Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

All the shit that doesn't fit!
If it doesn't go into the other forums, stick it in here.
A general free for all
Post Reply
User avatar
Joe Guy
Posts: 13927
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 2:40 pm
Location: Redweird City, California

Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Joe Guy »

College football coach resigns after saying Hitler was undeniably 'a great leader'

A newly hired member of the Grand Valley State University football coaching staff resigned Thursday after he made laudatory remarks last week about Adolf Hitler during an interview with the Michigan school's student newspaper, saying, "The way he was able to lead was second-to-none."

"In a poor effort to give an outside-the-box answer to a question, I mistakenly communicated something absurd," now-former offensive coordinator Morris Berger wrote in an apology posted Thursday to social media. "There is no justifiable excuse - it was insensitive and not my intent."

"Nothing in our background and reference checks revealed anything that would have suggested the unfortunate controversy that has unfolded," GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell said in a statement. "This has been a difficult time for everyone. I accepted Coach Berger's resignation in an effort for him to move on and for us to focus on the team and our 2020 season."

During the Q&A-style interview, published last week by the Grand Valley Lanthorn, sports editor Kellen Voss asked Morris Berger a variety of questions intended to help fans learn more about the football team's newest offensive coordinator. Toward the end of the interview - as a nod to Berger's degree in history from Drury University - Voss asked him to name any three people in history he'd like to have dinner with, excluding football figures.

"This is probably not going to get a good review, but I'm going to say Adolf Hitler," Berger replied. "It was obviously very sad and he had bad motives, but the way he was able to lead was second-to-none. How he rallied a group and a following, I want to know how he did that. Bad intentions of course, but you can't deny he wasn't a great leader."

Berger, who was named the team's offensive coordinator on Jan. 20, rounded out his trio with John F. Kennedy and Christopher Columbus after the Nazi leader, whose policies resulted in millions of deaths in the Holocaust.

Berger was suspended earlier this week amid an investigation conducted by the university.

"The comments made by Offensive Coordinator Morris Berger, as reported in The Lanthorn student newspaper, do not reflect the values of Grand Valley State University," Grand Valley State spokeswoman Mary Eilleen Lyon said in a statement this week. In a follow-up statement to The Lanthorn, the university said it was committed to the editorial independence of its student newspaper.

"The administration is reviewing events surrounding the Berger story to determine if there was behavior inconsistent with that commitment," the statement added.

In an interview Monday, Grand Valley Lanthorn Editor-in-Chief Nick Moran told The Washington Post that the publication typically interviews big names who join and leave the university. The last Q&A the paper published, he noted, was when the university's former president, who retired in April.

In the case of Berger, who joined Grand Valley State after successful coaching stints at Texas State University and Oklahoma State University, Moran sought to provide football fans a close look at their new coach.

"GVSU's defensive game is something that's a spectacle - so having a new coordinator to revamp offense attracted a lot of attention," he said. "Our job is to fill in readers on Berger's history and his goals for the offense."

Much of the interview focused on Berger's coaching experience. Moran, who said he reviewed the interview before it was published, said the closing historical-figures question aligns with guidance from the school's sports reporting classes to start with a good question and "end with a bang."

"I'm beyond proud of my team. As young student journalists, it's difficult to handle a story with this attention, he said. "I can sleep at night and be confident with how we handled things and the decisions we made."

Berger was contrite.

"I failed myself, my parents and this university - the answer I attempted to give does not align instilled in me by my parents, nor represent what I stand for or believe in - I mishandled the answer and fell way short of the mark," he wrote in his apology.
Image
Likes the Skinhead Look
source

User avatar
Scooter
Posts: 16540
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:04 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Scooter »

In a follow-up statement to The Lanthorn, the university said it was committed to the editorial independence of its student newspaper.

"The administration is reviewing events surrounding the Berger story to determine if there was behavior inconsistent with that commitment," the statement added.
So a moronic boor expresses his admiration for Hitler, and the administration is trying to find a way to punish the students who reported it.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18299
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by BoSoxGal »

In fairness, lots of balding men these days choose the ‘skinhead’ look insofar as going full bald. Absent tattoos and other indicators, I don’t think he’s a skinhead.

His original answer and later statement both seem to reveal him as a very awkward speaker who really was trying to give an outside the box answer and failed miserably. Because he’s right; Hitler was incredibly skilled at leading people - astray, but leading them just the same. If you could harness that talent for good, it would be a great thing.

Right now we’ve got a guy in our White House who very specifically studied the speeches and methods of Hitler and very clearly is following his methods in brown shirt rallies and his manipulation of fellow politicians with threats and coercion. If this earnest young football coach had said he wanted to have dinner with Donald Trump, he’d be lauded by many.

