FanHouse

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.

On Thugs, Guns, Lifestyles, and The Unfortunate Existence of Bad People

When someone dies unexpectedly, there's a natural urge to look for a bigger-picture meaning. People don't want to believe that something that horrific can happen without a reason ... because if there is no reason, then it's perfectly random, and if it's perfectly random, it could happen to any of us. That vulnerability is frightening.

So there has to be a reason that Sean Taylor was murdered, and that reason has to be something more than the whim of some murderous, heartless, piece of garbage. And if we need to find a reason, we might as well be something that's at least Sean Taylor's fault, too, just so we're reassured that nothing this terrible could ever happen to us. After all, we're very good people.

(Also on Today's List: The Rice Marching Owl Band becomes my 2nd favorite marching band of all-time ... Canadians must not have neat little signs in their kitchen with this poem printed on them ... Duke is back to their unstoppable ways, and Ray Allen does something very un-Ray Allen like ...)

The go-to conclusion at this point? Sean Taylor led a bad life, surrounded himself with bad people, and couldn't let go of a bad lifestyle. Mike Wilbon went with it, Mike and the Mad Dog went with it, and some of our scholarly commenters here have gone with it.

But you know who hasn't gone for it? The police. You know why? Because they don't even know who killed him yet, let alone why. For all we know, Barry Switzer put a slug into him in some sort of bizarre attempt to win back Jerry Jones' approval.

So why the rush to paint this as a byproduct of Sean Taylor's lifestyle, especially given that we know nothing about the suspect, the motive, or for that matter, Sean Taylor's lifestyle?

It's true that he had something of a checkered past. He was arrested for an aggravated assault, and he was arrested for DUI ... but the aggravated assault charges were eventually dropped, and he was acquitted of the DUI.

All of his other "character issues" -- skipping the rookie symposium, not returning Joe Gibbs' calls, the fines for unnecessary roughness -- are simple and inconsequential football transgressions.

It qualifies as checkered, I guess, but it's not like he was in Chris Henry territory. Even if you're looking to talk about the most negative pieces of his life immediately after his death, there's not a ton to sort through. The only thing anyone points to is the aggravated assault charge ... I've yet to see any other specific thing mentioned about Taylor's lifestyle that could have led to his death, or to him being in danger.

By my unofficial scale, if you're looking to judge the man from afar, the quotes from his teammates about his character far outweigh any of the instances he made Redskins fans unhappy or had to talk with police or lawyers.

I mentioned a couple of those quotes yesterday, and here's another, from a 2006 article by ESPN.com's Michael Smith.

Who is Sean Taylor? Is he the thug we see on the field and read about in the police blotter? Or is he the "nicest, most humble, considerate, respectful guys in this locker room -- seriously" as teammate Jimmy Farris says. Farris adds, "I can't think of one negative thing to say about him. It sounds funny to say, but he's a guy you feel secure when you're around him. If it goes down, he's got you."

Here's the other thing about Taylor, which makes the viewpoint that Taylor somehow brought this on himself even more troubling: no one knew him. He didn't talk to reporters, especially about himself. He rarely ever spoke a word to them, and honestly didn't care how he was perceived.

His father was a Police Chief. He lived in Palmetto Bay, Florida (pictures from the vicious neighborhood can be found in this .pdf file). No teammates ever said a bad word about him. There was no reason to believe that he was involved in anything nefarious.

I'm not nominating the guy for sainthood ... after all, I don't know him any more than the people who are suggesting that the life Taylor led -- the one that Taylor never let them know anything about -- led to his death.

I don't see any reason to believe that Sean Taylor somehow brought this on himself because of he choices he made, and I've really got to wonder why anyone else would.

Please Do Not Call the Douchebag a Douchebag Over the Loudspeaker

We absolutely have to lighten things up in The Debriefing, and here's how we're going to do it: the word douchebag.

