Hands up if you use Jesus smokescreens to mask moral bankruptcy
The school that gave us the slimiest basketball coach in the history of the NCAA, Dave Bliss, offers up their latest protozoan in the form of Scott Drew. Let's be clear though: Scott Drew is merely a run-of-the-mill televangelist style sleazebag, while Dave Bliss was historically Lifetime-channel-cliched-movie-villain evil.
So, progress there Baylor. Dare I say...EVOLUTION?
Maybe you''ll eventually score another free Bill Cosby concert off of this.
Baylorfans.com offers an unintentionally amusing take on the latest Thayer Evans hit piece. Who knew Thayer Evans was so pro-Texas? Oh, Baylor.
If you follow Big 12 Basketball to any degree, you probably already knew that Scott Drew was universally hated by all of his colleagues in the Big 12. Rick Barnes wasn't so much grinding a personal axe or reacting bitterly to Baylor's first win against Texas since 1998 - he was speaking on behalf of the Big 12 basketball coaching fraternity and prepping Drew on expectations for the coming recruiting season.
The more casual fan is now aware of the Big 12 coach's hatred for Drew after Thayer's piece. Ah, Thayer Evans. Wherever you find the Oklahoma Sooners, sociopath recruiting mamas with speaker phones, free hair gel giveaways, or the whiff of College Sports scandal (OU and the latter are generally synonymous) you'll find Thayer Evans. You'll also find the NYT, where college scandal and sharp practice are part and parcel of their narrative about the evils of Big Sport and Society.
Fact-checking? Not always a NYT strength. However, this is a story about as straightforward as it gets. The basic gist is this: Everyone Hates Scott. So why is Drew so universally reviled by his peers? And why are Baylor fans so shocked to learn this?
Three reasons.
The least of the reasons is that Drew is a bad basketball coach and his colleagues flat out don't respect him. John Calipari is viewed as a corner cutter, but his colleagues respect his acumen. Not so Drew. Baylor consistently underachieves yet he projects a personna that suggests that he's a young Rick Pitino.
Second, partly because of his dodgy recruiting practices and willingness to hire AAU fixers and engage in heavy petting with street agents and runners - though he is not unique in that area (I'm looking at you A&M) - but mostly because he's a remarkably unrelenting negative recruiter who is fairly well known for making up stories on the recruiting trail, baldly lying his ass off in living rooms, then pleading innocent to colleagues when confronted. He generally exhibits the moral compass of someone permanently trapped at Moral Magnetic South. Or as it has been renamed, Waco Central.
Finally, and perhaps most irritating to his peers, Drew masks all of his indiscretions in insincere Jesus-loves-me cant. As Bliss did. It's the cover for his antics and an effective means of buying time with an alumni base that would look the other way from a Moldovan child pornography ring run from the coach's offices if they can prove at least two other programs have done the same and they could go 8-8 in conference play. Insincere, self-justifying Christianity used to mask bad behavior grates on people. Not least of all, Christians? Coaches could deal with Billy Clyde Gillispie being a moral infant because he offered no pretense to being anything else. Not so Drew.
So there you have it. Oh, well. Enjoy the NIT, Bears. You'll have the most talented team there.
And as for John Wall, the player Baylor thought they'd land by buying his AAU coach? He's probably headed to Memphis. Shouldn't Baylor know that you never make a deal with the Devil?
Or Scott Drew Dave Bliss.