Gopher Bandanna Guy
Irascible Skeptic
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Looks like one of Mr. Souhan's colleagues has decided to weigh in on the unfair response many of us have directed at him. An astonishing column really, in that it fails to actually link Souhan's column or address any of his awful one-liners. I guess we should be proud of Souhan because he crusaded against the politically correct mob (and cult of Gopher fans) and brought this topic to our attention. Never mind that the column had the tact and sensitivity of rhino stampede.
Here's the link if you absolutely must click
But I've copied and pasted here below if you'd like to spare the Indy Star the clicks:
The University of Minnesota’s football coach, Jerry Kill, has had four epileptic seizures in three years since he took over the Gophers program, either during or after the last 16 home games.
But incredibly, it’s Jim Souhan, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s columnist, who’s under fire these days from readers and even from his own gutless editor.
See, Souhan, as solid and thoughtful a columnist as there is in the country, wrote that something needs to be done here, namely Kill being fired or Kill resigning.
“The whole thing has been fascinating,” said Souhan, who has received thousands of responses, most of them angry. “We live in a divided world, the journalistic perspective and the fan perspective, but this came in sharper contrast than I’m used to. I’ve gotten a lot of support from people in our business, but the fans are calling for me to be strung up.”
Here, in part, is what he wrote:
“How can a school continue to employ a football coach who has had four seizures during or after the 16 home games he has coached at the school, along with an unknown number of seizures away from the public eye? His latest epileptic seizure, suffered on Saturday, evokes sympathy for him and his family. He appears to be a good man earnestly trying to elevate a woeful program while searching for ways to manage his disease.
“Even those who admire him most can’t believe that he should keep coaching major college football after his latest episode. Either the stress of the job is further damaging his health, or his health was in such disrepair that he shouldn’t have been hired to coach in the Big Ten in the first place.
“Kill’s case is sad. He did good work his entire life to reach a position that his system can no longer handle.”
I would have written precisely the same thing.
Does that make me insensitive? An ogre? A lout?
Don’t answer that.
OK, I’ll answer that.
No, it doesn’t.
But that didn’t stop the Star-Tribune’s editor from caving to public pressure and penning an apology in a letter to selected readers and advertisers (it was later leaked to a media website). It’s one thing to disagree with your columnist; if memory serves, our former editor-in-chief wrote a column disagreeing with my Tony Dungy-as-hypocrite piece, and that’s fine. We don’t all think in lockstep.
But an apology?
That’s an invertebrate move.
If my newspaper did that to me, I’d walk out the door.
At this point, you’re looking at the writer of this column and thinking, “You’ve got heart disease. You’ve had two heart attacks, have seven stents in your shriveled-up little heart. Should The Star fire you the next time it happens, heaven forbid?”
I would say this: If my health problems consistently affected my work performance — if I was consistently having these issues while on the job — I would understand it completely. Heck, I would probably walk away, find a livelihood that had less deadline pressure.
The point is, Kill has had to be carted off the field three times in three years. He had a fourth seizure immediately after a postgame news conference. That is sadly and unfortunately unacceptable. What if Minnesota is in a close game in the fourth quarter of a big game and suddenly Kill goes down for the count? How often can Minnesota go to Plan B? Why should it have to?
I have great admiration for Kill. He has overcome cancer. He has become a spokesman for epilepsy, talking to kids about chasing their dreams despite their issues with epilepsy. In many ways, he has become a hero.
I get all that.
But something needs to be done. And Kill, who spoke at length about his situation earlier this year, seemed to recognize that in a Star-Tribune article Aug. 11.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is the Michigan State situation (when he had a seizure in the locker room at halftime during a game last season and couldn’t coach the second half),” he said. “You can’t be the head football coach and miss half of a game. I mean, I’m not stupid, I realize that.
“If I was doing those things, the university wouldn’t have to fire me. I’d walk away if I didn’t think I could do it.”
I was hoping Kill would talk about the latest health issue in Tuesday’s Big Ten teleconference, but he made it clear during his opening statement he would not be responding to health-related questions. Which, after all, is the elephant in the room.
Nobody is suggesting that an epileptic can’t pursue his or her dreams. But there are certain things you can’t do — like drive, which Kill can’t do — when you’re beset by this disease. Every week, Kill has players and coaches counting upon him to be there, to be healthy.
Sadly, that hasn’t been the case, and likely won’t be the case in the future.
