Vote Against Saban

I should have posted information about this earlier, but the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year voting ends at midnight Eastern Time tonight. This award recognizes the college football coach in each NCAA division that best demonstrates sportsmanship, integrity, responsibility and excellence.

Please note the word integrity. The Division I coach currently leading in the voting is Nick Saban of the University of Alabama. When I think of integrity, I don’t think of Nick Saban. As the coach of the Miami Dolphins, he constantly denied the rumors of the Alabama job and even said, "I guess I have to say it. I'm not going to be the Alabama coach. ... I don't control what people say. I don't control what people put on dot-com or anything else. So I'm just telling you there's no significance, in my opinion, about this, about me, about any interest that I have in anything other than being the coach [in Miami]." Two weeks later, he left Miami.

Personally, I like Jim Tressel of Ohio State or Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern. This may be the one case where I would write to vote for Joe Paterno over Saban. Actually, I take that back. You can’t be coach of the year when so many of your players get arrested. So vote for anyone besides Paterno and Saban.

For Division II, vote for Bill O’Boyle of Chadron State College. I know nothing about him, but I like the bald head/moustache look.

Once again, voting for the Coach of the Year ends tonight at midnight. Check out this website to vote or for more information.

Edyta vs. George Novak

During Tuesday night’s Dancing with the Stars finale, Jason Taylor said that his dance partner Edyta Sliwinska, was the best coach he had ever had. (Yes, I’m admitting that I watched the season finale. Before you make fun of me, how many of you can say that someone who played sports at your high school was a finalist on Dancing with the Stars? I thought so!) Therefore, I thought we should go back and compare Edyta to Taylor’s Woodland Hills High School football coach, George Novak.


- Woodland Hills High School football coach for over 20 years
- WPIAL (Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League) Championships in 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2002.
- NFL players from Woodland Hills coached by Novak include Taylor, Ryan Mundy, Shawntae Spencer, Lousaka Polite and Steve Breaston.
- Has never won the PIAA (Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association) championship.


- Dancer for over 15 years.
- Emerald Ball Latin Amateur Champion; 1st place - 2001 International Grand Ball (San Francisco); and 1st Place - 2001 Holiday Ball (Las Vegas, Nevada).
- Dancing partners include Taylor, Evander Holyfield, George Hamilton, Joey Lawrence and John Ratzenberger
- Appeared on all six seasons of Dancing with the Stars but has never won.


I’ll give the edge to Edyta simply because she is in much better shape than Novak (and since she would probably know not to run the ball while your team was trailing on a 4th and long late in fourth quarter).

Meanwhile, Nick Saban believes that he was the best coach Taylor ever had.



When asked about Saban, the jovial Taylor abruptly changed his expression and simply said, "Release giant JT."



If you want to see more pictures of Edyta, she has her own website and Myspace page. If you want to see more pictures of Novak, you’re out of luck. There don’t seem to be many pictures of him on the internet.