Give Credit Where It Is Due
Well, I guess I’ll just go ahead and say it.
Umm…hail state?
Excuse me for a moment, I have to 🤮.
There. It’s over with. Can we move on now?
In all seriousness though, congrats to the Bulldogs. That was one hell of a run through the College World Series. Any baseball fan can surely recognize that and, despite any animosity between the two schools, most Ole Miss fans do.
So, good for them and the great job they did representing the state of Mississippi.
At a very minimum, you could probably have predicted that the Bulldogs were due. They were 0 for 11 in all their previous trips to Omaha. Now they’re 1 for 12. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the little jab.)
Speaking of jabs at each other, did you see this kid’s quote?
How gracious of him to keep us in his thoughts and prayers as he celebrates winning a National Championship!
That’s right, they just won the National Championship and he’s got Ole Miss on his mind. We are always living rent-free in those heads, aren’t we?
Now onto the topic that’s really on my mind.
Abuse of Power
Was it just me or did it seem that the NCAA was doing everything in its power to ensure Mississippi State did NOT win the Natty? I mean, we all understand that weird things happen from time to time, but whatever the hell was going on in Omaha did NOT look coincidental.
At first I thought it was just Mississippi (the state, not the school). Everyone knows that the schools in our state always draw the ire of the NCAA because the powers-that-be don’t like the political leanings of it’s populace.
After putting a little more thought into it, however, I now believe it is much more pervasive than what I originally surmised. I think they had it in for NC State as well and that the entire debacle, created at the hands of the NCAA, was likely politically motivated.
You heard it here first, folks. The NCAA intervened in a Championship athletics event for political reasons.
In this new world of only lefts or rights and reds or blues, we all thought we could escape it through the blinders of a kid’s game, didn’t we?
Please allow me to explain.
Consider The History
The state of Mississippi has repeatedly turned its back against what could be coined as “liberal America.” The state is full of Republicans and any national election almost always results in electing whomever happens to be on the red side of the aisle.
The NCAA has repeatedly been labeled a “liberal” organization and has, at it’s roots, leaders who share a common interest with the vast majority of the left side of the aisle. In fact, only 6% of NCAA member school presidents, the ones who direct decision-making within the NCAA, identify themselves as conservative. With that kind of leadership, it would certainly be expected to make decisions that align with the Democratic Party.
In 2014, the NCAA banned the state of Mississippi from being able to host any NCAA basketball tournament games because of the state flag. – This one was laughed off by most, however, as there are really no facilities in the state capable of handling the attendance volume of an NCAA men’s tournament regional anyway.
In 2015, the NCAA claimed to demand change to an anti-gay law passed by the very state it is headquartered in (Indiana) and who’s capitol city just happened to be hosting the Final Four. The governor of the state moved a few words around in the legislation to appease detractors, but the law was not removed and stays in effect to this day. Since then, the NCAA has done nothing to quell the subsequent effects of the law.
In 2019, the NCAA took another shot at Mississippi by banning the state from hosting any and/or all championship events until the confederate battle flag emblem was removed from the state flag. Ironically, they did no such thing to other states who continue to keep references to the Confederacy in their flags. The state of Georgia, for example, currently garners what is an exact replica of the original National Flag of the Confederacy.
After passing an anti-trans law to prevent individuals born as biological males from competing in sporting events with biological females, Mississippi garnered further scrutiny from the NCAA. The NCAA stopped short, however, from implementing any bans on the state as they did with previous issues. Could this have been because several other states already passed similar laws? Hmmm.
Needless to say, Mississippi’s track record with the NCAA isn’t all peaches and cream. – Of note is the fact that I didn’t even mention the near 5-year proctological exam the NCAA performed in Oxford a few years ago. That wound was initiated within the state, even though the NCAA went far beyond what would have ever been considered reasonable in their findings…but that’s a blog for another day.
“Come on now! Let’s see both of those teeth!”
Unexplainable Facts
Now let’s look at a few facts from this year’s College World Series.
NC State and Mississippi State both seemed destined to meet for the championship as they blew through their respective sides of the CWS bracket. Each team was playing about as well as a team can play, especially considering the level of competition each was facing.
NC State is an agricultural and mechanical school, much like Mississippi State. Those schools draw the vast majority of their student base from rural areas, which tend to be much more conservative, especially if they are in the south.
Vanderbilt and Texas are both liberal arts colleges and viewed by many as liberal havens within their respective conservative states.
Despite knowing that a player from NC State tested positive for COVID, the NCAA allowed NC State to play a game against Vanderbilt with only 13 players. Even with many of them playing out of position, they barely lost to one of Vanderbilt’s two ace pitchers in a 3-1 struggle. This set up an elimination game the next day where Vanderbilt’s other ace pitcher would take the mound.
After watching NC State lose an extremely close game to Vanderbilt on Friday, the NCAA stepped in and cancelled the second game. Conveniently, they blamed it on some medical professionals and refused to give a specific reason. – They didn’t cancel the first game, mind you, only the second game. So something changed between the end of that first game and the beginning of the second game. It couldn’t have been more COVID testing because they cancelled the second game the very day that they allowed the first game to go on.
So what changed? – No one knows and the NCAA is not saying anything.
Keep in mind that if Vanderbilt had to pitch their second ace the next day against a depleted but feisty NC State squad, he wouldn’t have been able to pitch in the championship series against Mississippi State.
Vanderbilt’s second ace did pitch the first game of the Championship series against Mississippi State. The win put Vanderbilt within one single game of claiming another National Championship and also put an enormous amount of pressure on Mississippi State. Fortunately, they battled through game 2 to force a winner-take-all championship game.
The rest is history.
Gut Punch Delivered
NC State clearly got the worst of the NCAA’s selective enforcement of the rules, though Mississippi State was also given a tougher path in the process. You have to wonder if both scenarios were pondered before taking action. I would argue that they were and that is what led the NCAA to make the decisions that they did. If Vanderbilt had won it, we’d all be putting an asterisk by their name…and with their unlimited scholarship provision, we should probably put one by their names anyway.
Despite the fact that things worked out like they should have (except for NC State), I believe that there are questions the NCAA needs to be answering.
If it were okay for NC State to play a game against Vanderbilt on Friday, why not Saturday? Also, if more of NC State’s players were contact-traced out of Saturday’s game, why weren’t Vanderbilt’s? After all, they just played a game against the very people they were contact-tracing out of the second game. The list of questions goes on and on. The NCAA, meanwhile, offers no answers. Not. Even. One.
Only One Conclusion
So you tell me reader. Was the NCAA’s tampering at the College World Series an effort to see a more “liberal” school win the title? So far we have some inconclusive and circumstantial evidence that indicates it could be a possibility.
Do I have to remind you that a 5-year investigation resulting in inconclusive and circumstantial evidence was enough to gut the Ole Miss football program for a few years? I think not.
Should that be enough to gut the NCAA and it’s selective enforcement of the rules?
It should be…but it won’t.
In the meantime, the NCAA can rest assured that the citizens of the great State of Mississippi will always honor them with a well-deserved one-finger salute and the promise that no one in this state will ever trust them again.
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