Posted on 09/01/2009 6:36:25 PM PDT by Maelstorm
----snip---- There's no evidence that coaches with a conservative bent are better coaches or more likely to get jobs. Football coaches aren't the most diverse group, which may help explain their political similarities.
Still, could it be that football coaches, just by the nature of the job, are more comfortable on the right end of the political spectrum?
"I'd say that sounds likely—very likely," said Bobby Bowden, the longtime Florida State coach and an outspoken Republican.
Mr. Bowden, a 79-year-old native Alabaman, describes himself as a lifelong conservative who—like many white Southerners of his generation—migrated from the Democratic Party to the GOP a few decades ago. There is, he says, a natural connection between his political and coaching philosophies.
"In coaching, you've got to have more discipline and you've got to be more strict and just conservative, I think. It fits with the Republicans," he said.
Mr. Holtz, who coached Notre Dame to its last national championship in 1988, draws a parallel between the standards and rules that most coaches set for their players and the Republican vision of how American society ought to operate.
"You aren't entitled to anything. You don't inherit anything. You get what you earn—your position on the team," Mr. Holtz said. "You're treated like everybody else. You're held accountable for your actions. You understand that your decisions affect other people on that team…There's winners, there's losers, and there's competitiveness." ----snip----
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
A tsunami is coming. They need to choose if they will be a part of it or not because we aren't going to calm down. We aren't going to compromise.
Isn’t Pete Carrol(sp?) a big Obama guy?
Somebody PLEASE pass this message on to the RINOs, including McWho?
I pray that I live to see the day that artists adopt the same ideas...which is, of course, to pray to be the oldest woman that ever lived.
Yeah they need to get it and they also need to get the value of what they are fighting for. Too often they behave as if their idea of America has the consistency of room temperature pea soup.
Yes, and it's reason 457,987 to absolutely loathe USC.
I believe Tressel is a conservative who encourages teamwork and being a good friend, brother, son, father and man above all else.
Just like in life, in sports you have to work hard to improve and you have to play hard to win. If you sit on the sidelines of life, you never understand the personal thrill and grand sense of accomplishment in winning.
There will always be liberals as long as there is someone looking for a free lunch and thanks for eating it. No self respecting person should believe they are entitled to what they can not get for themselves. I do understand your sentiment Julia.
In sports it is hard to hide behind the performers and be a taker.
That is why liberals don’t participate.
Who?
No wonder Tomey as Democrat. With a record like that, you can understand why he wants to share the wealth.
At the end of his press conference on Tuesday, USC head coach Pete Carroll was asked about the presidential election.
Q. Who did you vote for today?
COACH CARROLL: I did vote, as a matter of fact. I voted early. I was a little bit behind on some of the issues. I haven’t been keeping up on it. I had to go like you do in the SAT test, you don’t guess at the ones you don’t know the answers to. I skipped some of the stuff.
I voted for Obama today, was excited about it. Fired up for it.
That revelation prompted some grumbling from Trojans fans who support the GOP and came as a surprise to me — not that Carroll voted for Obama but that he was so willing to reveal it to the media. Historically, there are things he will discuss with reporters and things he won’t, and I assumed politics was in the latter category. Carroll is famously media savvy and he had to know that being so open about his vote might rub some Trojans fans the wrong way. It’s difficult to say how many of them lean Republican, but a significant percentage of USC students and alumni hail from Orange County, which is notoriously conservative as Carroll’s native Marin County is liberal.
Carroll isn’t the first football coach to get political, of course, but he appears to be one of the first to have aligned himself with a Democrat. Penn State’s Joe Paterno gave a speech on behalf of his friend George H.W. Bush at the 1988 Republican Convention and former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne served in Congress as a Republican after hanging up his whistle in 1997. (He unsuccessfully ran for governor of the state in 2006.) Florida State’s Bobby Bowden is also on record as being a supporter of the GOP.
The good news for Carroll is that no Trojan fan will care who he voted for if the Trojans end this season with another national championship. And if you asked the coach if he believed his team could do it, he would no doubt reply, “Yes we can.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-1563-USC-Trojans-Examiner~y2008m11d6-Is-Pete-Carroll-a-Democrat
I hate to admit it, but being originally from Southern California and having family that are alumni I root for the Trojans every Saturday. I guess I’ll have have to think of Pete as one of my misguided friends I can still get along with lol.
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