What hypocrisy.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

User avatar
MajGenl.Meade
Posts: 20706
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:51 am
Location: Groot Brakrivier
Contact:

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

"...you can't deny he wasn't a great leader."
Yes I can't!
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

ex-khobar Andy
Posts: 5419
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:16 am
Location: Louisville KY as of July 2018

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

There was a way of making this a less absurd result.

Hitler led many ordinary people to unthinkable evil. If we don't study and learn from that, we will be condemned to repeat it. Democracy spawned Hitler.

We may, as BSG notes, be there already. I hope that future generations, if there are any, will study the Trump years. Win or lose in November, he will still have roughly half the population behind him. We can only hope that we manage to shave a few tenths percent off that in the right states when the time comes.

You can't deny that this man's history degree isn't a great ad for Drury University. Apparently the place has a pretty good reputation, according to the chaps at Wikipedia.
Drury has been at or near the top of the U.S. News and World Report "Great Schools at Great Prices" list for the Midwest since 1999, including five years in the #1 slot. It was ranked No. 8 on U.S. News and World Report's Best Regional Universities (Midwest) for 2014. It has been included in Princeton Review's Guide to Green Colleges since 2010. Other accolades include Honorable Mention for Best Liberal Arts School in the Nation by Time Magazine, a top producer of Fulbright Scholars in 2011 according to the Institute of International Education, and is ranked as one of 13 "Institutions of Excellence" by the Policy Center on the First Year of College.

Big RR
Posts: 14050
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:47 pm

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Big RR »

And next they'll go after Time for naming he Man of the Year.

Big RR
Posts: 14050
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:47 pm

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Big RR »

Right now we’ve got a guy in our White House who very specifically studied the speeches and methods of Hitler and very clearly is following his methods in brown shirt rallies and his manipulation of fellow politicians with threats and coercion.
Who is that? Not Donald; he has neither the intellect nor the attention span to do that. I think there is a much smarter person pulling his strings, but I'm not sure who that is. It clearly in the cretin we have as president. Guesses?

Burning Petard
Posts: 4050
Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2016 5:35 pm
Location: Near Bear, Delaware

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Burning Petard »

Yes fire the guy. He is supposed to be a paid adult leader of student athletes. He said the style of leadership exhibited by Hitler was effective. That style led to a complete disaster for the nation HItler was leadings. I do not believe the school wishes its athletic program to come to a similar result.


snailgate.

rubato
Posts: 14213
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 10:14 pm

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by rubato »

It is a University.

At Universities one is expected to be able to parse and understand more complex ideas than mere cartoons.

Get the fuck over yourselves.

yrs,
rubato

Big RR
Posts: 14050
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:47 pm

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by Big RR »

At Universities one is expected to be able to parse and understand more complex ideas than mere cartoons.
One would hope that is the case, but many universities seem to not trust their students enough to permit such thinking among the students.

User avatar
BoSoxGal
Posts: 18299
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Heart of Red Sox Nation

Re: Offensive Coach Fired for Being Offensive

Post by BoSoxGal »

Big RR wrote:
Right now we’ve got a guy in our White House who very specifically studied the speeches and methods of Hitler and very clearly is following his methods in brown shirt rallies and his manipulation of fellow politicians with threats and coercion.
Who is that? Not Donald; he has neither the intellect nor the attention span to do that. I think there is a much smarter person pulling his strings, but I'm not sure who that is. It clearly in the cretin we have as president. Guesses?
His first wife has attested that he kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches on his bedside table. Have you ever watched old footage of a brownshirt rally? Have you watched any of Trump’s rallies? No question there is a strong parallel. Yes, Bannon had a big hand in driving his populist approach - but Trump, while no intellect, absolutely has raw talent for riling up the ugly in people - just like Adolf did.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

Big RR
Posts: 14050
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 9:47 pm

Re: Offensive Coach F ired for Being Offensive

Post by Big RR »

A talent? Perhaps. But even if he kept the speeches by his bedside, I doubt the read them; I think the funny papers would strain him. He is a person who just does what he is told, jusrt like he did with the Apprentice; he's good at riling up his base so long as someone gives him the words, but he couldn't even string phrase together on his own. The man has no real political positions of any sort--he only wants to remain a celebrity, and he has pretty much done what his handlers like Bannon have told him, to keep that dream. The same has happened to other politicians far more intelligent than he is who were seduced by the power of celebrity and abandoned any positions for the want of staying in power; Trump is just someone who started without any real agenda other than to remain in the public eye.

At least that's the way I see him, a stupid wannabee who will do everything he is told to get ahead.

Post Reply