[Noozhawk note: Paul Yarbrough’s Time Out column, which has been a regular Monday feature on Noozhawk, has moved to Tuesdays. Check back weekly for his views on sports.]
» Donn Bernstein, the legendary former sports information director at UCSB and former publicist for ABC’s college football coverage, sent a nice note, weighing in mostly on the LeGarrette Blount suspension at Oregon …
» “Indeed, LeGarrette Blount ‘short circuited,’ ‘lost it’ and ‘screwed up’ big time,” Bernstein writes. “But was it a capital offense? A national headline maker, to be sure. A criminal act? Hardly. While we don’t condone such boorish behavior — or tolerate such ugly violations of good sportsmanship — I felt sacking the kid for the season was unfair … unjust. The point could have been made, in my opinion, with a two- or three-game suspension.” …
» Bernie adds, “The school president took center stage, enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, yet it should have been the athletic director (Mike Bellotti) and the football coach (Chip Kelly) taking the lead in making a joint announcement elaborating on the need for punishment — and more significantly — the need for Blount to reflect on his mistake, work on his temper and be allowed to atone for his sin on the field, as well as off.” …
» A final thought from Bernstein: “There seems to be no common sense in justice — regardless of crime or punishment. Rapists walk, cheaters circumnavigate the system and bar-room brawls escape scrutiny. Yet a random punch, thrown in the midst of emotion, while unacceptable, sidelines a kid for a season. A flagrant foul, yes. But a death penalty? No!”
» Stay tuned to this story. I have absolutely nothing but a hunch to base this on, but I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Blount in an Oregon football uniform. It wouldn’t have been nearly as big a story if the game against Boise State hadn’t been played on a Thursday night, putting clips of the post-game tirade on air without competition from other games from the moment the UO-Boise game ended until Saturday morning when new games began …
» Hearing from Bernstein brought back such memories. I’ll never forget one of my first encounters with Donn, who as the UCSB SID was responsible for calling in athletic results to the Santa Barbara News-Press during many of my years there. One Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1972, he was calling in track results and didn’t stop to take a breath as he read me the summary, leaving me desperate to try to keep up. I was the only one in the sports office at the time, and he nearly had me in tears before the phone call ended. But I always held him in such high regard …
» The NFL needs to overhaul its overtime rules. A move to how colleges decide things in overtime is long overdue. To have a hard-fought game ultimately come down to who wins the coin flip (and gets the ball first) for the overtime period just seems ridiculous. Each team should get the opportunity to have at least one offensive possession to decide things …
» Remember when the top college football game of the day would be the 12:30 p.m. contest on ABC? Now it seems as if the better games are all moved to prime time. I kind of miss the old days …
» Please allow a bit of parental pride: My 19-year-old daughter, Melissa, is going to play basketball on scholarship during her sophomore year at a college in Montana this winter, after playing volleyball on scholarship a year ago. I think it’s pretty neat that one day she’ll be able to reflect back on playing two sports at the collegiate level …
» When I lived in Southern California, I had season tickets for UCLA football games at the Rose Bowl, attended college and pro games at the Coliseum and The Big A (now Angel Stadium), but nothing prepared me for my first visit to Husky Stadium in Seattle …
» As I headed to my first game at Husky Stadium (Oregon State–Washington, October 2000), friends in the Willamette Valley told me Husky Stadium would be louder than anything I had heard at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium or Oregon State’s Reser Stadium …
» For three-quarters of that game at Husky Stadium, I didn’t know what those folks were talking about. Yes, the stadium was bigger (70,000-plus) than those other facilities, but the noise volume was nowhere close. Then, the fourth quarter began. When Oregon State was driving for a potential tying field goal in the final minute, the noise generated by the UW fans was deafening …
» It’ll be nice to see my alma mater, Dos Pueblos High, play all of its home football games on campus this fall for the first time in school history …
» I was in the first class to go from kindergarten through sixth grade at Isla Vista School, and it has already been torn down and a new school built on the property. Talk about making a fellow feel old …
» And speaking of feeling old, you definitely qualify as an old-timer if you remember the little three-hole golf course at UCSB.
— Noozhawk columnist Paul Yarbrough can be reached at pyarbrough@noozhawk.com.