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Sherri Coale logic can save NFL
Published: 8/2/2010 1:22 PM
Last Modified: 8/2/2010 1:23 PM

I had ample time to mull the state of the union during vacation and I reached this conclusion: OU women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale is all of a sudden the smartest person living on Planet Sports.

Two hot-button topics (both involving the word “expansion”) were in the news since March Madness arrived and Coale was twice the voice of reason, saying we shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken.

When almost everyone else was ready to impluse buy a Big 12/Pac-10 merger, Coale was quick to point out that trips to the west coast for sporting events really aren’t in the best interests of student-athletes. And she’s right. You may think a super conference is a sexy idea, but you’re not the one who has to catch a red-eye flight in Pullman so you can hear a professor break down Antigone a few hours after the final buzzer.

And when NCAA Tournament expansion to 96 teams was being championed by coaches and athletic directors (translation: increased job security), Coale went the other direction.

“I just feel very strongly that getting into the tournament is something that you earn over the course of a season. And I don’t think that just everybody should get to go,” she said in April.

“You know, I’m about to go on the soapbox about my daughter’s third-place soccer trophy in the garage. I won’t go there. I’ll spare you. But I just think that getting an invitation to go means you have accomplished something. And the wider and broader we make that field, maybe the less significant that accomplishment.”

Crisis averted. The NCAA men’s tournament was expanded, but only from 65 to 68 teams.
Maybe someone was listening to Coale -- or people who shared her opinion.

After hearing the extremely logical things Coale had to say about NCAA Tournament expansion and league expansion, I want to know what Coale has to say about other topics. In fact, here’s one: The NFL may have a work stoppage in 2011 due to a labor dispute. Maybe Coale can convince owners and players they shouldn’t try to fix what isn’t broken.



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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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