Pitt Panther Prowl

Time for a Rational Assessment

I honestly feel bad for recruits that come to the University of Pittsburgh to play either football or basketball. I lived in Pittsburgh for the first 26 years of my life (and can’t wait to come back because it is the greatest city on earth) before spending the last four years in Kansas. I can honestly say that Pittsburgh has the most ungrateful fans I have ever seen. It is really sad. Unless you win a championship, people in Pittsburgh aren’t happy. Even in a potential championship year, many find reasons to complain. Since the 1970s, Pittsburgh has exactly one title in a sport that counts and it was a win in Super Bowl 40. I know the Penguins won a few Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992, but hockey sucks, so who cares.

Given that this city has one championship in 30 years, you would think the fans would be used to not winning them. Pittsburgh calls itself the City of Champions and won’t settle for anything less. They tried to run Bill Cowher out of town for years. When he finally won the Super Bowl, he stuck around for one more year then “retired” (read got sick of being a villain given the good he did for Pittsburgh Sports) everyone was stunned. Mike Tomlin came in as a rookie coach and did a reasonable job and after one season the calls for his head have already started.

It isn’t just the fans that are hard on our sports teams. Our media, especially the radio sports programs and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports columnists, spend far more time talking about the deficiencies of our teams, players, and coaches than celebrating how good we have it. The perfect example being that Ron Cook and Bob Smizik both voted AGAINST Larry Fitzgerald for the Heisman Trophy and defended themselves as though they were above being homers. YOU ARE PITTSBURGH SPORTS COLUMNISTS!!!! YOUR JOBS ARE SPECIFICALLY TO BE HOMERS. THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE PAID FOR.

Walt Harris took our football program from laughing stock of the country to perennial bowl team, including putting players in the NFL and making a BCS bowl. I don’t think Walt was ever going to make Pitt a national championship contender; but he did so much for Pitt football. He set the bar to where we expected something from the team, then blamed him for not exceeding those expectations. So what did we do? We ran him out of town and haven’t had a winning season or bowl appearance since. While Walt may not have made us a true national power, he recruited studs that gave fans a reason to care every game. Do names like Larry Fitzgerald and Antonio Bryant ring a bell?

The latest in the saga of “Oh My God ____ (insert Pittsburgh team) Sucks and ____ (insert coach’s name) Needs to be Fired” mania revolves around Pitt basketball and Jamie Dixon. I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, because I do know that there is a significant number of fans in Pittsburgh that support all of our teams no matter what. You guys aren’t who I am talking about. But any of you who do support Pittsburgh teams know exactly who I am talking about, because you have probably been annoyed by them to.

So the current argument out there is that Jamie Dixon needs fired because he can’t recruit, he can’t coach, he calls too many time outs, he knows nothing about defense, and he ran over your dog. Let me say it here now: Jamie Dixon is a great coach who has accomplished great things and our program will collapse if he leaves. For those of you that are trying to run him off, you are going to ruin it for the rest of us if he goes. Ten years ago, no one gave a crap about Pitt basketball. The only question was how many players would be arrested on the next road trip. No one even contemplated NCAA tournament bids. Dixon is about to lead Pitt to its seventh straight NCAA tournament. Coming into this season, all the media said that this was going to be a down year because of all the players they lost after last year. Many analysts even suggested at the beginning of the season that they may not make the NCAA tournament. Dixon isn’t the kind of coach who lets his players believe negative hype. He convinces them they can win, and they buy into it. Our own media said that Pitt was going to lose to Duke. Dixon convinced that team that they could win and they gutted it out to a big time win. Everyone (including me) said Pitt was completely done whenever Mike Cook and Levance Fields went down in back to back games. The Panthers responded by handily beating an excellent Georgetown team.

