Posts Tagged ‘Oregon Ducks’
December 8, 2011
The bowl season is shaping up well for fans of ethical football, as Les Miles’s LSU Tigers head for the BCS championship at the Sugar Bowl, and Chip Kelly’s Oregon Ducks go to the Rose Bowl. But my favorite is the Ethics Bowl, where the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs defeated the Cal State Chico Wildcats Saturday in the West Regionals to go to the National Finals in Cincinnati on March 1.
The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl is a team competition that tests the skill of undergrads in analyzing and describing ethical dilemmas. I was privileged to serve as a judge, and see the enthusiasm and determination that students from eight California colleges showed for dealing with ethics.
The students were all volunteers, motivated not by course credit but by their interest in the ethical life. They put in a huge effort to research the fourteen cases used in the competition, and backed up their conclusions with facts and theory.
At a time when so many adults are behaving unethically and so many college competitions are marred by cheating and unsportsmanlike conduct, it’s a joy to see so many millennials working so hard to rise to the challenge of ethics.
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Tags:Banana Slugs, BCS championship, Cal State Chico, cheating, Chip Kelly, ethical dilemmas, ethics, Ethics Bowl, Les Miles, LSU Tigers, millennials, Oregon Ducks, Rose Bowl, UC Santa Cruz, unsportsmanlike conduct
Posted in Education, Ethics-general, Sports | Leave a Comment »
October 21, 2011
Sport is supposed to build character, but college sport often puts winning above sportsmanship or ethics. So it’s encouraging to see a big-time coach put character first. It’s especially encouraging when the stakes are huge.
LSU’s Tigers are undefeated at 7-0, and ranked #1 in the nation. Tomorrow they play improving and dangerous Auburn. LSU needs a win to preserve their path to the national championship.
LSU’s chances dropped a notch Wednesday when Coach Les Miles suspended three key players, reportedly for drug violations. The three included two considered the Tigers’ most valuable: cornerback and Heisman Trophy contender Tyrann Mathieu (six forced turnovers, including two returned for touchdowns), and star running back Spencer Ware (512 yards and six touchdowns). Defensive back Tharoid Simon (one interception and 29 tackles) was also suspended. The suspensions are for at least one game; if Miles extends them it could be devastating to the Tigers since their next game is at Alabama, ranked #2 in the nation.
Miles has been criticized for failing to control his players, but he deserves a lot of credit for putting character above winning. I don’t know whether to root for LSU to win to show that ethics pays off; or to root for them to lose to demonstrate just how much coach Miles put at risk to enforce LSU’s rules of behavior.
In any case, Coach Miles gets a Chip Kelly Award for putting character above winning.
__________
*Chip Kelly, Oregon Ducks football coach, suspended his star running back for poor sportsmanship right after Kelly’s first game as Ducks coach
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Tags:Alabama, Auburn, character, Chip Kelly award, drug violations, ethics, Heisman Trophy, Les Miles, LSU suspensions, LSU Tigers, Oregon Ducks, Spencer Ware, sportsmanship, Tharoid Simon, Tyrann Mathieu
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 1 Comment »
January 6, 2011
Auburn’s football team is rated #1 in the nation as it prepares for the national championship game Monday against the Oregon Ducks. Academically its team is rated #85 out of 120. It was rated #4 until a sociology professor spoke truth to power.
According to an article in today’s New York Times, one day in 2006 professor Jim Gundlach saw on TV that an academic player of the week was a sociology major. Gundlach had never had him in class, and two other sociology professors said they hadn’t either.
Gundlach smelled a rat in the football world, and dug around to expose widespread academic fraud in the Auburn football program. The Times broke the story back then, and Auburn, under pressure from the media and from the NCAA cleaned up its act—some—to publish honest academic ratings.
Gundlach didn’t get hero status at Auburn for correcting the football program: he was hounded out of the university by hate mail and calls assailing him for hurting the university. Gundlach doesn’t see it that way. The Times quotes him this way: “The things that I did in the process of going out was one of the best things I’ve ever done for Auburn,” (more…)
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Tags:academic fraud, academic ratings, Auburn football, hate mail, Jim Gundlach, national championship game, NCAA, New York Times, Oregon Ducks, Sam Goldwyn award, sociology major, Tiger football
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 2 Comments »
November 28, 2010
One and one-half cheers for Cal Bears head coach Jeff Tedford and athletic director Sandy Barbour for punishing Tosh Lupoi, the assistant coach who instructed a player to fake an injury to slow down the lightning-fast play of the Oregon Ducks.
