S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 12

Are College Football Coaches Overpaid?

College football has had their first games last weekend. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season a lot. I think my beloved University of Washington Huskies are going to have a great year.
But there is a large controversy in college football and that is what the coaches are paid, at least in Power 5 conferences. For example, Kalen DeBoer, the coach at the University of Washington, is being paid a $26.7 million base salary over six years (or $4.45 million a year). If he stays with the program through 2025, he'll get a total of $10 million in bonuses (spread out over the years).
And DeBoer is considered a low-paid coach (I'm sure if he has another season like last year, that will change). Alabama's head coach, Nick Saban, is the highest paid college head coach at $10.7 million a year that will increase to $12.7 million by 2029. 
That's more than a lot of corporate CEOs make. But less than Taylor Swift.
(Pete Carroll, head coach of the NFL Seattle Seahawks, makes $15 million a year, in comparison.)
Then there's all the other coaches such as offensive and defensive coordinators, quarterback coaches, offensive line coaches, etc. They have to make a lot of money, too. Husky offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb just got a pay increase to $2 million a year because someone was trying to hire him away from UW.
The reason why these coaches are paid so much is that a good, winning coach is in high demand (just like CEOs that can make a company prosperous and like Taylor Swift concert tickets). You have to pay them a lot to keep them at your school.
And, yes, the coaches are often the highest paid state government employee.
Are they worth it? 
Yes! Because a winning program will make more money for the schools' athletic departments. That profit the football program makes goes to paying for sports, including women's sports required by Title IX, that the school otherwise couldn't afford. Plus, a winning football team has been shown to increase donations to the school for scholarships and other things.
So, yes, college football coaches are paid a lot. But they are worth it. (This is probably true of winning college basketball coaches, too, but they don't seem to make as much.)
How do you feel about coaches' salaries at the college level. Let me know in the comments below.

College Football Starts this Weekend!

College football starts this weekend!* And despite there being a few things I don't like about college football, I'm really looking forward to this year and the University of Washington Huskies' prospects.

The Huskies were 7-0 at home last year. They currently have a seven-game winning streak. Let's hope they keep both streaks alive. Quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. and other key players decided to return this year instead of entering the NFL draft. That's very good news!

Last year was amazing for the Huskies. Their first season under new coach Kalen Deboer, I was expecting a rebuilding year. But they went 11-2, having their first 11-win season since 2016. If they hadn't lost to Arizona State, they might have gone to the CFP. As it was, the Huskies ended up being the number two team in the Pac-12, behind USC.

It's going to be hard for the Huskies to top that this year. But I'm hoping they do. They have some tough games ahead: Oregon at home, USC in Los Angeles, and Utah at home.

Last year we didn't play USC or Utah, two tough teams. Playing them this year will make it even harder to be successful. 

The Huskies are #10 in the AP preseason poll. They finished last year at #8. They are the second highest ranked Pac-12 team in the preseason poll (USC is #6).

The first game we play is in Husky Stadium against Boise State. They were 10-4 last year, so they won't be a pushover. 

That game will be Saturday at 12:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time on ABC. I'm going to be there near the 50-yard line, two rows up from the field.

Interestingly, the three non-conference games the Huskies play are all against FBS teams (Boise State, Tulsa Golden Hurricanes, and at Michigan State). This is unusual because most teams play an FCS team as sort of a "warm up" game. This makes the Huskies' season more difficult than normal. 

Are you looking forward to college football? Do you have a favorite team. Let me know in the comments below.

*There were a few games last weekend but most college football starts this weekend.

What I Don't Like about College Football

College football starts next weekend. If you read this blog you know I love college football, especially the University of Washington Huskies. I love watching kids develop and get better. I enjoy the game and the competition. I like that the players aren't making millions of dollars but are playing mostly for scholarships and for love of the game (although a bit of that has changed recently).

But there are things I don't like about college football.

I talked about the downside of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) before.

