Art Thiel is a longtime sports columnist in Seattle, for many years at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and now as founding editor at SportsPressNW.com.
The writing has been on the wall for this moment. The Seahawks were forced to do the forbidden thing in the NFL: they traded a Hall of Fame quarterback with tread on his tires.
The NCAA response to a pivot point in the history of big-time American college athletics is a slapdash collapse that has been years in the making. The NCAA has to have known it was running a crooked shop, but refused to take substantive steps to forestall disaster.
The upshot was the nation’s best offense was held to a season low in points. It was an exercise in power and energy. As Bears coach Scott Drew offered from the post-game stage after receiving the championship trophy, he pointed over his shoulder and said, “If you’re going to war, I’m taking these guys.” He’s probably right.
The way many people, inside of baseball and outside, see the Mariners is as a hapless loser of an organization with a toxic culture that indulges a senior executive like departed CEO Kevin Mather,
Coach Carroll doesn’t have the leverage of a politician, but he has experience in one of America’s two high-profile industries with majority Black talent (the other is the NBA). He knows his material and his truths.
Players typically come from colleges where coaches are tyrants who come down hard on independent thinking, outspokenness, and originality. College coaches see threats everywhere to their empires, as do many pro coaches. But not Coach Carroll.