Rich Rodriguez Strikes a Blow for American Manhood by Banning WVU Players from Dancing on TikTok

George Gojkovich. Getty Images.

The one major factor that separates us ordinary nobodies from the true Football Guys, is we can go through life enjoying whatever we like and ignoring what we don't, and they can't. We can afford to pay no attention to trends we don't much care for. But that's not a luxury afforded to Ball Coaches. Because long before they've stood at the white board figuring out ways to make their Xs beat the other guys' Os, they must first build a Culture. And that's never easy when they were spinning a whistle cord around their fists long before their players were even born. 

For an example, look no further than Rich Rodriguez. This guy's first year on the sidelines was as an assistant at West Virginia in 1985. As Bowling for Soup phrased it, a time of "U2, and Blondie, and music still on MTV." Now the man is in his 60s. And managing personalities who were born during his first head coaching stint at WVU. His career having come full circle, landing him in Morgantown yet again, he's having to adjust to the reality of coaching players who were raised with iPads in their hands. 

Or, in Rich Rod's case, forcing these Zoomers to adjust to him:

Here's a subpar version of the audio, so that you can feel the contempt in Rodriguez' voice reverberate in your soul:

I get that this is a purely generational thing. I'm Rich Rod's contemporary. We grew up in a time when tackle football was one of the last vestiges of masculinity left in America. When you'd watch Monday Night Football and every ad was for beer or car care products. Antifreeze. Motor oil. Batteries. Tires. And no one ever could've dreamed of a world where they'd interrupt a game to sell erection medicine. Because men spent all their weekend hours flushing out the radiators and changing the oil on their Chrysler 440-cubic inch engines that had been chiseled out of a solid block of steel mixed with testosterone. So between that and Lynda Carter:

… nature gave them all the boner pills they'd ever need. 

Sure, there was Joe Namath's infamous commerical wearing ladies' nylons. But shocking as that was, it was acceptable because you knew on Sunday he'd throw for 300 yards, take three dozen savage hits, then go to Toot Shorr's and bone three cocktail waitresses while polishing off and entire bottle of Cutty Sark.

But that was that world. A world where a coach's biggest worry was that his best player might end up in jail or get a coed pregnant. Now Rich Rod finds himself in a reality where this is the reigning Heisman Trophy winner:

Asking him to adjust to this unbrave new world is a lot. And I say this as someone who desperately hopes that Travis Hunter somehow falls to my pro football team with the No. 4 pick. Dancing to "Shake Dat Ass" didn't stop him from winning the and Bronko Nagurski as the best defensive player in the country and the Fred Biletnikoff Award as the best receiver. Though it's hard to imagine how a guy named Bronko and a guy who played 14 seasons on Al Davis' notoriously vicious Raiders would react to seeing their awards recipient prancing about in a Dr. Seuss onesie and fuzzy slippers. But that's the direction the culture has headed.

So as a fellow Boomer, I wish Coach Rodriguez the best of luck in this endeavor. He's on the side of the angels here, trying to toughen up his team. Make them live up to their Mountaineers namesakes. And return them to the football players he grew up with. I just don't have a lot of hope he can put the Tik Tok Dance toothpaste back into the tube in 2025. All us Olds can do is hope for the best and weep for our nation's future.