January 18, 2019
Urban Meyer can't stay away from football, Tate Martell's quest to play immediately, how Dayton cut opioid deaths in half, and more.
It’s Friday, y’all! Tell your boss you’re taking a two-hour lunch at 10:30 a.m. and you won’t be coming back. If they give you guff, teach them humility by imprisoning them in the nearest supply closet until Monday morning.
Two weeks ago, I said I was glad Urban Meyer left Ohio State and a bunch of Buckeye fans who think he’s their friend got mad at me. My vindication tour kicked off Thursday when Meyer’s next move leaked to the press.
From Michael McCarthy of sportingnews.com:
Sports TV viewers may see a lot more of Urban Meyer on TV this year than they thought they would. Fox Sports is close to finalizing a deal to hire the former Ohio State head coach as its star college football analyst, sources tell Sporting News.
Meyer, who won three national championships between Ohio State and Florida, is being given the choice to work either as a color commentator in the game booth or as a studio analyst at Fox, sources said. Citing serious health concerns, the 54-year-old Buckeyes coach retired after the 2019 Rose Bowl.
A Fox Sports spokeswoman declined comment to Sporting News Thursday night.
To be clear, I don’t fault Meyer. A mercenary is going to mercenary. And he’s no doubt going to get a good look at a weak Pac-12 that he could dominate for the next decade at USC, which will open when Todd Helton sucks again. His wife has always loved warm weather, and USC’s coach in L.A. doesn’t live in the same limelight as Ohio State’s coach in Columbus. It’s a win across the board.
It’s still hilarious large amounts of fans thought Meyer was going to retire to a WHAC janitor’s office and teach nerds and frat members about leadership at the Fisher College of Business while Ryan Day and Justin Fields capture the true glory on Saturday afternoons. Fellating billionaires to donate to the program he used to control won’t tickle that itch either.
Meyer is like most Americans who carry an addiction of some sort. Meyer is unlike most Americans in that he’s addicted to winning college football games. It was laid bare in December.
From Pete Thamel of yahoo.com:
That void looms as one of the most captivating spaces in sports. Could it be golf that fills it? His second grandchild? More charity work? A gig on television? Meyer isn’t quite sure yet, although he’s spoken with OSU athletic director Gene Smith about a role mentoring coaches and athletes at Ohio State. That’s intriguing to Meyer, whose career has evolved to a job less about schematics and more about motivating players as the years have passed.
“There’s a little anxiety involved in what’s next,” he said. “I’ve thought about that. I’m not a wake-up late kind of guy. I hope I find a passion.”
Seems like an opportune time to fill the void with that family we always heard so much about. But hey, it’s not like I’m trying to watch Cincinnati baseball games or hang out with my children’s children, either.
Tom Mars, the lawyer overseeing Justin Fields’ waiver case, declined to comment on reports Tate Martell also sought his services.
Mars said many players try to retain him, and he only accepts “compelling, fact-based” cases that convince him of a player’s chances to earn a waiver.
Martell hired a lawyer out of Phoenix. The quarterback won’t need a waiver to play immediately, and he had thought about transferring before.
From Kyle Rowland of elevenwarriors.com:
“That definitely is part of it,” [Martell’s attorney Travis] Leach told The Blade when asked about the coaching staff. “You try to throw as much against the wall as you can. I think the fact that there were some circumstances that happened, some personality clashes at the school — we want to be fair to everyone involved. That’s the approach we’re going to go down.”
…
Martell is on track to graduate from Ohio State in May, which would make him a graduate transfer, thus giving him the opportunity to play immediately. But if he goes that route, he’d miss spring practice at Miami. There is a precedent, though, for missing spring practice as a transfer and winning the starting job — Joe Burrow at LSU.
…
Martell’s future at Ohio State was questioned throughout his two-year stint in Columbus, with rampant speculation about a possible transfer. Sources told The Blade that Martell reported one day late to fall camp in July and was talked out of transferring by Meyer and Day.
I long suspected Dwayne Haskins coming off the field for Tate Martell was more of a ploy to appease Martell than a necessary stratagem.
