Is it just me who finds Greg Sankey’s sanctimonious posturing a wee bit distasteful?
Apparently not.
Now Brian’s an unabashed SEC hater, but he’s not wrong there. Sankey took a gamble, just like every P5 commissioner did (or, more precisely, every president of a P5 school did). Yeah, sure, you can mock the Big Ten for its about face if that makes you feel superior, but Brian’s point about Johnson should sting, assuming Sankey gives a shit about anything besides the bottom line.
Anyway, what I find troubling about Sankey’s comments is stooping to use a horror show of a year as a reason to work the refs in order to force every other commissioner to march in lockstep with the lowest common denominator. Not that my opinion is gonna change anything, at least as long as the checks keep rolling in.
Get The Picture 
Thing that bugs me is, yes he did push for the season when it was in question, but all the sacrifices and effort were on the teams and players. He did not do jack shit besides count the money
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The big 10 really pissed Sankey off for him to take a shot 5 months later. He also should run college football.
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Senator, it’s just you. There is a lot of sanctimony here, but it’s not coming from Sankey.
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“The SEC didn’t walk away” isn’t even slightly tinged with sanctimony? You really believe that, or is this just a convenient vehicle to take a personal shot?
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Senator, you DID ask the question. You should know not to ask a question for which you don’t want the answer.
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Oh, I don’t mind the answer. I’m curious how you can pretend Sankey’s not full of it, though.
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Maybe he’s being sanctimonious because he can. Under the circumstances, with the SEC taking the whole enchilllada(again), he can get away with it.
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Dude, I’m not asking why Sankey behaves the way he does. A mystery, it ain’t.
I’m wondering why someone doesn’t believe Sankey’s being sanctimonious.
Look, I appreciate your effort here, but there’s really not much else to say.
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Exactly!
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I agree 100% Senator. Sankey comes off this looking like a dweeb.
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Oh, I wasn’t talking about you. But it is interesting to me you reacted that way. I for one am happy to have college football to watch.
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Sure, man. That’s why you addressed me directly. But I’ll play: who are you referring to?
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In your post, after the words “apparently not” see comments from Mgoblog. You refer to him as Brian.
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Why is truth “sanctimony.”
https://www.insider.com/florida-gators-keyontae-johnson-covid-19-heart-condition-myocarditis-2020-12
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I see. Brian Cook is being sanctimonious, but me agreeing with him isn’t being sanctimonious.
You’re better at splitting hairs than I’ll ever be.
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Agreed
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The easy thing to do would have been to cancel the season. He would have been patted on the back by everyone.
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I’m not arguing for that; it would be hypocritical for me to do so.
But taking a victory lap to work the CFP is horseshit.
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Did I miss something on Keyontae Johnson? Was his condition definitively announced to have been a result of myocarditis?
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Yes. https://www.insider.com/florida-gators-keyontae-johnson-covid-19-heart-condition-myocarditis-2020-12
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Thanks!
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Unfortunately, he had a bad ticker…glad it didn’t cost him his life on the court.
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Derek did you read the article you posted? From the article: “According to Zach Abolverdi of The Gainesville Sun, Johnson’s acute myocarditis “can’t be definitively linked to his COVID diagnosis.””
Not saying it isn’t, not saying it is. But it has NOT been definitively linked, and there are other causes of myocarditis.
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My high blood pressure can’t be definitively linked to my obsession with bbq ribs. The doc says I should consider the possibility of a relationship. Fucking science. It thinks it knows, but does it really know? I mean REALLY know. Definitively dammit! Otherwise, another slab for me!!
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Gastr1’s question was “was it definitely myocarditis”, not “was the myocarditis Covid-related”.
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My standard public comment if I were a P5 AD:
“I am blessed to watch dedicated people pursue their passions, and my job is to clear their paths of distractions and hurdles. This season has a been a lot of hard work on their end and a lot of good fortune on mine.”
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Oh wow, myocarditis didn’t exist before covid? I think I might stay in my basement for a while.
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Yea, maybe I’m missing something, but what does a UF basketball player (aren’t all the conferences playing basketball w/o the SEC pushing for it?) have to do with anything here?
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I agree Sankey shouldn’t have used the moment to flex about a difficult decision that he made with scientific evidence that worked out well for the conference. That said, Fremeau has always hated the SEC and the team that dominates his conference got destroyed last night by the SEC, so forgive me if I don’t think there’s not a little bit of misplaced anger there. Also, if Johnson got COVID over the summer while away from the team, and this could have happened during a pickup game, and they had him medically cleared per protocols established by medical professionals, how exactly did the SEC nearly have him die?
