Some Things Are True
We were doing that thing we do at lunch where we talk about crazy hypotheticals when someone asked me, after they’d just read about being blessed to lose, whether I thought Georgetown should fire basketball coach Ed Cooley.
“You don’t even know the worst part I left out,” I said. “There was another game where he got so frustrated he threw a half-full water bottle into the stands and it hit a little kid.”
In other words, it’s a moot question. Georgetown should have fired him for that.
“I don’t know,” someone else said. “I’m not sure you fire someone for throwing a water bottle.”
“No?” I said. “If, out of anger, I threw this Pellegrino at Holly right now and hit her in the head, I would think – and hope – Brent would walk me out of here.”
“That’s naive,” I-forgot-who interjected. “People get retained despite doing way worse.”
And that’s a sad fact. But that doesn’t make that or anything the right thing to do.
Our friend Grant (who we hope to do a deal with this year) wrote me back after reading the one-of-these where I concluded that the world isn’t always merit-based. He pushed back, suggesting that maybe it is, but that merit might mean different things to different people because different people value different things.
I responded that he might be right. But also that in order to sleep at night, I need to believe that some things in this world are objectively true.
– Tim
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