Spoiled brats and high paid coaches

What do spoiled brats and high paid coaches sometimes have in common? They both resort to higher powers to accomplish something they fear they can't do on their own.

Rachel Canning is a teenager from New Jersey who left her parents home when she reached her 18th birthday. She had been raised by a pair of self-described liberal parents who seemingly spared no expense or effort to do for her or get for her anything that would be beneficial for her growing up.

Miss Canning developed a taste for alcohol when she was 15 by attending alcoholic parties held by attorney John Inglesino, the father of her best friend. To her horror, her own parents refused to provide her booze themselves, and even had the temerity to disapprove of her chosen boyfriend, a lad of dubious morals and character.

She left home to move in with the Iglesinos, who then helped her file a lawsuit demanding $650 a week child support, money to pay her lawyer (Inglesino), money for some bills she had to pay, plus money for college. Shockingly, the judge in the case informed her that she had no case and he recommended family counseling.

Of course, what she should have done was get a job, apply for a college loan and get on with her life. However, with what I have seen of her personal characteristics, she probably is lacking in marketable job skills and likely lacks the drive, ambition and character traits needed to successfully compete in the job market.

Miss Canning is a "victim" only in the sense that she has been brought up with an entitlement mentality. But she really, really wants to have nice things, go to a good college, probably have a new car and so the courts are the only avenue she has to reach her goals. Sadly.

Now what does this have to do with high paid football coaches? A little and a lot.

Gus Mahlzahn, former rival coach of our Blackhawks, former Razorback assistant, and now head coach of the Auburn Tigers, has a lot of people upset.

He is the chief architect of what is called the hurry-up-offense in college football. Mahlzahn will draw up a series of plays in advance with his offense knowing which play to run without having to resort to huddling to getting plays in from the sidelines. Defenses will have to be on their toes all the time, not having the little breaks to saunter around after every play as is common with a lot of teams.

Lou Saban has a good thing going at Alabama as he is the highest paid coach in the U.S. at nearly $6 million a year. However, a really big thing at Alabama is beating Auburn, which it failed to do last year. Even with a more talented team having superiority in nearly every facet of the game, Saban could not outcoach Mahlzahn to get into the national championship final. Mahlzahn's hurry-up-offense carried the day.

In 2012, Arkansas hammered Auburn and probably should have beaten them this year, except for the fact that Mahlzahn had returned to the Tiger sidelines. The hurry-up-offense smoked the Razorbacks in Fayetteville.

Recently, a rule change was proposed by a few coaches, most vocally by Saban and Arkansas coach Bret Bielema. This rule change was to prevent teams from snapping the ball in the first 10 seconds after the ball is reset. Why the rule change? Anyone professing honesty would have to admit that it was an attempt to slow down the hurry-up-offense. Of course, that's not what was the given reason.

The given reason was safety.

Saban's defense of the rule change could only be described as weird. Saban was talking about the safety issues of the hurry-up-offense, admitting there was no data to back up the rule change but he said logic would prove it's necessity. Saban said: "If you only smoke one cigarette, do you have the chance of getting cancer if you smoked 20 cigarettes. It is only logical."

What he was referring to was that hurry-up-offenses run more offensive plays than do ordinary offenses, hence more chances to get injured. By that logic, adding a 12th football game to the college schedule a few years back was a health risk because that added more plays, too. Having overtime instead to leaving games a tie must also therefore be considered a health risk.

Our own Razorback coach referenced the death of Cal football player Ted Agu as a reason to adopt the rule. Agu died after an off season workout, so the tie in to the hurry-up-offense was ridiculous. It was so ridiculous that Bielema had to make apologies to the University of California as well as to the Agu family.

Bielema's problem with Mahlzahn is that not only does he have to deal with playing Auburn as a divisional foe, there are more than a few Razorback boosters who wanted Mahlzahn hired when the job came open last year. If things don't go great here pretty soon, there might be a chorus of people clamoring for the hiring of Mahlzahn.

My advice to the young lady from New Jersey was to get a job and my advice to college coaches who want to change rules to favor their own teams is just to get to work.

Every once and while, someone introduces a new wrinkle or idea into college football (think wishbone) and it does great until someone else figures out a way to counteract it. A hurry-up-offense doing correctly can be a formidable thing. Instead of whining about it, just figure out a way to beat it. I think getting paid $6 million a year would give me both the resources and the impetus to get it done.

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Editor's note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].