From Stewart Mandel-
Your Houston Nutt article is an outrage! Who are you, Mr. Stewart Mandel, to call a fine coach trying to help someone dirty or question his integrity? You should be fired!! I think you, sir, are a big A$$!!
-- Steve, North Mississippi
After reading your latest article on Houston Nutt, I only have one thing to say: Thank you so much for publishing that article. I honestly can't thank you enough for exposing this man for who he truly is.
-- James, Little Rock, Ark.
I knew the Nutt column would elicit some strong reactions, but I had no idea they would split so diametrically between the states of Mississippi and Arkansas. I literally received hundreds of e-mails just like these two. It's no surprise Ole Miss fans so vociferously defended their coach (though I have no doubt the same exact people would have crucified Dan Mullen if by chance Mississippi State had taking Masoli instead), but apparently Nutt is about as popular in Arkansas as Kiffin is in Tennessee.
But the point of the column was not to rile up those two fan bases. Let me address a less partisan e-mail.
Stewart, your writing is usually spot-on in regards to the ever-wavering ethics of college football, but your criticism of Houston Nutt's acceptance of Masoli is uncharacteristically harsh to the point of seeming almost personal. I'm not saying that you're wrong about Nutt, just that you seem to have lost your perspective as a journalist on this one. What gives?
-- James, Edmond, Okla.
I don't dispute that the column was harsh, but it wasn't without reason.
My hope with the Nutt-Masoli piece was that readers might take a moment to rethink what truly constitutes "dirty" in this day and age. It's been an eventful off-season for scandal-related headlines, and as I wrote in the lead, I've noticed fans throwing around the d-word with reckless abandon, demonizing coaches and programs based mostly on blanket assumptions and innuendo. Listening to some of the revisionist history out there about Pete Carroll's USC tenure, you'd think he was handing Reggie Bush money out of his own wallet, which couldn't be further from the truth. If you're going to accuse someone of being "dirty," it really ought to be for something of his own doing.
Admittedly, Nutt has broken no rules, and if that's your sole criteria for judging a coach's ethics, then you're obviously going to disagree with the column. But as I wrote, Nutt has demonstrated a repeated pattern over the past several years of shameless win-at-any-cost tactics. Taking on Masoli just happens to be his most brazenly transparent. No one's buying the cover that this has anything to do with "helping" a wayward kid. As Nutt himself told the Memphis Commercial Appeal: "I could have not gone after him, gone 6-6 this season and got ready to reload [for 2011]. But when you think about your team, you have an obligation to them to do everything you can to put them in the best situation to win."
Sadly, this has become the standard operating mentality for a lot of coaches, and I happen to find it more troublesome than many of the things others might consider "dirty," but unfortunately, a lot of fans now tacitly accept it.
I am an Ole Miss fan, and if taking Masoli helps us win more games, so be it. This is what college football has become. Get over it.
-- David Davis, Taylorsville, Miss.
Case in point.
Read more:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/stewart_mandel/08/04/next-generation/#ixzz0vfh3J1E6
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