unalienable right?
And this:
And what’s ironic, to me, is that media members are criticizing it so vehemently. Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann – a 56-year-old Ivy League graduate – was suspended by ESPN for a series of tweets to Penn State fans.
Bill Simmons, 45, was reportedly Twitter-banned by ESPN as well for a series of tweets criticizing the network’s unwatchable shout-fest known as First Take.
And Rovell, the sworn enemy of duct tape, had to apologize last year after a less-than flattering tweet about a Chicago Bulls fan. It was rumored he was forced to take a Twitter sabbatical as well.
These are well-educated, highly compensated grown men, and in their boss’s opinion even they couldn’t be trusted with Twitter. And yet we lampoon Dabo and Jimbo for keeping 19-year-olds off social media?
It’s simple. Million-dollar businesses (and that’s exactly what big-time college football programs are) don’t like to be embarrassed. They don’t want to garner any negative publicity. So they take precautions.
-- Matt Hayes of The Sporting News ranks his Top 15 stadium experiences. I don't normally link slideshows because they're annoying as heck, but he ranks Death Valley No. 15 and says this:
-- In Athens, the new OC adjusts to Georgia's tempo.
Georgia’s tempo on offense under its first-year coordinator will be at a quicker pace than he is accustomed to in his previous stops.
“It’s as fast as I’ve ever been around,” Brian Schottenheimer, offensive coordinator for nine seasons with the NFL’s St. Louis Rams and New York Jets, said this week. “Obviously, these guys are used to it. It’s pretty impressive to tell you the truth. …The tempo’s been very good.”
Schottenheimer took over a Georgia offense that set records in recent seasons under Mike Bobo using pro-style looks while still having the ability to play a more uptempo style that gave the Bulldogs the ability to control the game to their liking.
Behind Nick Chubb and his 1,547 rushing yards, Georgia averaged 67.5 plays per game in 2014, down from 72.7 plays in 2013. Neither is at the uptempo pace of a Baylor or West Virginia, but one starter suggested the Bulldogs may pick up their pace even more.
“I think it’s probably maybe even going to be more uptempo,” starting offensive right guard Greg Pyke said. “Schotty likes to go fast and I think that’s the way we’re going to beat people, defenses not being able to line up. They’re going to have trouble kind of covering our guys downfield or the guys in the backfield.”
-- And we close with some excellent piano accompaniment to a classic Ryan Adams song from Austin City Limits:
LW
