Two Recent Football Issues: A Commentary on our Entitlement Mentality

The fist issue involves Greg Schiano, an Ohio State assistant coach who was hired to coach Tennessee on Sunday, and then unhired the next day after a firestorm of protest arose from Tennessee fans, former players, and state legislators. The protest was centered around Schiano's involvement in the Penn State program, at a time when Jerry Sandusky was molesting young boys.

What is striking to me is the reaction of the national sports talk media, which almost unanimously rose up in protest over Schiano's being tarred by less than convincing evidence of any involvement in the Sandusky scandal. Only one brave commentator spoke out on the other side; this was Bill Reiter, host of a CBS sports radio show on 6-10 P.M. weekday evenings. Reiter rightly pointed out that Tennessee can hire whoever it wants, and that the pity should be reserved for the boys Sandusky molested, not for an assistant coach who may or may not have known of Sandusky's nefarious actions. Reiter pointed out that the evidence pointing to Schiano's involvement in the scandal was based on sworn testimony, offered under oath under penalties of perjury, and this evidence should not be dismissed so cavalierly as the national media were doing.

And then we had the case in the last few days where the NFL Giants announced that Eli Manning would not be starting Sunday.  Here again, a firestorm of protest arose from the lamestream media. "You can't do this to Manning", came the insipid cries, "he has a 210 consecutive game streak" starting at quarterback, second all-time only to Bret Favre.

Here again, only one commentator was thoughtful and mature enough to voice the other side, this being Colin Cowherd. Cowherd pointed out that the Giants can start whoever they want at quarterback, and he pointed out many good and valid reasons why the Giants might want to make a change at this point.

What this dramatizes is how an entitlement mentality has infected our national psyche. People feel entitled to something, whether they have earned it or not.  Related to that is that we have also become a nation of whiners, whining whenever something doesn't go like we had hoped, instead of vowing to work harder to do better in the future. In this case it isn't the two principals doing the whining, but rather their misguided supporters.