A regular reader, commenter and Alabama fan shared his commentary on the Alabama basketball search. He spent a great deal of time examining a report that Tom Izzo could be headed to Alabama.

By Ray-Finebammer
Guest commentary
Since the “resignation” of Mark Gottfried as Alabama’s head basketball coach, the typical rumor mill of possible replacements has achieved high RPM. It seems there are two camps in which the names of possible candidates fall: the legitimate and the hopelessly impossible.

Bobby Knight, Mike Anderson, Anthony Grant and others are some serious contenders for the position.

In the hopelessly unrealistic category fall the likes of John Calipari, Rick Barnes, Jim Boehiem, Roy Williams or any other top shelf coach currently working at a “basketball” school.

Another in the unrealistic category was thrown into the fray last week by Nick Taylor of the Tide Times blog: Tom Izzo of Michigan State.

Nick opined on his blog last week that Alabama athletic director Mal Moore had tendered an offer to Izzo to become Alabama’s next basketball coach.

In the blind-squirrel-stumbles-on-a-relevant-opinion category, a February 15th column by Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News addresses the severe breach of protocol such an action by Moore would be.

Now, if there’s a bigger dolt than Kevin Scarbinsky, it has to be Nick Taylor of the Tide Times.

During a recent call to Paul Finebaum’s radio show, Nick was pushing his incredibly STUPID (and despite Nick’s claims of “journalistic integrity and ethics”) and UN-SOURCED***editor’s note below*** (of course, that would probably be a selling point should Nick apply for a job at the New York Times!) story, he also claimed that the current coach at Oregon State is the brother-in-law of Michelle Obama and due to Nick’s perceived “red state” mentality of the fan base he might not be looked on favorably by the search team.

And this idiot claims to be alum. (and that wouldn’t surprise me)

Never mind the fact that the athletic dept. at the University has never given one whit what the rank-and-file Alabama basketball fan thinks or feels.

Nor did he give any statistical evidence of a majority political bent in the Alabama basketball fan base one way or another. Or that if there was, it would matter at all.

Since George Wallace’s “stand at the schoolhouse door”, (for which I will never forgive him) the University has bent over backwards to and made tremendous strides in improving minority participation.

Currently the minority makeup in the student body at the Capstone runs at around 25%. (see note below in comments, number is lower)

Compare that to “that-school-down-the-road” (if there’s anything good that came out of the Franchione regime, wasn’t it that phrase??).

Recently at the university, a big-to-do was made over apologizing and recognizing the mistreatment and efforts of two slaves who worked at the school in the 1800’s. Their graves were marked and a day was dedicated to the remembrance of their service. (and rightfully so)

Contrast that to Auburn, where in this century, this decade, on campus, frats posted pictures of themselves partying like it’s 1899.

Pictures of some in black face, others with guns and ropes, pretending (or was it practicing?) to lynch blacks, were posted on the Internet.

Over in Oxford, Mississippi, one can still go to a football game on a fall afternoon and see a Confederate battle flag proudly waving in the stands.

But of course these comparisons are lost on Alabama graduate Nick Taylor.

He claimed to speak to Nick Saban regularly. But he can’t figure out by listening to ole Saint Nick’s public statements and sentiments he’s a loyal Democrat who likely voted for Obama for president. (I say “likely” because I don’t know that for a fact…… but considering his public comments on his time at Kent State, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his snubbing of a Republican president, I’d bet the house he did. )

He can’t look around his alma mater and figure out it’s now one of the biggest bastions of liberal thinking and philosophy in the South.

He can’t see that every Democrat politician in this state of any consequence has a Capstone pedigree.

No, it’s not enough for Nick Taylor to post outright fabrications about Mal Moore and Tom Izzo on his blog, he’s got to call Paul’s show and opine through the fine linen of his Klan hood.

While those who read this blog likely know my politics are a little to the right of Attila the Hun, I believe one thing Alabama basketball Democrats and Republicans can come together on is we need, no, we DESERVE a competent basketball coach regardless of his politics or connections. It’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, I think most fans understand.

But truly, with friends of the Alabama basketball program like Nick Taylor, who needs enemies.