They can paint Souhan as the heavy here, but he’s only saying what needs to be said, what very few others in the media are willing to say for fear of being looked upon as insensitive or politically incorrect.
“This is the harshest blowback I’ve ever experienced in my career,” Souhan said.
I would have written the same thing.
Here's the link if you absolutely must click
But I've copied and pasted here below if you'd like to spare the Indy Star the clicks:
The University of Minnesota’s football coach, Jerry Kill, has had four epileptic seizures in three years since he took over the Gophers program, either during or after the last 16 home games.
But incredibly, it’s Jim Souhan, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s columnist, who’s under fire these days from readers and even from his own gutless editor.
See, Souhan, as solid and thoughtful a columnist as there is in the country, wrote that something needs to be done here, namely Kill being fired or Kill resigning.
“The whole thing has been fascinating,” said Souhan, who has received thousands of responses, most of them angry. “We live in a divided world, the journalistic perspective and the fan perspective, but this came in sharper contrast than I’m used to. I’ve gotten a lot of support from people in our business, but the fans are calling for me to be strung up.”
Here, in part, is what he wrote:
“How can a school continue to employ a football coach who has had four seizures during or after the 16 home games he has coached at the school, along with an unknown number of seizures away from the public eye? His latest epileptic seizure, suffered on Saturday, evokes sympathy for him and his family. He appears to be a good man earnestly trying to elevate a woeful program while searching for ways to manage his disease.
“Even those who admire him most can’t believe that he should keep coaching major college football after his latest episode. Either the stress of the job is further damaging his health, or his health was in such disrepair that he shouldn’t have been hired to coach in the Big Ten in the first place.
“Kill’s case is sad. He did good work his entire life to reach a position that his system can no longer handle.”
I would have written precisely the same thing.
Does that make me insensitive? An ogre? A lout?
Don’t answer that.
OK, I’ll answer that.
No, it doesn’t.
But that didn’t stop the Star-Tribune’s editor from caving to public pressure and penning an apology in a letter to selected readers and advertisers (it was later leaked to a media website). It’s one thing to disagree with your columnist; if memory serves, our former editor-in-chief wrote a column disagreeing with my Tony Dungy-as-hypocrite piece, and that’s fine. We don’t all think in lockstep.
But an apology?
That’s an invertebrate move.
If my newspaper did that to me, I’d walk out the door.
At this point, you’re looking at the writer of this column and thinking, “You’ve got heart disease. You’ve had two heart attacks, have seven stents in your shriveled-up little heart. Should The Star fire you the next time it happens, heaven forbid?”
I would say this: If my health problems consistently affected my work performance — if I was consistently having these issues while on the job — I would understand it completely. Heck, I would probably walk away, find a livelihood that had less deadline pressure.
The point is, Kill has had to be carted off the field three times in three years. He had a fourth seizure immediately after a postgame news conference. That is sadly and unfortunately unacceptable. What if Minnesota is in a close game in the fourth quarter of a big game and suddenly Kill goes down for the count? How often can Minnesota go to Plan B? Why should it have to?
I have great admiration for Kill. He has overcome cancer. He has become a spokesman for epilepsy, talking to kids about chasing their dreams despite their issues with epilepsy. In many ways, he has become a hero.
I get all that.
But something needs to be done. And Kill, who spoke at length about his situation earlier this year, seemed to recognize that in a Star-Tribune article Aug. 11.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is the Michigan State situation (when he had a seizure in the locker room at halftime during a game last season and couldn’t coach the second half),” he said. “You can’t be the head football coach and miss half of a game. I mean, I’m not stupid, I realize that.
“If I was doing those things, the university wouldn’t have to fire me. I’d walk away if I didn’t think I could do it.”
I was hoping Kill would talk about the latest health issue in Tuesday’s Big Ten teleconference, but he made it clear during his opening statement he would not be responding to health-related questions. Which, after all, is the elephant in the room.
Nobody is suggesting that an epileptic can’t pursue his or her dreams. But there are certain things you can’t do — like drive, which Kill can’t do — when you’re beset by this disease. Every week, Kill has players and coaches counting upon him to be there, to be healthy.
Sadly, that hasn’t been the case, and likely won’t be the case in the future.
They can paint Souhan as the heavy here, but he’s only saying what needs to be said, what very few others in the media are willing to say for fear of being looked upon as insensitive or politically incorrect.
“This is the harshest blowback I’ve ever experienced in my career,” Souhan said.
I would have written the same thing.
