Great argument for Bailiff’s firing
Mr. Tolpadi’s piece entitled “Told by Tolpadi: After football’s brutal start, it is time for Bailiff to go” is arguably the most cogent argument I have seen to date for the firing of David Bailiff as head football coach of Rice University. As Tolpadi accurately notes, this year’s edition of the football Owls appears to be even worse and more undisciplined than last year’s squad (both from a talent and coaching standpoint) and is one of only four teams out of the 128-team Football Bowl Subdivision that has yet to record a win this season. With likely unwinnable road games against Stanford University and Louisiana Tech University remaining, it appears as if the football team is destined for another 5-7 — or, more likely, worse — campaign. This is unacceptable at a university which Edgar Odell Lovett wished to be “of the highest grade.”
Coach Bailiff’s tiresome press conference bromides that include such gems as “I have to do a better job of coaching” and “Had we executed and had I coached better we would have won” have long stopped providing hope and optimism to Rice football’s ever-dwindling and aging fanbase — see the student section at the end of the loss to the University of North Texas for proof. In yet another era of conference realignment where Rice has miraculously made the top 11 candidates for a potential (although unlikely) expansion of the Big 12, the university can no longer afford to have a football coach who simply is a great man and great ambassador for the university. It must have someone who has the expectation of playing in and winning multiple conference championship games and potentially even a New Year’s Six Bowl appearance, not someone who views an invitation to a bottom-feeder bowl game as a job well done and a catalyst for yet another contract extension. To make matters worse, our crosstown rivals, coached by a former Rice offensive coordinator, no less, are firmly entrenched in the top 10 of the college football rankings. Meanwhile, Rice is firmly entrenched near the top of ESPN’s weekly “Bottom 10” rankings.
I appreciate Coach Bailiff’s efforts and accomplishments over the last 10 years. Attending the 2013 Conference USA championship game against Marshall University remains at the top of my favorite sports memories. But since that game, the football program has fallen to depths that the university should not tolerate. For that reason, it’s time for a change.
Jonathan Myers, Will Rice College ’12, Former Thresher sports editor
More from The Rice Thresher
Beware of dissenters, reinvestigate the real Israel
Israel is a special place and arguably the most misunderstood in the world. We will be celebrating Israel’s 75th birthday at Rice, commemorating the occasion with a conference hosted by the Baker Institute on April 27, 2023. It is important to understand that the Jewish connection to the land of Israel goes back thousands of years. Jews were always in this land before Israel was created. As I prepare to graduate, having founded a Students Supporting Israel chapter at Rice, I want students to be informed about Israel and Palestine. There are many people who spew misinformation and will not want to listen to facts because of the false narrative they love to believe.
Thank you for letting me tell your stories
If there is anything I will miss about college, it is the Thresher. No matter how many long nights or years of my life I have given to this paper, I have never grown tired of the Thresher. Maybe because of a superb staff that impresses me every day with their talent and dedication to good journalism or the unwavering support and friendship (and fist bumps) from my co-editor Ben Baker-Katz, but, I think most of all, it is the work I was able to do here.
Thresher holds the memories of a campus
For the last two years, whenever someone has tried to make plans with me on a Tuesday, I’ve responded with some version of “I can’t, I’ve got Thresher.” The natural next question, after I explain that putting together a weekly paper takes up the vast majority of every Tuesday, is “Why do you spend so much time on it?” And silly as it may seem, I’ve never really come up with a good answer to that question.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.