And for all of Martell’s fluff, I hope he gets his waiver. Amateur players deserve the same latitude as professional coaches. The good news is that is slowly happening, much to the chagrin of baby boomers who like to whine online about impending “free agency” in college football.
I’m old enough to remember when national media outlets labeled Dayton, Ohio as ground-zero of the opioid epidemic.
Behind the leadership of Mayor Nan Whaley and a concentrated effort by local government officials, Montgomery County has cut its overdose deaths in half.
The Center for American Progress released a report about how they accomplished the feat.
From Katie Wedell of mydaytondailynews.com:
Providing harm reduction services, such as syringe exchange programs. “These services are integral to saving lives and reducing the spread of disease,” the report says.
Treating addiction as a disease, not a crime. “This requires educating all stakeholders on the nature of the disease, including the likelihood of relapse, to ensure interventions reflect this understanding,” the report says.
Purposeful and rapid data collection, distribution and analysis to drive effective responses.
Breaking down barriers between community members, government agencies, county and city officials, businesses and nonprofits to allow a coordinated effort.
Combating the stigma of addiction within the community.
Leveraging an emergency management approach to create the Community Overdose Action Team (COAT).
Wow, crazy what happens what government officials plan and execute a public health initiative. Imagine if we had that same kind of mindset on a state level. We might actually get somewhere.
Instead our plan is to strip poor people of healthcare. I guess “only time will tell” which way is the better path. Hopefully not too many people die before that becomes clear.
The General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio is so big the architects had to consider the curvature of Earth when designing it.
Unfortunately it’s set to become the largest vacant building in the state come March in what could be an economic death knell for the Mahoning Valley.
The president once threatened GM about leaving Lordstown. It looks like he’ll soon have to back it up, because the conglomerate looks headed to cheaper labor pools.
From Jamie L. LaReau of cincinnati.com:
General Motors CEO Mary Barra offered little hope Wednesday night to the employees at Detroit-Hamtramck and Lordstown assembly plants that new vehicles will be assigned to the plants to keep them running.
GM faces harsh backlash following its announcement Nov. 26 that it would idle Detroit-Hamtramck, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio and Oshawa Assembly in Ontario by the end of 2019. It said it would also close transmission plants, one in Warren and one near Baltimore. In all, about 6,500 hourly jobs are in danger.
"When we made the very difficult decision about the plants impacted, we have other plants that have lower capacity utilization that we'd want to increase," Barra told reporters following a fireside chat she did at the Automotive News World Congress.
GM told the Canadian auto union last week it would stick with its plan to close the Oshawa plant.
What’s wild is this was the second worst story for GM in Ohio yesterday!
Eight black workers filed a lawsuit in Toledo Thursday alleging white managers at the Powertain plant failed to stop rampant racism in the workplace.
From Mallory Simon and Sara Sidner of cnn.com:
Toledo, Ohio — It took 14 months for the noose to show up.
Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors.
A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa."
A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls.
In Ohio.
In 2018.
I love that “In Ohio… in 2018” bit, as if it should shock the average reader that there’s systemic racism in a state that voted for an orange racist buffoon by eight points.
Between this lawsuit and the shuttering of the Lordstown plant, GM may never sell another vehicle in this state. We’re a Ford family, now!
What did you do Wednesday night? Doubtful anything as cool as Frederick Campbell, a Springfield man who got drunk “at various places” and called 911 nearly 24 times to talk shit.
From Jenna Lawson of mydaytondailynews.com:
During the calls, Campbell didn’t make coherent sense and didn’t give dispatchers direct answers.
“Who is you?” he asked a dispatcher.
“This is dispatcher Repik,” the dispatcher replied.
“This ain’t a popularity contest — lives have been taken,” Campbell said. Two sheriff’s officials eventually found Campbell at Rooster’s restaurant on Bechtle Avenue. He was very drunk, according to court documents.
Campbell pleaded not guilty to charges of disrupting a public service. He could face up to 18 months in jail and/or a $5,000 fine. He also faces falsification charges for giving the deputies a fake name at Rooster’s.
Campbell is now a front-runner for “Ohio Man of the Year,” awarded annually to Buckeye gentleman with the most overzealous commitment to outrageously petty crime.
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