For those who don’t know—Billy Napier included—homes in rural Central Florida don’t have basements.
The Florida Gators head coach made a statement about his players avoiding listening to Central Floridian basement dwellers on social media. It’s not uncommon for a head coach to call out critics, especially those living in their parents’ basements, which are central among them.
The problem here is that people took significant issue with Napier not only insulting his fanbase but also insulting his state.
How does the head coach of a football program not know that Central Florida homes don’t have basements? Sure, it might’ve been a tongue-in-cheek comment, but it doesn’t bode well for in-state recruiting. And according to ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, who slammed Napier on his #Greeny radio show, it doesn’t bode well for his relationship with the fans either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYn5X7ySTqE
“You take shots at your own fans? Let’s cover the obvious first; he doesn’t even know the territory that he represents,” Greenberg said. “You cannot have a basement in Florida. That’s the first part of this, OK? The old, ‘Sitting in his mother’s basement,’ which is the most tired of cliches, generalizations, etc., in sports or beyond, doesn’t apply in Florida. There’s too much water; it’s a swamp. Your stadium is literally called ‘The Swamp,’ and you cannot put basements underneath them. So, this does not apply either literally or figuratively.
“But beyond that, and I’ve said this a million times, and I’ll say it a million more, those fans you’re criticizing, their passion is the reason you have that job. Their passion is the reason you get paid as much money as you get paid. Those fans who save up their money, not the ones that sit in the corporate suites, not the ones that make huge donations to the University; they’re not the ones criticizing you on Twitter. The ones who are criticizing you on social media are the ones that save up their money to travel to one game a year, who give their kids for Christmas, Florida jerseys, all that kind of stuff.
“They’re people that have been there long before you got there, and they’re gonna be there long after you’re gone. For you, this is a job — and I get it — it’s important. And I get criticism stinks, but it comes with the territory. And if you’re gonna fire back on your own fans, you have lost; it is over. Billy Napier is already out of Florida. It is just a question of when they decide to make it official. You do not win your fans back after this. No coach ever goes after the fans and gets it back again. To me, this is the cardinal sin.
“I know a little bit about what criticism is like. Now, I’ll be the first to acknowledge, the amount of criticism that a college football coach in the SEC must get, receive, hear, live with, deal with, it is 10 trillion times what I ever heard on my worst day. But the one thing I know for sure is that my description and his, my job description and is, is you put your work on display for the world and the world is going to judge it. And if you can’t handle that, you’re in the wrong line of work. Whether you’re a broadcaster, a football coach, or anything else, that’s the description; that’s the job. This is the business we have chosen…”
Greenberg wanted to make it increasingly clear that he wasn’t comparing himself to Florida’s head coach in any “infinitesimal” way.
“If you added up all the criticism I’ve received in my 30-year career, it would be less than he’s probably heard since the game on Saturday,” says Greenberg. “But that doesn’t matter. That’s the one place you can’t go because by saying what you said, you just did the opposite of what you’re telling your players to do. You’re telling your player, ‘We need to be focused on the things that matter…’ Whatever it is that failed you in that game, and obviously that’s right, but you don’t say. You don’t say it. You don’t ever say it.
“To me, he’s committed the cardinal sin of coaching at any level, but particularly on the college level in that part of the country.”
Greenberg said that the basement aspect is the least important part of this, except it’s not.
“Except that it actually matters,” adds Greenberg. “It illustrates that the people he’s taking shots at there know more about this than he does. They know more about the part that matters…These are people to whom this stuff means everything. To whom, people like Tim Tebow, mean everything, and Billy Napier means nothing to them. Again, I’m not not unsympathetic to the level of vitriol that he probably has to deal with. But I will also add that he doesn’t have to deal with it if he chooses not to…”
He also wanted to make it clear that he does not call for people’s jobs and is not in the business of rooting for Napier to get fired. That’s not what Greenberg is talking about; what he’s saying is that when a head coach like Napier criticized his own fans, you’re actually criticizing the most important people.
“They’re the most important people,” Greenberg continued. “The University, they pay, but those fans are the reason they do. Those fans are the reason you’re worth how many ever millions of dollars they’re paying you. You know that private school your kids go to? The fans pay for that…It just drives me nuts that people don’t get that. Fans are not expected to be rational, they’re not expected to be held accountable, this isn’t their job; it’s something more important than their job. But they’re not expected to behave professionally when being fans. You are, it’s that simple.”
[ #Greeny ]
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