And Mean What You Say..

Well, Bobby Petrino has been fired from his job as head football coach at Arkansas. Why? How could such a thing happen to a nice, upstanding man with so much integrity? (Sarcasm? Duly noted.)

Well, actually, for a plethora of reasons. Let's see: he gave some 20-something girl he happened to be "involved with" $20,000 after hiring her to some no-name job in the athletic department while not telling anyone else on staff he happened to be "involved with" her, shortly after which he crashed his motorcycle, upon which she just so happened to be riding with him. And he's married and she's engaged. Neither to one another. (If you want the specific facts, google it. Or watch 5 minutes of ESPN. I am only here to summarize the scandal so I can get to the real point of what I want to say.)

And what I want to say is, well, color me shocked. I just so naively assumed that, even after hearing all the facts played and replayed, there was no way the Razorbacks' boosters would get rid of this guy because, despite this set of questionable judgment calls, they did hire him fully aware of his numerous other questionable judgment calls and, bottom line, he wins football games.

Sure, I agree with his firing, less so because of the newest set of boneheaded decisions, but because he never fully paid the karmic price for his previous slime ball maneuvers.  He bolted as head coach of an NFL franchise, in the middle of the season, after reassuring the owner he was fully committed to the team. And how did he tell his professional players? He left them little notes in their lockers. And you thought Berger (AKA: Peter from "Office Space") breaking up with Carrie Bradshaw by post-it note was bad. Sheesh.

In the aftermath of this critically "brave" decision by Arkansas' Athletic Director, Twitter is all a'tweet with righteous indignation. What I wish everyone in every facet of life, including college sports, would do is just step away from the podium of political correctness and be honest about things.

Wouldn't that be refreshing? What if Bobby Petrino just came out and said, "Yeah, I know I'm a tool bag, but you know what? I'll probably get another coaching offer before the sun sets this weekend because I win on the field. And winning college football games is the ultimate offering at the shrine of the almighty dollar. So, who cares what I do, because in the end I'll get another gig somewhere, just like I did the last umpteen times I screwed some program over and if you hire me, I'll probably do it to you, too, but you won't care because in the interim between now and then, I'll win. And your school will get to go to a bowl game and be paid millions of dollars and the fans will love me for it in that moment and you will make even more money."

Wow. That would be utopia. I would seriously not know what to do with myself. I think everyone would ultimately see the addiction it could be to tell the truth and then it would catch fire just like Tebowing. Or Facebook. We'd all be telling the truth and living with integrity, even if that truth were inconvenient or ugly. At least all the cards would be on the table, instead of couched in passive aggressiveness and innuendo and blatant lies.

But, until then, we are stuck with things the way they are. And Bobby Petrino will move on to another day, another several million dollars.

Maybe this time, at least he won't pretend it's for the long haul.

A Few of Your Favorite Things...

Here is the first picture I took of ol' Franco P. on his actual birthday. See that little hand trying to escape the swaddle?

By now, we all now full well that he needed to get in some fist pumps, a trademark characteristic. Often, his fists pump so furiously you can not get a good shot of him. Sometimes it looks like this:

If you are lucky enough to see him fist pump properly, then you will know that what I say is true. I certainly hope this quirk continues, but it might not, and what if we all forgot about it in the end? Tragic. 

That is why I have to document Franco's favorite things as of his nearly three whole months on this earth, leaving out the obvious eating and sleeping and various other activities shared equally by all newborns. Here we go:

**The aforementioned fist pumps, which can also evolve into karate chops

**Kicking furiously,  usually accompanied by dramatic arm movements, but not always

**Wearing mitts:

**Going on adventures, be it to the mall or to eat in a restaurant or to court with his disgruntled attorney mom or to friends' houses. Franco is always up for an outting

**Listening to sports on the television - a trait well-valued in this household

**The bouncy seat so generously leant to us by Auntie Mary Katherine

**The silly sisters (AKA Emma and Gracie) even when licking like the dickens

**Deep thinking and pondering the future - or something along those lines:

Such a long list for such a young little guy! We'll all anxiously await the continuing saga as it unfolds before our very eyes! Stay tuned...