Not three cheers, because immediately after the Cal-Oregon game, won by Oregon 15-13, Tedford had denied any faking of injuries. Not until after damning video evidence surfaced and the conference said there would be an investigation did Cal take action, suspending assistant coach Tosh Lipoi for one game. (more…)
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Tags:Cal Bears, cheating, Coaching Ethics, ethics, faking injuries, Jeff Tedford, NCAA Football Rules and Interpretations, Oregon Ducks, Pac 10, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott, Sandy Barbour, Tosh Lupoi
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | Leave a Comment »
November 17, 2010
Cal’s football coaching staff has found a way to slow down the lightning speed of the Oregon Ducks: cheat. The Ducks are undefeated and ranked #1 in the nation, but they almost stumbled Saturday against the Cal Bears, holding on to win, 15-13. Cal’s secret weapon? Faking injuries to stop the game and give Cal players time to catch their breath and get ready for the Ducks’ next play.
Several times during the game Oregon’s offense was stopped as a Cal player went down with an apparent non-contact injury, then quickly returned to the game. The most egregious example was captured on YouTube. Cal head coach Jeff Tedford denied cheating, telling ESPN,
“People get hurt during games and in fast-tempo stuff, there’s cramps. That’s not the deal. I know that anytime anybody goes down against Oregon, they always think that’s the case. But it’s not the case.
However, The Oregonian reports that “a source within the Bears football program confirmed to The Oregonian that this [faking injuries] indeed was “a big part” of the defensive game plan (more…)
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Tags:Cal Bears, cheating, Coaching Ethics, ESPN, ethics, faking injuries, football, Jeff Tedford, NCAA football rulebook, Oregon Ducks, Pac 10, The Oregonian, YouTube
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 1 Comment »
March 18, 2010
Seton Hall University is the oldest and largest Catholic university in New Jersey. It also has been a basketball power, on and off, for the past 60 years. This year the Pirates seemed on the verge of returning to the elite of college basketball, posting a 19-13 record, including 9-9 in the Big East Conference, the nation’s toughest.
The return was led by coach Bobby Gonzalez, who posted a 66-59 record over four years. But Gonzalez brought a mixed blessing to Seton Hall: the university often had more reason to be ashamed of the Pirates than to be proud of them. Gonzalez repeatedly clashed with everybody: his players, opposing players, his coaches, opposing coaches, game officials, and his superiors at Seton Hall. Players he recruited were charged with serious crimes.
Tuesday it ended. In the afternoon a player Gonzalez had just kicked off the team was arrested (more…)
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Tags:basketball, behavior, Big East, Bobby Gonzalez, conduct, ethics, Oregon Ducks, Patrick Hobbs, Pirates, Seton Hall, Texas Tech
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | Leave a Comment »
March 14, 2010
We’ve written about our favorite football coach, Chip Kelly of the Oregon Ducks. Kelly has been a paragon of coaching in his first-year on the job, leading the Ducks last year to a 10-3 record and their first Pac 10 championship since 1995. He did this while insisting on good citizenship from his players, even suspending his top running back for nine games for sucker punching an opposing player after the Ducks’ opening game loss.
Duck fans were hopeful of an even better 2010, with most of last year’s stars returning, led by Heisman Trophy candidate, quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, and running back LaMichael James, who rushed for 1546 yards as a freshman last year. This could be the Ducks’ chance at a national championship, even.
Not so much, anymore. Kelly suspended James, another of the team’s offensive stars, and top placekicker Rob Beard, both of whom pled guilty to misdemeanor physical harassment. They’ll both sit out at least next season’s opening game, with the proviso that they can play after that if they adhere to the guidelines Kelly puts forward.
But the big deal was the suspension of Masoli for the entire 2010 season (more…)
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Tags:Chip Kelly, citizenship, ethics, Florida Gators, Heisman Trophy Jeremiah Masoli, LaMichael James, O. J. Simpson, Oregon Ducks, Pac 10, Rob Beard, sportsmanship, Urban Meyer, USC, winning
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 3 Comments »
The bowl season is shaping up well for fans of ethical football, as Les Miles’s LSU Tigers head for the BCS championship at the Sugar Bowl, and Chip Kelly’s Oregon Ducks go to the Rose Bowl. But my favorite is the Ethics Bowl, where the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs defeated the Cal State Chico Wildcats Saturday in the West Regionals to go to the National Finals in Cincinnati on March 1.
Ethics Bob 