(and we wonder why bloggers have such a bad reputation)

***Editor’s note: Technically the report was sourced, but was quasi-anonymous. Taylor cited a member of Nick Saban’s family. That is a high degree of specificity because if I had used an anonymous source I’d likely have said a person familiar with the athletic department’s thinking, or someone close to the decision makers. In fairness to Taylor, he revealed a good deal of information for readers to judge the veracity of his report.***

9 thoughts on “Commentary: Taylor bigger dolt than Scarbinsky”

  1. RF, I could give a rip who Bama hires as its next basketball coach. You might want to do a little research before you start tossing out stats about minority enrollment, though. According to UA’s website, Bama had 11% Afr. Amer. enrollment in 2007, 2% Hispanic, and 1% Asian. http://quickfacts.ua.edu/demographics.html That adds up to about 14% in my book. Oh well, I guess it’s fun to just pull the figure 25% out of your a$$ and wish it was true. In contrast, Auburn’s minority enrollment was 12%. http://www.auburn.edu/admissions/faqs/about-auburn.html Wow, a whopping 2% difference. Tuscaloosa is truly the Mecca of racial enlightenment.

    P.S. You can wish all you want that those pictures were official university sanctioned events, but the reality is that it was a couple of stupid drunken frat boys who were kicked off campus for their idiotic behavior. That could have happened at any school, including in the enlightened North Eastern states. (Let’s not forget Prince Harry and his cute little Nazi costume). There’s idiiots at every school.

  2. from a birmingham news report written by adam goldman on 05/15/02.

    after auburn suspended 15 students involved and moved to disband beta theta pi and delta sigma phi, the frats sued feeling they were being singled out.

    the lawyers for the frats appeared in court with 202 pictures of other incidents involving other frats, sororities and athletes engaged in similar activities.

    they also had a copy of “glomerata”, auburn’s official yearbook, with pictures of sorority girls in blackface.

    auburn’s lawyers quickly moved to settle. no one was suspended. nobody went anywhere. the pictures were sealed away as part of the settlement.

    a couple of drunk frat boys???

    hardly.

    officially sanctioned??

    blackface in auburn’s “official” yearbook???

    please.

  3. Of course Julio is a biased Barn fan. He likes to spout out things like he is some kind of fact checker and throw worthless stats around to try and make a case. He rarely ever uses all the facts, only the ones that he can twist into his favor.

    But he is an Auburn homer through and through, no different from the helpless Auburn idiots from the 60s and 70s always screaming about how awful Alabama is and telling each other no one really likes Alabama. So if Alabama is successful at anything, it is because they are morally corrupt and they are cheating. Auburn is the bastion of everything good and moral in college, the honest man that earns things the hard way. I mean they really do feel this way.

  4. So, I guess you want us to believe that lawyers couldn’t find several pictures of the exact same nature at UA if they were hired to do so? I guess you’ve forgotten about the national outrage over the Kappa Delta’s at UA that were photographed wearing black face and afro wigs at sorority sponsored party where the theme was “Who rides the bus?”. There was a proud moment for the Capstone. Nice spin on the “official” university yearbook, as if the University President personally reviewed and approved all 347,892 pictures that were placed in the yearbook before publication. I’m sure we could review some of Bama’s yearbooks and find some unflattering photos as well (and probably at Harvard and MIT for that matter). You seriously think that there’s some kind of rationale that says the racist kids go to Auburn, and the enlightened ones go to Bama?? Newsflash -there’s idiots at both schools. The point is that you tried to to portray UA as some beacon of enlightenment compared to Auburn based on stats that were bald faced lies cut of thin air. Couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t even reply to your “25%” minority enrollment BS.

    Brando, the only facts I used were in response to RF’s bs about UA and Auburn’s minority enrollment percentages. If you think there’s some other “fact” that I’m leaving out that make his allegations true, I’m all ears.

  5. Julio, you do this about EVERYTHING. Not just this article. I guess you do what you have to so you can feel good about being an Auburn fan. But whatever dude. I am just telling you not everyone falls for your type of BS. I agree that there are idiots everywhere, but you make the argument coming across like, well, since they are Auburn students, it wasn’t so bad. You don’t give Bama students the same benefit of the doubt, you are quick to assume they are bad, so your reasoning and arguments here will always be flawed.

  6. I’d like to know the last time the writer of this article attended a game in Oxford, MS where he saw a confederate battle flag. I attend all home games and haven’t seen one in years. You can email me if you want.

  7. No Brando, I don’t say it wasn’t so bad because they were AU students. It was absolutely despicable and an embarrassment. My point was that there were/are students at UA and other universities across the country doing similar despicable acts, such as the KD’s at Bama, and that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. You conveniently forget that RF specifically compared UA to Auburn in his article, and specifically portrayed Bama as enlightened and Auburn as racist based solely on fabricated minority enrollment stats and citing a past fraternity incident when Bama actually had an incident that was very similar. RF is the one that made the attack, I just made a factual and specific response to it.

    P.S. I don’t give “the benefit of the doubt” to any racists, no matter what school they attend. They are all the scourge of the earth.

  8. Wow, why does some scum sucking aubarn fan care that much about Alabama basketball.

    36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19_36-0_Coach5-19

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