DOUCHEBAG! DOUCHEBAG! DOUCHEBAG!

Sorry, sometimes I just love to scream the word "douchebag." Maybe it's the Tourette's ... or maybe I've just been inspired by the Rice Marching Band.

Brief history: There's a fellow named Todd Graham ... and this fellow took the head coaching job at Rice after a 1-11 season. The very next year under Graham, Rice went 7-5 and actually played in a bowl game. The people at Rice liked him.

But the people at Tulsa did, too. Graham was once a defensive coordinator there. The Tulsa people got wind of the fine job Graham did at Rice, and they wanted to hire him. But Rice wanted to keep him.

So Rice offered Graham a contract extension. Graham signed it, and then -- and this is the part that the Rice people didn't care for -- just hours later, Graham went ahead and left Rice to take the job at Tulsa. And he wasn't very nice about it, either.

So Graham and Tulsa visited Rice on Saturday ... and the Rice Marching Band had a little fun. They did a whole skit where they "searched" for Graham through Dante's 9 circles of hell. They didn't find him, even in the most evil 9th circle ... but rather beyond that, in Tulsa.

And then the band closed with this from the PA announcer:

You know, that reminds me of a joke: A priest, a nun, and a rabbi walk into a bar. Now, I forgot how the rest of it went, but I think in the end Todd Graham is a douchebag.

The entire text of the performance can be found here.

Tulsa, whiners that they are, have filed a complaint with Conference USA. The band will probably be punished somehow, but in their defense ... you know, Todd Graham did act like a douchebag. If our institutions of higher learning are forbidden from holding douchebags accountable for their douchebaggery, then we, as a nation, have failed our youth.

On top of that, they worked their clever insult into an epic piece of Italian literature, so it's educational, too. Maybe the shot at the city of Tulsa was unnecessary ... there's probably no need to insult an entire town by implying that it's the 10th circle of hell.

But the rest of it I'm fine with, and I truly hope that this sparks academia to embrace the word "douchebag" and emphasize the word's power and grace to today's young scholars.

Canadians Befuddled by Strange Trend of Kids Emulating Adults

You can take fighting out of the game if you want to, and replace it with the ability to make Wayne Gretzky's head bleed ... but the kids are still going to be hitting each other or something, man.

Canada's in a tizzy because a bunch of 8-year-old hockey players started brawling with each other. I don't know what caused it ... maybe someone hit Jeff in the face with a keychain, maybe someone called Suzanne a lesbian. I don't know. I just thank God that the little guys had the foil on and were ready to go.

Alright, I think that's enough movie references. The president of one of the teams (teams comprised of 8-year-olds have presidents? That sort of sets off a red flag, no?) described it like this:

"It wasn't that there was a major brawl or kids sent on the ice to fight. Kids were on the ice because the game had ended, and when a game ends, 8-year-olds want to celebrate whether they won or not."

That's an odd way of celebrating ... "Hooray, we won, let's beat this other kid until he pisses blood!" Anyway, the manager of the other team saw it his own way. From The Gazette:

Rene Bouvier, manager of the Thunder and father of the team's centre, said it's unclear who started the fight. He said the fracas - which lasted 20 to 30 seconds - involved three players from his son's team and five to 10 players from the opposition.

"They threw a few little punches and wrestled a little bit - which isn't right - but the thing has been blown way out of proportion," Bouvier said.

I couldn't agree more. If you're going to teach a kid to play hockey, and if his heroes are going to play in a league where fighting is allowed/encouraged ... then why should anyone be surprised that the kids mimic that behavior? As long as adults tell kids that fighting is a perfectly acceptable part of hockey, then kids are going to believe -- get this -- that fighting is a perfectly acceptable part of hockey.

Just tryin' to capture the spirit of the thing.

For the Scrapbook ...

And He Doesn't Even Have Canadian Healthcare to Rely On Anymore

In a fantasy football season where absolutely nothing has made sense, it's good to know that there's one thing we can still count on: Ricky Williams will be positively worthless.

