Four things I need to get off my chest

First: All those misguided football non-experts calling for a rematch of Alabama/LSU in the BCS Championship Game are either poisoned by the Southeastern Conference Kool-Aid or, even worse, they are shills for the SEC. There’s this myth out there that the SEC is always college football’s strongest. That’s simply not true this year. The Big 12, which lost only one non-conference game this year, is 2011's top dog. Yes, the SEC has won the last five championships. But the only way — the only way — the conference will make it six is if Alabama plays LSU again.

Second: Penn State Joe Paterno, who used to be one of my college football heroes, must go, for the same reasons President Nixon had to go almost two decades ago. Nixon’s albatross was not the break-in at the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate. It was the coverup he engineered afterwards. Paterno is not, in any way as far as the world can tell, culpable in the abuse of young boys. But he is part of the coverup of those heinous acts. When, in 2002, assistant coach Mike McQueary reported witnessing an assault by another assistant, Jerry Sandusky, of a young boy in the football building’s showers, Paterno should have asked McQueary "Are you prepared to repeat these allegations to the athletic director, the police and possibly testify about them in a courtroom?". He should have then marched McQueary to the AD’s office and the three of them should have gone to the police. I am also convinced that in 2002, at least, Paterno was the most powerful individual on the Penn State campus — more powerful than the AD, more powerful even than the school’s president. And if he had said "From henceforth and forevermore, Jerry Sandusky is to be barred from the Penn State campus," that would have happened. Of course there is such a thing as innocent until proven guilty. But in this case there’s the higher responsibility to protect the innocent — in this case, the young boys. That didn’t happen and Paterno bears much of the responsibility for it.

Third: I was appalled by the court testimony in the trial of Tyrone McGill, who, it is charged, let a cat die an agonizing death trapped inside the walls of the City of Dallas’ Animal Shelter. All the man had to say when the desperate pleas of the animal were first heard were "Get me a hammer or something else to punch a hole in this wall and get it now." Instead he left the cat in there for more than two weeks. But my main question goes out to City Manager Mary Suhm: Why on earth is this man still employed by the City of Dallas?

Fourth: My father had a job that required us to move around a lot. It was almost like the military. I never lived in the same place more than two years and often it was less than a year. Thus I never had the opportunity to form much of a loyalty to any one school I attended before college. In fact, I only attended the high school I graduated from for one semester my senior year. But, still, that is the school that once or twice has asked me (I’m betting reluctantly) to attend its class reunions. So I must admit I was almost proud when I perused the high school football playoff schedule in today’s paper and discovered that high school at made it to the Division II Class 5A tournament. I say "almost proud" because, according to the paper, the team’s record is 3-7. What? How do you make the playoffs with a 3-7 record? I’m expecting a quick exit for the lads.