On a more serious note, keep Urban Meyer and his family in your prayers
by T Kyle King on Feb 6, 2009 10:19 PM EST
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PrintRecently, I authored and published a posting regarding Lane Kiffin's ill-considered and erroneous comments about Urban Meyer. This posting was intended as humorous, and I believe that, for the most part, it came off as intended.
However, a conscientious commenter from the Gator faithful who graciously gave me the benefit of the doubt called my attention to the fact that I inadvertently may have done the very thing Coach Kiffin did by making comments about Coach Meyer which were mistaken to the point of being insensitive.
The following is the pertinent passage from a response to the Lane Kiffin story:
We don’t know for sure how Urban Meyer reacted to this statement. He’s up in Ohio with his dad Bud, who has been battling cancer.
Obviously, I would not have made so much as a passing allusion to Coach Meyer's relationship with his family, even in jest, had I been aware of the situation with his father. The jokes I made were made in ignorance rather than with ill will, but that does not change their effect and I apologize to anyone who was offended.
Whatever differences divide us on the football field are meaningless in circumstances such as these. Please keep Bud Meyer and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Athletics rivalries are inconsequential in moments such as these, and all good people, of whatever team affiliation, ought to remember Coach Meyer and his family during this trying time.
Our best wishes go out to Bud Meyer, and my thanks go out to ufsm, both for calling my attention to this fact and for doing so in the way that he did.
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Hooey.
“The jokes I made were made in ignorance rather than with ill will…”
With all due respect, that’s not true at all. They were absolutely made with ill will—that was the whole point, and the (naturally) defining sentiment behind most of your writings about UF and other rival schools. Ill will is one of the things that make college football in general, and the SEC in particular, so great.
It’s because of this ill will that you have no problem describing a man you’ve never met as “psychologically twisted, emotionally stunted, and deeply unhappy” and speculating that it’s because his daddy didn’t love him enough. The fact that the man’s father has cancer doesn’t change your beliefs about him, only your perception about whether it’s acceptable to air them in public.
Look, you can either be publicly contemptuous of an individual on a personal level, beyond whatever “professional” differences you might have with him, or you can express sympathy for him during a trying episode in his personal life. But you can’t do both. If you do, you run the risk of sounding insincere in one place or the other, and there are few things more unattractive in a writer.
Mr. King, you’re an incredibly prolific writer whose more-than-occasional flashes of eloquence keep me reading your site (during the offseason, no less, God help me) despite my general…distaste…for all things UGA. I’d be happy to see you scale back either the personal vitriol or the crocodile tears—they don’t mix well.
Permit me to clarify:
I meant no personal ill will towards Urban Meyer. Of course, we have a strong institutional rivalry, which caused many Gator fans (including Steve Spurrier) to delight in calling our former head coach “Ray Goof,” but I know virtually nothing about Coach Meyer’s personal life, and it was that ignorance that came back to haunt me.
I had hoped it was obvious that the piece was tongue-in-cheek. It was intended to be humorous and the humor was intended to arise from the over-the-top nature of the exaggerations. None of it was intended to be taken seriously.
My regret was that the jokes were tasteless in the context of Bud Meyer’s health issues, of which I was unaware at the time. You can follow the comment thread at the previous post and here to see the sequence of events unfold: I made jokes which would have been inappropriate if intended as serious indictments, but which ordinarily would have been fair game in the context of a sports rivalry because they were obviously in jest; I was made aware of a situation about which I had not previously known, which made those characterizations inappropriate even as jokes; I apologized and attempted to make it right. I think that, if you go back through the three and a half years of my history in the blogosphere, you will find that I try to correct my mistakes.
If you doubt my sincerity, then nothing I have to say is going to convince you to believe me, but I assure you that, because it was intended in jest, nothing in my previous posting constituted personal vitriol and, because I genuinely regret the fact that the timing might have caused offense, nothing in this posting constitutes crocodile tears.
While we clearly disagree on many things, I thank you for the tone of your comment and I appreciate your taking the time to visit.
Go 'Dawgs!
Don't sweat it.
