Seattle Musings
As I struggle to find a voice for this blog, perhaps at least some of it should focus on this city that I have become passionate about.
What of the Emerald City, touted, to our bemusement and dismay as ‘most liveable’ by several of those breathless publications in the late 80s and 90s?
We moved here from Ohio in 1974, when that building to the right (Smith Tower) was the 2nd or 3rd tallest building in town. That should provide a pretty solid frame of reference for the jumble of current events as the city grapples with the psychological implications of the move of Boeing’s headquarters to Chicago, the dot-com implosion and the departure of Lou Piniella to Tampa Bay.
There are a couple of riveting news threads working in the area right now.
The Coach and the Coucher
(all I know about French I got from the Pointer Sisters, so go easy on me. It may not be precise, but it sounds dirty)
Former Washington State football coach Mike Price accepted a dream job last fall as head coach at Alabama, for 7 years at $10 million. Folks around here grudgingly wished him well, but wondered how this affable and apparently guileless Northwesterner would fare in the steamy intrigue of the Southeast Conference, and Alabama in particular. Still, if Selma Hayek (allusion intended) calls and says, “C’mon, honey, I need a real man to escort me through the labiarinthine travails of the world”, some (but not me, dear, if you ever find this and read it) might look in the mirror, suck in the gut, suspend their disbelief, peck the hometown honey on her sleeping forehead so as not to wake her, and head the old AMC Pacer down the driveway toward whatever destiny awaits.
Well, destiny awaited Mike Price in the form of a topless dancer named Destiny Stahl. While at a celebrity golf tournament in Pensacola, he seems to have spent a night of accelerating inebriation, spending $200 on lap dances from the aforementioned Ms. Stahl. The momentum of this night of debauchery did not subside until Price received a phone call on the golf course from his hotel saying that the young woman ensconced in his room had ordered “one of everything” from the room service menu and wanted it to go. Price, married 35 years, scurried to the hotel to pay the bill, and probably hoped that the whole mess would sink noiselessly into the murk of the redneck riviera.
That may have been the case for those of us who have not been charged with carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire state out of a dark night of NCAA sanctions and into the deserved aurora of vindication, but Price, unfortunately, had signed on to do just that. It’s not clear what set of circumstances served to out these incidents, but it started hitting the fan in big gobs early the next week.
There was early speculation that the University would let Price keep his job, based somewhat on his previously unblemished record and, more to the point, that this is just a godawful time to change coaches. It’s high recruiting season, and anyone with any sort of resume is already employed.
On Saturday, however, the university regents decided to fire Price. There is just a gaggle of tragic elements here: 1) Price could have coached at WSU for at least another decade and, coming off two 10-win seasons and a Rose Bowl appearance, could have done it for a lot of money; 2) Two of Price’s sons were on the Alabama staff as assistant coaches, and are almost surely out the door with him; 3) Price had not yet signed his contract with Alabama, haggling over terms of a buyout clause, so he may not receive a penny more on his lucrative expectations.
This is something that could happen to many of us in the right circumstances. I’m just finishing a drink that, followed by another, could head me down that path. (but do not affright, dear reader, I have just filled my glass with the purest water imaginable) I’m not going to cast aspersions at him, I’m just kind of fascinated by the circumstances and consequences, the high drama of it all. I guess I’m persuaded, however, by the comments of a public school teacher here who said that he surely would be fired for any one of Price’s offenses, and he doesn’t have nearly the bank account.
The charmingly self-deprecating Washington State Cougar nation has a term for their perceived propensity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: “Coug-ing it”. This incident must represent the highest form of the practice.