Another thing I don't like is that college football players can enter the NFL draft three years out of high school. That means they might only be 20 years old and only sophomores if they were red-shirted during their freshman year. Yes, I understand wanting to get into the NFL to get that sweet, sweet money and not risk a career-ending injury in college. But I wish the NFL would make it at least four years out of high school.

Also in an effort not to get injured before their NFL career, some players will "opt-out" of bowl games. Again, I understand not wanting to give up the big NFL money. But to me, this reeks of selfishness and no team spirit. If you helped your team get to a bowl, wouldn't you want to play in it? 

Another thing I don't like is the recent development of the transfer portal. It used to be that once you committed to a team, you were there until you were out of NCAA eligibility or went into the draft. Now players can change teams in the middle of there eligibility. This did work out great when Michael Penix transferred to Washington. But I still don't like the transfer portal.

There's not really a playoff. Yes, there's the CFP (College Football Playoff) which chooses four teams to play against each other in a sort of mini, three game playoff. And, yes, there is talk about expanding it to more teams (which I like). But the NCAA Division I FCS teams get a playoff, why can't the FBS teams. Turn all those bowls into playoff games. Yes, the CFP is much better than what we had before (the BCS or just the AP and coaches poll). But I think we need more teams to compete. College basketball has a 64 team playoff. Why can't football?

(Yes, I know that the plan is to expand to 12 teams in 2026 or sooner. I think this is a good thing.)

Are there things you don't like about college football that I haven't mentioned? Let me know in the comments below. 

College Football and the NFL

The college football season is quickly approaching (most of the first games will be the weekend of September 2nd). And I was thinking about the connection between college football and the National Football League (NFL). The NFL is, of course, professional football.

I read a statistic once that only 5% of high school football players play in college, and only 5% of college players make it to the NFL. That means one out of ever 2,500 high school football players ends up in the NFL. Not good odds.

Then there's the NFL draft. The teams with the worst record the previous season get to pick first (unless there's a trade or other complication). So the best college players go to the worst teams.

But even then, sometimes it doesn't work out. Wide receiver John Ross played for the University of Washington Huskies (Go Dawgs!) and help them reach the College Football Playoffs in 2016. He entered the next NFL draft and was picked number 9 overall (out of probably 200-some odd players in the draft). But he had a disappointing career in the NFL and wasn't the star he was a UW. He's suffered injuries and hasn't had a lot of good plays. He signed with the Kansas City Chief on January 9th of this year. But he never played in the Chief's run to the Super Bowl.

I loved John Ross when he was at UW. But for some reason his talent didn't extend to the NFL.

On the other hand, Trevor Lawrence, a quarterback from Clemson, was drafted first overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He managed to take the team that had the worst record in 2021-2022 to the playoffs in the 2022-2023 season. And that had never happened before in the NFL. So that worked out.

And that is not very uncommon for a great college player not to do well in the NFL. (The same happens in college, great high school players don't do well in college football, too.) 

What do you think of the NFL draft and college football? Let me know in the comments below.

Is the Pac-12 Dead?

The news broke last Friday: the University of Oregon and the University of Washington are moving to the Big Ten conference next year. This follows Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado going to the Big 12. And is all started last year with USC and UCLA announcing they were going to the Big Ten. That leaves four schools in the Pac-12: California, Oregon State, Stanford, and Washington State.

Frankly, I blame USC and UCLA. When they announced that they were leaving the Pac-12, that took the Los Angeles television market away from the Pac-12. So when the Pac-12 went to negotiate media rights, they no longer had the LA market to offer. Fox and ESPN both declined to make offers. The Pac-12 ended up going with Apple TV streaming service which wouldn't pay as much as a Fox or ESPN media deal would. It was shortly after that that Oregon and Washington announced they were leaving.

People are saying it's about the all mighty dollar. And it is. The schools need money and lots of it. They have to pay coaches (who are paid a lot), pay for uniforms, travel, and in the University of Washington's case, keep paying for that beautiful, new stadium they built in 2012 and 2013.