C’mon, it was obviously a parody and the comments you made were a sign of respect for a master coach. This is college football, people. When I make comments about a coach, I make the remark about the persona, not the person. Important difference. I strongly dislike Mark Richt’s middle-parted bangs (why can’t he get an adult haircut?) and his sideline clapping while his team damn near started a riot in the endzone in 2007. But as a man — in ‘normal life’ — he’s as good as they come. I cried real tears watching the story about his adopted children and I know he has played a positive role in so many young people’s lives. The world’s a better place with Mark Richt in it.
However, when the whistle blows and the game clock starts, he’s a bastard who needs another whipping from the Gators.
See? That’s why it’s all okay, people. Everyone relax. I think your apology was entirely unnecessary, T. Kyle, assuming your viewpoint is in similar fashion to the one I have described above.
Orange and Blue Hue: The World through GATOR-colored Glasses -- http://www.orangeandbluehue.com
Actually
I’m the gator fan who told Mr. King about Mr. Bud Meyer’s situation, and I actually think this is a great gesture on Mr. King’s part. I honestly don’t think he believes Urban Meyer is “psychologically twisted, emotionall stunted, and deeply unhappy” because of lack of paternal love – the pointed of his article was to persuade Urban Meyer to focus on beating Tennessee, not UGA. I just thought it was bad timing to make jest of Urban’s relationship with his father, albeit inadvertently, when Urban’s father has a debilitiating illness and Urban was actually showing his love for his ill father by spending time with him in Ohio. Mr. King didn’t have to write this blog, but the fact that he did shows that he does have compassion for the plight of a fellow human being, even if his athletic allegiance is clearly to another school. I think personal sympathy and professional rivalry or even dislike are not mutually exclusive.
by ufsm on Feb 8, 2009 2:03 PM EST reply actions
But in the end, what you say does matter,
whether or not you mean for it to be taken seriously.
That’s what make irony and sarcasm such powerful rhetorical tools: they are always “serious” at the same time that they are not, and to pretend that your previous post contained no “serious indictments,” is, in my opinion, disingenuous at best.
Maybe this is just a matter of taste, but I stand by the assertion that you can either be nasty or apologetic, but not both. To say something cruel, and then retreat behind the claim that it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, or to “apologize to anyone who was offended” (which is not the same thing as saying “I was wrong,” and the difference is a huge one) is what I have a problem with. It’s all too typical these days and we should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
I’ve said more than my share on this matter, and I’m happy to leave the last word to anyone who wants it.
Permit me to clarify a second time:
I was wrong. I shouldn’t have written it. I apologize for having written it.
Go 'Dawgs!
I'm on board with Pilot on this one
There is no doubt that Kyle wrote the post tongue-in-cheek. It was only an unfortunate and unknowingly untimely reference to the father/son love that made Kyle want to explain his intentions – and even then, it wasn’t really necessary.
wangalusa -I disagree that bloggers can’t be “nasty” and apologetic on their boards. In fact, Kyle’s post in open letter format approached the status of “brilliant” and allowed fans of the other 10 teams in the conference to have a laugh at UF and UT’s expense. In fact, I wouldn’t bother visting Dawsports if jabs were not continuously taken at the Gators. That is what a rivalry is. Fans can dsepise the coach of rival teams with as much hatred as they can muster, yet still pray for them when they fall seriously ill.
It’s not really personal hate – it is rivalry hate. Pilot said it best above differentiating between the persona and the person. There is no need for Kyle to further explain himself – I think all Gators would agree and take absolutely no offense.
Now please close this thread and get back to throwing some jabs….
IT WAS A JOKE
People need to lighten up a bit.
I agree that Kyle should have apologized, if only because he found himself making a joke at a time that joke could have caused pain. As one of the commenters above said, I don’t think Kyle seriously believes Meyer is “psychologically twisted, emotionall stunted, and deeply unhappy” because of his family relationships. It was an obvious attempt at humor — not a serious statement about Meyer’s family situation. If you honeslty believed that Kyle thought Meyer was warped because of daddy issues, you really need to get a life.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
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