Nepotism as a Sign of Decay

Wrote the following email to some friends a couple of weeks before March Madness got underway:

Can't wait to see what [coach] Mark Few does when Gonzaga plays a real team in the 2nd or 3rd round of the tourney. The kid [Gonzaga guard David Stockton, son of legendary Zag and former NBA superstar John Stockton] is a total liability, can't defend anybody, can't make an outside shot to save his life.

I had a bet on Gonzaga at BYU, for whatever reason Few gave Stockton major minutes. It was totally 4 against 5 the whole time he was out there. No reason to guard him, he might make one open shot but you can live with that and other than that he was a nonentity. If he plays a lot against a good team in the tourney it could end Gonzaga's season.

Meanwhile, had to put up with the Pitino son coaching Florida International bullsh*t earlier on ESPN. Pitino at the game sitting behind the bench cheering on his sh*thead kid, who undoubtedly deserves to be a head coach of a Division I team at the age of 30.

Richard Pitino! Sounds so adult when you say it that way.

Good God this nepotism garbage is nauseating beyond belief.

Ed. note: Yes, I am an idiot for wagering on this stuff. As this whole site is testimony to, I am trying to hold on to something that in my heart I know is not worth holding on to. Gambling is the only way I can conjure up any feeling for the games I once so enjoyed watching simply for what they were.

Well, that turned out to be an easy call.

No. 1 seed Gonzaga was "upset" by Wichita State in the second round (that's right, I refuse to call it the third round, no matter what the corporate stooges have to say) of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.

The reason they lost was not hard to find.

The Zags were down five at the half in large part because the Stockton kid played a ton in the first half, thus allowing WSU to fill the nets. He sits on the bench where he doesn't even belong (he should be buying tickets to get into the arena) to start the second half. The Zags promptly erase the deficit and go up by six. That is an 11-point swing without the undersized Stockton in to free things up for the Shockers.

In fact, Wichita State scored only 8 points in the first 9 minutes of the second half and looked to be ice cold on offense as Gonzaga buckled down on D to turn the game.

In comes Daddy's Pride and Joy. Instant shot in the arm for the Wichita O.They proceeded to score 26 points in the next 9:30. And that does not include all the free throws they made at the end.

In short, the kid KILLED the Zags.

He's 5'10" if that and weighs around 150 pounds.

How the heck is he gonna guard ANYBODY in crunch time?

Kelly Olynyk’s jumper pulled GU within two, but Fred VanVleet, who came in averaging 3.8 points, delivered a crushing 3 over David Stockton just before the shot clock expired and [gave] Wichita State led 70-65 with 1:25 remaining.

Oh, well. It was only the first No. 1 seed in program history.

Hope they spend daddy's money well.

But this is not the first time we've seen something like this. It is more than just a trend in the corporate sports world today.

The NFL is by far the worst offender. Brian Schottenheimer, Pat Shurmur, Kyle Shanahan... all these mediocrities getting choice coaching jobs just because of their last name.

Schottenheimer, son of longtime AFL linebacker and NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer, was offensive coordinator of a New York Jets squad that was so inept on offense that they became a national joke. Not only was he not fired, his name was constantly mentioned when head coaching positions became available. When the Jets were finally forced to part ways with him, they went out of their way to stress that Schottenheimer was not canned but that he in fact had decided not to return to the team!

Despite the abject failure of his time with the Jets, son Schottenheimer was immediatetly hired by Jeff Fisher to be offensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams.

Fisher himself is no stranger to the nepotism game:

A source told ESPN.com's John Clayton that one of the final disagreements that led to Fisher's departure involved his son, Brandon. Jeff Fisher wanted to have his son on the staff as a quality control coach and thought that was going to be approved. Brandon Fisher helped out during the season while offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger was receiving cancer treatment.

For several years, owner Bud Adams has stressed he didn't want family hired on the Titans' coaching staff and he apparently stuck by those principles this week in conversations with Fisher.

Adams was clearly right. This is not like handing down a family-owned business to an idiot son, this is professional or big-time college sports we're talking about. The lie they promote is that it's a meritocracy - if you're good enough, you play, if you're not, you don't. They use this lie to justify paying murderers, rapists and all kinds of derelicts huge salaries to play for their teams.

In the good old days, fans looked at a pro sports team as a public trust. An owner of good will circa 1974 should have realized what the Buffalo Bills meant to the entire community.

Those days are gone. Now these money-hungry owners hold the community hostage for sparkling new stadiums every 15 years or so (love the Miami Heat - their arena was "outdated" after 10 years) and show their disrespect for if not outright loathing of their fans in a million ways, such as PSLs, outrageous ticket prices, etc. etc.

So it should really be no surprise that we have gotten to the point where the multimillionaires who have carved out a name for themselves in this corrupt circle are pushing their untalented kids on all the rest of us.

It's become THEIR private thing. It's not OUR thing anymore. Of course it never really was ours, but once upon a time it seemed that way, didn't it?

Nepotism is a sign of institutional rot. It is a sign that something is falling apart.

Corporate sports is falling apart.

Who wants to watch a millionaire's undeserving kids flailing away at something they are woefully unqualified to do just because they're wearing a green jersey and your favorite team has always been the guys in the green jerseys?