Man, that whole business with the Oregon coach getting fired, right? You see it in the headlines, everyone’s got a hot take. But for me, it just digs up some old dirt, a real reminder of how these big moves can mess things up for regular folks just trying to get by.
And I guess I’ve got a bit of a personal story tied to one of those situations, not this exact one, but similar enough it all comes rushing back. It’s funny how these things stick with you, even years later. You think you’re over it, then something happens, and bam, it’s like it was yesterday.
A few years back, I was trying to help out a local youth group. We weren’t looking for much, just a tiny bit of support, maybe some used equipment, or a chance for the kids to meet some players. We thought, hey, let’s reach out to the athletics department at a big college nearby, figured they might have some community outreach thing. Seemed like a good idea at the time, you know? Innocent enough.
We actually made some headway! I spent weeks drafting proposals, making calls. Finally, we got a meeting. Talked to this one guy in the department, seemed pretty decent, genuinely interested. He was like, ‘Yeah, I think we can work something out.’ We had a couple of good meetings after that. Things were looking up. We were getting the kids all excited, telling them about the possibilities. I even started scouting locations for a small event we were planning with their supposed help.
Then, boom. The head coach at that college, totally different situation from the recent Oregon news, different sport even, gets the axe. Suddenly, the whole department was like a hornet’s nest kicked over. Absolute chaos, from what I could tell from the outside.
Our contact? Vanished. Poof. I tried calling the number I had for him – straight to a disconnected message. Emails bounced. It was like he never existed. Everyone else we tried to reach, if we could even get through, was either brand new, didn’t know anything about what was promised, or frankly, didn’t care about some small-fry youth group when their own jobs were on the line. I get it, self-preservation kicks in. But still.
All that effort, all those little hopes we built up with those kids? Gone. Just like that. Wiped out because of some drama happening way up the food chain that had absolutely nothing to do with us or the kids we were trying to help. It felt like such a waste of time and emotional energy.
It really opened my eyes, I tell ya. Showed me that when the big wheels are turning and shaking, it’s the little cogs that get crunched first. Nobody at the top is thinking about the ripple effects on the small stuff. They’re just thinking about the next press conference or placating the big-money boosters or whatever. The fallout for the little community projects? Not even a blip on their radar.
We eventually found another way to help those kids, scraped things together ourselves, no thanks to that whole mess. It was tougher, took longer, but we got something done. But it left a real bitter taste. Made me pretty wary of relying on anyone in those big organizations or institutions unless you’ve got something signed in triplicate, notarized, and witnessed by a supreme court justice. And even then, I’d probably still be skeptical.
So yeah, when I hear about another coach getting fired, like this Oregon situation, I don’t just think about the wins and losses or the big salaries. I think about all the little promises and plans that probably just went up in smoke for someone else, some other small group, some other hopeful person who just got caught in the gears. It’s just the way it is, I guess, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating to watch happen, again and again.
