As if we needed another reason to love Charles Robinson...

I'm sure the integrity thing played a big part. But I can't believe ESPN would try to hire a guy like Robinson to sit him. They'd just be opening themselves up to more harassment by sites like Deadspin and The Big Lead.

And yeah, I've heard they have a really loyal staff, and I saw the whole thing they did with their twitter pages when Dave Morgan was fired/pushed out, running pictures of Morgan in protest. That was actually pretty cool. So I don't doubt they really close ranks around each other when that is threatened. But if the last 10 years has taught us anything in this business, loyalty to a company is vastly overrated. Yahoo doesn't even seem that stable as a company. I'm sure they'd dump all those guys if it came down to them having to make that kind of move.

If he did it because he's loyal to the other guys he works with, then that's a different story. But man, it's hard to believe someone gives up what ESPN can offer just so he can work with people he's loyal to. How many people do you work with that would give up money, TV and a chance to "star" on ESPN just be loyal to you? Very unlikely. Again, I know I'm in the minority here, but it just doesn't seem all that smart from a career standpoint.

 

Tuesday, 11/8. E: 60. Jeremy Schaap on athletes detained and tortured in Bahrain.

espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7209835

 

Have to agree on this. I know a few of the guys over there, and this doesn't match up with his rep amongst his colleagues. If anything, it's the opposite.

 

I think icj is saying that Robinson is essentially harmless, and plays a well-defined role in the great circle of college football life.

 

Rather than research and write a well thought out piece like Taylor Branch exposing how unfair the system is, Robinson served as a mall cop for the NCAA enforcing flawed rules.

 

That Taylor Branch piece was excellent. Probably one of the best analysis pieces I've seen in a long time. But that doesn't make Robinson's work any less impressive or relevant. Calling him a mall cop sounds like bitterness. And how does getting a coach fired support the system? Didn't he and Dan Wetzel break the Jim Tressel stuff? A lot of the North Carolina stuff, too, from what I recall. I'd say Tressel and Butch Davis are pretty big pieces of the "system".

 

The names change. But the system remains.

 

Didn't Robinson also break the Nevin Shapiro/UM scandal? What more do you want?

 

Agreed. By lcj's measure, I guess that means everyone who has ever written about anything regarding college football is a "mall cop"...since none of it has changed the "system". As awesome as Taylor Branch's piece was, it didn't change a single thing, either. Given a choice between an interesting discourse that accomplishes nothing or a coach getting fired for cheating or lying, I'll take the firing. But that's just me.

 

Yes, he did. And he broke the USC stuff, too. That only got a Heisman Trophy and BCS title stripped for the first time in history. I'm guessing that stuff provided more food for thought about college football's flawed amateur system than anything else written in the last few decades.

 

Somebody should alert Robinson that he's basically no better than the Paul Blart of college athletics.

Sure he'd get a kick out of the "mall cop" tag.

 

Don't always agree with Whitlock, but his analogy to The Wire's "dope on the table" was apt.