Pete Carroll rubs it in to UCLA

You’re leading your cross-town rival, 21-7, and you have the ball with 54 seconds to go. The game is won, so what do you do? You call for your quarterback to take the ball from center and knell—“taking a knee” in football talk.

Your opponent calls time out, honoring the age-old sports imperative to not quit until the final gun. Now there are 52 seconds left. Your opponent still has two time outs remaining. He’ll surely use them.

So if you’re a coach teaching and practicing sportsmanship you call for the quarterback to take a knee again. But if you’re Pete Carroll, coaching the disappointing 7-3 USC Trojans against the UCLA Bruins, you call for the quarterback to fake a running play, then throw a 48-yard touchdown pass. Then you exchange high-fives with players and coaches on the sideline.

My question, Coach, is “What were you celebrating?” You’re better than that, Pete.

Ethics wins for Oregon

Sometimes when you do the right thing fate intervenes on your side.

Seven weeks ago this column praised Oregon football coach Chip Kelly for valuing sportsmanship over winning. Kelly had just thrown his best player, running back LeGarrette Blount, off the team for sucker-punching a Boise State player after Boise State defeated Oregon in the season opener. We thought Kelly’s action might cost the Ducks a shot at the Pac 10 championship and a profitable Rose Bowl appearance.

Kelly moved freshman LaMichael James into the starting lineup, and James has merely averaged 131 yards per game in the games he’s started. Oregon’s now won six straight, and is the only Pac 10 team undefeated in conference play.

Virtue rewarded!

Sportsmanship in the Big ten, but not at Ohio State

If you believe in sportsmanship you have to like the Big Ten Conference’s suspension of Ohio State safety and captain Kurt Coleman for a “helmet-to-helmet hit” on a “defenseless opponent” with the Buckeyes leading Illinois, 30-0 and just seconds remaining in the game.

Sadly, Buckeye coach Jim Tressel objected to the suspension, calling it poor judgment to suspend the player. Nice message to the fans, especially the kids, Jim. And the point in savaging a defenseless second-string quarterback at the end of a game you’re winning by 30-0 is…? Sportsmanship?

How Oregon Plays the Game

It’s rare in big-time college sports that sportsmanship is valued over winning. So rare that we can’t help admiring Oregon football coach Chip Kelly.

This was to be the year that the Oregon Ducks finally dethroned the mighty USC Trojans, who have won or shared the Pacific 10 championship for eight consecutive years. The Ducks were to do this largely on the legs of top running back LeGarrette Blount, who set a school record last year by scoring 17 touchdowns.

But at the end of Oregon’s 19-8 loss to Boise State last Thursday, a frustrated Blount sucker punched Boise player Byron Hout, who had been taunting Blount over his poor game.

Coach Kelly wasted no time suspending Blount for the rest of the season, his last year of eligibility to play college ball. (Boise coach Chris Peterson won’t suspend Hout for his poor sportsmanship.) Oregon’s president, Richard Lariviere, supported Kelly, saying “We do not and will not tolerate the actions that were taken by our player. Oregon’s loyal fans expect and deserve better.”

Suspending Oregon’s star player may cost the Ducks a shot at the Pac 10 championship and a profitable Rose Bowl appearance, but they’ve already won the Pac 10 sportsmanship championship. That counts for a lot more.