How do I feel about this? It makes me sad. If the Pac-12 even survives, it'll likely no longer be a Power 5 conference. There are rumors it might merge with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Or it might merge with the Mountain West Conference. Who knows?

But also, that my beloved University of Washington Huskies will go from being a big fish is a medium-sized pond to being a smaller fish is a larger pond. There will be 18 teams in the Big Ten spread out all over the country. And what will happen to the Apple Cup cross-state rivalry game between UW and WSU? Will that become a late-season non-conference game? And what of the Border War game against hated Oregon? These are all questions that need to be answered.

Washington was a founding member of the conference that became the Pac-12. It was part of that conference for 109 years. I don't think this decision was made lightly.

Someone proposed a Big Ten West and Big Ten East. That might work to get Oregon and Washington to play more often. 

Washington has a good chance of being the Pac-12 champion this year. But it'll be very hard to top 17 other schools, including Ohio, to be the Big Ten champion. 

No matter what happens, it'll be interesting to watch. It might not be as fun, but it'll be interesting.

What do you think will happen to the Pac-12? Will it merge with another conference or just go away? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Final Jeopardy Final Tally

The last regular season episode of Jeopardy was Friday, the 28th of July. I watch the quiz show religiously, sort of like I watch almost anything Star Trek related (except Prodigy and Lower Decks).

For this season, the 39th, a friend and I have been keeping track of how many Final Jeopardy questions we get correct. She lives in Canada and has made it to the tryout stage of being on the show. But she's never been called to participate.

Of all the Final Jeopardy clues in this season, I got 111 out of 230 correct. That 48.3%. Not horrible but not as good as I'd like.

My friend got 200 out 230 Final Jeopardy clues correct. That's 86.9% and pretty dang good. This is why I think if she got on the show, she'd do very well and probably win the game at least once.

Rarely, I'd get an answer correct she didn't (arcane American history, mostly). But most of the time she'd get answers right that I didn't.

I find Jeopardy to be fun and challenging. Keeps my brain in tune.

Do you like Jeopardy? Do you watch it religiously? How do you do on Final? Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Bad Published Writing

Sometimes bad writing gets published. I'm not talking self-published or even small-press published, but New York, big name publisher published.
Back in January of 2005, I was in Reagan International Airport getting ready to fly home. (Well, close to home. No airline service where I live.)

I must have run out of things to read because I bought a book in one of those airport shops. It was a Dale Brown book. Don't ask me which one, he's written hundreds, it appears.

I was reading the book on the airplane, and a couple of times at least I wanted to throw it across the aisles. The writing was that poor (I can't now think of any specific passages that were so bad). At one point I didn't know if he was talking about a person, or a pair of boots. And here Dale Brown has hundreds of New York published books. He's probably made millions of dollars. And his writing is... mediocre. I can't think of any more specific examples anymore (hell, it's been 18 years). I just remember getting angry because I knew I could write better than he and I wasn't (and still am not) New York published.

It wasn't typos. Those are getting more common as the New York publishers lay off their editors to save money. For example, I was reading one of Tom Clancy's last books before he died and there was a "Fort Taurus" in it (should be "Ford"). Or, I've been told, that in the first Twilight book, there are "dust moats in the air." I'm the typo king so I'm a bit more forgiving about those.

But bad writing shouldn't make it past what editors are left. 

Have you experience bad writing in books you've read? How did it make you feel? Let me know in the comments below.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

I write mostly science fiction. I currently have fifteen published books. Of those, five are fantasy novels. I consider myself primarily a science fiction writer. I just had an idea for a fantasy universe and I loved exploring it in those five books (and one short story). I'm thinking about going back to that universe. But I'm also thinking of some stand-alone science fiction novels.

As a writer, I am, of course, a reader. If you're not a science fiction or fantasy reader, here are some books (besides mine) to jump into the genres with:

Science Fiction

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. It hasn't aged completely well (it was written in the 1960s), but it's still one of the best science fiction novels out there.

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows by Poul Anderson. I love all of Anderson's books and stories about Dominic Flandry.