The problem isn’t that Dixon can’t recruit or coach or whatever else. The problem is that this team did so well when we all left them for dead that we all forgot just how much they lost this season. People act like talking about the injuries is getting old, but it has been a season long FACT. If a meteor hit your house and killed your family; a month later it would still be true that a meteor hit your house and killed your family. Just because it happened a whole month ago doesn’t mean it isn’t true now. Pitt had 4 players get injured to the point where they couldn’t play anymore, only one (Fields) of which has been able to come back this year. Back when Fields got injured we were aware that Ramon had a shoulder injury. That isn’t something that just came out yesterday. It has been true all season. It sounds like Gilbert Brown and DeJuan Blair may need surgery in the off season. We all watched Keith Benjamin hurt a finger on his shooting hand. Sam Young is the only starter without a significant injury. Between the injuries themselves taking a physical toll, and the fact that Pitt couldn’t field a 5v5 practice because they didn’t have 10 bodies, it isn’t surprising that they have fallen off on defense and rebounding. We have all heard that you play how you practice. This team has had to practice half speed with no contact. Surprisingly enough, that is also how they have played.

To add insult to injury, Sam Young has been the most consistent player for Pitt this season and the fans are so hard on him that you would think he was averaging 3 points a game. Take away Sam Young, this isn’t a tournament team this year.

We know about the injuries. We know the adversity this team has faced. We all left them for dead after the Dayton game (Fields’ injury) but this team gutted it out and came up with some big wins. They also had some heartbreaking losses that they probably would have won by 10 points if they had a full roster. What thanks do we give them for such heart and effort? We talk about how much they suck. We say that the coach needs fired. We question the caliber of recruits. Basically, we send the message to all the big names out there that might want to come here, “Don’t come to Pitt unless you want us to turn on you like rabid dogs.” Why do you think a guy like Terrelle Prior won’t come here? He is from Pittsburgh. He knows that if Pitt isn’t competing for a national championship then he will be treated like total garbage. If he goes to Ohio State, not only will he be a god whether they win or lose; he will also be on a team that WILL compete for a national championship. We, the fans, are one of the biggest reasons that big recruits shouldn’t come to Pitt. We treat 18 year old men like they just failed to stop a nuclear explosion just because they have a rough season. This is especially sad when this team has overachieved based on pre-season expectations and realistic views based on the adversity they have faced.

After the Duke game, we saw what looked like it could have been a final four team. What team in the country could face the issues that Pitt has faced this year and be a final four team? None, including this team. We have to adjust what we see as a successful season based on what this team has faced. For me, beating Duke made it a successful season. Making the NCAA tournament makes it a successful season. If they make the Sweet 16 ( a likely long shot barring the perfect matchups) I will treat this season like a final four season given what the team has endured.

For those that want to blame Dixon for not being able to recruit good talent as being the reason they are struggling right now (as opposed to being decimated by injuries), how come Dixon is doing significantly better than Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and he has all these 5 star recruits? Sure, Syracuse has injuries too; but they also have studs who should be able to compensate (if in fact you can overcome such injuries as the naysayers seem to think you can) for the injuries. However it happens to be the piss poor coach Jamie Dixon and his awful 1 star recruits that have come through in the face of adversity. I would like to think that has a lot to do with the coaching of Dixon. Even Bill Cowher didn’t do this good of a job the year after he won the Super Bowl and he was faced with a lengthy injury list (and he was playing with a Super Bowl defending team).

I know this is a long post, but it is important to me that we give some credit to our sports teams for what they do, especially the college athletes who are teenagers and aren’t being paid for what they do. Part of the problem is being spoiled because we have too many sports teams to root for in Pittsburgh. So if one isn’t doing well, cast them off for another. Out here in Kansas, everyone in the state bleeds either blue and red (KU) or purple (K State) whether they are winning or losing. While WVU fans are often way over the top, they do stand by their teams even in bad seasons. But these places have nothing else, just their schools. Until Walt Harris came in the 1990s most people in Pittsburgh didn’t care about anything Pitt did. Now that the city has some more good teams, we spend less time celebrating that they give us something to cheer for look at it like, “Hey, two more teams (basketball and football) to run through the mud.”

Frankly, it is embarrassing. I know that there are many, many true fans out there. I just hope that Jamie Dixon realizes that because it would be a tragedy if he left. I also hope the players know it. After all, we have two seniors playing with injuries, one of whom will need surgery after the season, and a third senior who lost the entire season to a blown knee. These guys have endured a lot, and for what? They aren’t getting paid. Aside from Mike Cook, who may play overseas, none of them are going to be pro athletes. No, my friends, they are enduring this and leaving their hearts on the court for you, the fans. It is time to show some appreciation for that.

Hail to Pitt!!