Friday Love and Hate

Love: New South Florida Defensive Tackles Coach John Hendrick.
 Purity of speech, purity of mind. Purity of mind, purity of body. Free your mouth of vulgar poison, grasshopper, and so shall your game follow.

A little New Age-y for John Hendrick, perhaps, but Coach H - aka "Elder," aka "Drick the Brick" - keeps it clean in his position drills and don't take no guff. If garbage goes in, garbage comes out. If one can become aware of the detritus leaving his mouth and endeavor to excise such foul refuse from his daily speech, he becomes more likely to resist allowing the offal of a lost world to initially enter though the partition guarding the hallowed virtue of his mind.

Or else Elder John will unsheath the sanctifying sword of righteousness on your fanny, ya heard? Over-under on Hendrick's hotheaded boss, Jim Leavitt, exploding into the most prolific string of Tourette's-worthy filth ever recorded on a collegiate sideline? Two and a half quarters. If Leavitt bottles it up into the fourth, paramedics should probably be on hand for when his blood pressure blows his eyeballs out of their sockets, though surely the Lord will appreciate the commitment.

Hate: SEC Po-Leece.
Not that the police actually work for the SEC or any schools therein, of course. Depending on who you ask (college sports are politics, doncha know - a head coach is essentially a mayor of a very small but high profile town, parsing his words in public, looking over his shoulder, accountable for policy, growth, constituent good will and policing misconduct whether or not he's actually responsible - so the police had best tread lightly on such sensitive ground as the Iron Bowl).

As partisan delight in over-the-top schadenfreude contiunes to grow exponentially as a kind of offseason art form, though, remember that all that mudslinging is based on the word and honor of the cops and the integrity of their charge. Usually, they're right, even if valid midemeanor charges hardly add up to Thug U. But they're mostly young men working and making defensive, split-second decisions in a territorial, testosterone-ravaged environment, too. And as Steve Spurrier and a, um, hardworking investigative journalist reminded us this week when Gamecock lineman Kevin Young was charged with fighting and resisting arrest, even the professionals' word in these cases is not always bond:

Young was only ticketed in addition to the alleged pummeling, not taken to jail, and Columbia Police are investigating. You know, innocent until proven guilty, let he who is without sin, etc. Or, when a rival is involved, is all that really just, like, LOL?

Big East police, on the other hand, can run like some motherfu...

That is, like some, uh, quite athletic, duty-abiding gentlemen. Although, as John Hendrick will soon discover, considering they were chasing players from Syracuse, maybe that's stretching it a bit.