Ringworld by Larry Niven. The first (and best) of the Ringworld books. Apparently, this concept was ripped off for the Halo video games. Was also used in a recent Bobba Fett episode on Disney+

Niven's "Tales of Known Space" is a great collection of short stories.

Fantasy

I don't read a lot of fantasy, but here are a couple of my favorites (that I didn't write):

Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. This is one of my favorite fantasy novels (you can hardly go wrong with books by Poul Anderson).

Glory Road by Robert Heinlein. A fun book and written in Heinlein's style. 

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Yes, the book is better than the movie. Be sure to read the foreword and other "interruptions" to the story. It's a funny fantasy novel.

There's six books to get you started. Let me know what you think of my list or you have books to add in the comments below.

Sports Teams Support

Seattle Kraken

As you probably know if you read this blog, I love my University of Washington Huskies football team. That's mostly because I went to UW for a lot of years (about eight) to get two degrees. And I like football, especially college football. The Husky basketball team isn't very good but I hardly care.

Of course, a lot of people base their team support on geography. I remember when my cousin's family (who lived in New Mexico) supported the Denver Broncos football team. I asked why and they said that the Broncos were the closest team. 

But it's not always geography. Another cousin who grew up in Alaska, supported (and still may support) the Green Bay Packers. He said he decided they were his favorite team in the '60s when the Packers were going to the Super Bowl a lot.

One, interesting thing I noticed was what happened when Seattle got a NHL team, the Kraken. I almost immediately saw people wearing Kraken gear: hats, shirts, etc. And I wondered how many of those people cared about hockey until Seattle got a professional team. Or, was their support solely based on geography? People who never said anything about liking hockey suddenly were Kraken fans. When the Kraken went to the playoffs this year, even I kept an eye on their progress (they were eliminated in the second round).

My brother once said (and I paraphrase), "What good does it do me if the team I support wins?" He has a point. Other than feeling good for maybe a couple of days, what good does it do? And Seattle isn't known for having winning teams. The Mariners went a couple of decades before getting in the playoffs. The Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl three times and won once. And who cares about the Seattle soccer team (I think they are called the "Sounders")? 

How do you choose which teams to support? Is it geography or some other reason. Let me know in the comments below.

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Music Storage

If you're old enough to remember cassette tapes (at left), you know you could buy them in various lengths. One of the more popular lengths was 60 minutes. That meant you could record 60 minutes of sound on the tape, usually music. Usually.

I was curious how much music is currently on my iPhone and what that would mean in 60-minute cassettes. According to my phone, I have 7.66 Gbytes of music on it. About two-thirds is classical, I would guess. I have 1,662 "songs" on my iPhone. Although not all are songs because a song technically has someone singing and most of my classical music is instrumental.

So I did some research and found that a 60-minute cassette tape could hold 4.5 Mbytes of data. That's 0.004395 Gbytes.

Simple math shows it would take 1,743 60-minutes cassettes to hold all the music on my iPhone.

What about CDs? A CD holds 650 Mbytes. So that means it would take 12 CDs full of data to hold what's on my iPhone. To be honest, that doesn't seem to be enough. 

But that is still amazing. Rather than carry 1,743 cassettes or 12 CDs, I carry one iPhone that has other functions and data (lots of pictures of our cat). 

Another way to calculate it: According to iTunes, I have enough music on my phone to last 4.9 days. That's 117.6 hours so I'd need that many 60-minutes cassettes. (I'm a little concerned that that number is approximately 10% of the 1,746 number I got above. Did I make a magnitude error?)

What about vinyl records. A 12-inch vinyl record (LP size) can hold 46 minutes of music using both sides. So that's 153.4 LPs to hold the music on my iPhone!

I know some people say vinyl sounds better, especially with tubes and not transistors in the stereo equipment. But I never heard the difference and LPs are fragile. Look at them wrong and you get a pop or scratch. 

Since CDs hold 74 minutes of music, I'd need 95 CDs. That seems like too many. Way too many. Maybe it's because of compression.

What do you think about this older technology? Let me know in the comments below.