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You’re getting your Brians mixed up. It’s Cook, not Fremeau.
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Whoops! Need more coffee.
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Greedy Greg did nothing but charge ahead and hope for the best. Fortunately, the athletes, trainers, staff, and some of the coaches did the hard work of pulling off the season for which I am grateful.
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I appreciate the courage he had to stay the course and make a season happen. It’s bush league to air his laundry publicly.
I’m curious if he reached out directly to the B1G and Pac-12 commissioners from his island. Better to close ranks and let it end there IMO.
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I am glad they played…as deadly as the virus is for young folks, I’m surprised they didn’t have more deaths from it with the players…dodged one there for sure.
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And if the florida bb player had stayed in a coma or died, you wouldn’t give a rat’s ass anyway. So there’s that.
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Are you disappointed we had a football season? I can only afford to channel my inner Munson for football. If I did that for everything, I’d go crazy.
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I suppose I’m torn. It was a healthy distraction in a time where we damn sure needed one. On the other hand, it was also a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
As far as whether it was safe to play, it appears that we’ve dodged a bullet among coaches and players. Among the fans? We’ll never know to what degree, if any, the fans, limited tho they were, impacted the spread and/or lead to hospitalizations or deaths for them or people they came into contact with.
How many dead fans and/or family and friends of fans is worth having my Saturdays occupied? I hesitate to even engage in that. It’s unrealistic to believe that the true number is 0.
Also, how many people had parties, weddings, family gatherings etc…, because of the example that Sankey set that proceeding as normal was worth the risk? Again, who knows?
But Sankey brought home the bacon amirite?
I guess if I had my say I’d have split the baby and played in empty stadiums or limit it to immediate family members of players.
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I would never want any College Athlete injured/sick/etc..but it does happen. Of course it would bother me, not sure why you would think otherwise…
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Because a kid did nearly die and you’re being sarcastic. You minimized the risk since the beginning, a kid nearly dies, and your response is to double down on your indifference to it. That is my rationale. You either don’t care OR any evidence you confront that suggests you should, you minimize or ignore.
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For a college athlete the risk is exponentially minimal. He wasnt wrong. Being sarcastic is what we do here. Why are you so triggered?
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Derek, you’ve got no evidence his particular condition was caused by covid. The article you posted doesn’t cut it. How many college athletes have died because of covid? Do you believe the structed environment with regular testing and covered medical care because they are competing is better or worse than what it would be if they weren’t? Would love to see your thoughts on that.
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My assumption is that scholarship athletes have the same access to medical testing in treatment in the offseason as they do during the season. But maybe as you suggest, Chubb/Gurley/Blalock and Courson don’t speak in May/June.
In other words, playing the games got them zero more access to a gotdamn thing.
Why is it that some require mathematical certainty when it comes to covid but are happy to live in a land of rumor and gossip when it comes to many other things? The selectivity of the appropriate analytical framework to apply in any given situation as observed from a certain group of Americans will no doubt be studied by anthropologists and veterinarians for decades to come.
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The problem isn’t “mathematical certainty”, its more basic than that–there is not a single college athlete who has died because of this virus. Not one. Your fear and loathing is irrational based on all available statistical evidence, and will “no doubt be studied by anthropologist and veterinarians for decades to come.”
Also, I’d love to see the list of all the college athletes who, when not competing for sports this year, have been tested three times weekly and been followed around by fogger machines and a sanitizing crew like they do at Georgia.
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Please re-read. Slower….
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I’m guessing you need more time to google the answer? I’ll wait. Just the name of one person will do.
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Im guessing that you haven’t delinked the study I proposed from covid cases to morons as intended.
I said above at 11:27 what I would have done had I ran things. It doesn’t include not playing at all.
Reading, is as they say, is fundamental.
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Sankey was proven right, or at the least he guessed right. Pointing that out might be patting himself on the back, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t warranted. It wasn’t wrong to play the season.
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It’s not like every conference or every team had to face the same challenges. Each state was responding to the pandemic differently, so each conference had to navigate the restrictions of multiple states. Those conferences that initially opted not to play were erring on the side of caution as new information about the virus became available every day. Sankey made a different decision, one that certainly seems to have worked out okay, but it would be foolish to pretend that it couldn’t have blown up in his face too.
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