He's done for the year, after Steelers linebacker Lawrence Timmons stepped on his back, somehow tearing one of Ricky's pectoral muscles. It reminds me of the time when someone kicked me in the shins and my pancreas exploded.

It is kind of a shame ... if the Dolphins can't provide any kind of quality football, then they might as well be interesting. And say what you want about Ricky Williams, but he is interesting.

It was impossible to evaluate Ricky on his performance last night ... the fumble wasn't good, of course, but the man got just six carries on a surface similar to the one Bart and Charlie had to pull themselves out of after Taggart sent them up there with on a handcart. It wasn't enough of a performance to conclude that he could play, but it certainly wasn't any indication that he couldn't play, either.

Oh well. See you next year, Ricky. Probably.

Bad News if You Hate Duke ...

They appear to be pretty good again. The were a perfect 6-0 heading into last night's game against Wisconsin in the Big-10/ACC challenge, but they had yet to play a team that could exploit their lack of height, like the gigantic Badgers could.

Duke did OK.

The final was 82-58, and the game was every bit the blowout that the score would indicate. Wisconsin's white dorks didn't have a very good time ... not nearly as good a time as the white dork sign makers in the Duke crowd.

They hounded Wisconsin all over the floor, forced turnovers, prevented them from getting into any of their sets, and for large portions of the game, Wisconsin looked like they just wanted to go home and cry.

The Badgers did steady themselves and played a 33-34 second half, but being competitive in the second half after getting blown out in the first is about the most meaningless accomplishment possible in sports. You got your ass whipped when it mattered, but hey, congratulations on being able to lose by less than 40.

Duke should get to 10-0 against Davidson, Michigan, and Albany before traveling to #11 Pitt.

Yesterday's MVP

Houston Nutt: Ole Miss noticed that weird thing Houston Nutt did at Arkansas ... what's it called ... man, I can't think of it ... oh yeah, winning. And they decided that they'd like to give that a try.

In the 10 seasons at Arkansas before Nutt got there, Arkansas went 57-56, with four bowl bids. In the 10 seasons Nutt coached there, Arkansas went 74-48, with seven bowl bids. Arkansas decided they liked the old way better, and let Nutt go.

Ole Miss saw to it that he was unemployed for about an hour.

It's a fantastic break for a program that sucked pretty hard under Ed Orgeron ... but that doesn't mean I'm not sorry to see Ed Orgeron go. The Orgeron's greatness is chronicled best here, and his glorious essence is captured wonderfully in this song.

Yesterday's Sad Sack

Ray Allen. If you can't count on Ray Allen to make free throws ... what the hell can you count on in this world? He was shooting 92% from the stripe heading into the game, and had two free throws, in a tie game, with 23 seconds left ... and he missed them both.

The Cavs went on to win in overtime, 109-104. LeBron finished with 38, but that's his job ... Drew Gooden, on the other hand, you wouldn't expect to finish with 24 and 13, on 11-of-15 shooting.

For Those Who Admire the Female Form ...

Sorry, No Photos

The Evening's Agenda

Deserving Of Your Full Attention ...

9:13, ESPN. College Basketball. North Carolina @ Ohio State. So many cool matchups happen early in the college basketball season ... it's a shame that this is the time when it's nearly impossible to pay close attention.

Other Stuff ...

7:00, ESPN Everything. Jim Valvano's ESPY Speech.
7:13, ESPN. College Basketball. NC State @ Michigan State.
7:13, ESPNU. College Basketball. Boston College @ Michigan.
7:30, ESPN2. College Basketball. Illinois @ Maryland.
8:00, PBS. Great Performances. Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival Chicago.
9:13, ESPNU. College Basketball. Alabama @ Texas A&M.
9:30, ESPN2. College Basketball. Virginia Tech @ Penn State.