Two-act America

F.  Scott Fitzgerald was never more wrong than when he said there are no second acts in American life. He might as well have declared the Earth is flat, the moon is made of green cheese and there's a giant invisible bird in Montana that flaps its wings and makes the wind blow.

This is because not only are there second acts in American life, the nation is virtually defined by second acts. Politicians get them and athletes get them and coaches certainly get them, because if that weren't true Rick Pitino wouldn't be coaching basketball at Iona, and Bruce Pearl and Kelvin Sampson wouldn't be doing the same at Auburn and Houston, respectively.

Which brings us to Chris Doyle, and his second act.

If you've forgotten who Chris Doyle is, or never knew, that's understandable, because he wasn't a limelight sort of guy. He was the strength coach for the Iowa football program, until he wasn't. Iowa showed him the road last June because that's what you do to a guy who spews racist crap in a workplace that's more than 50 percent black.

Doyle of course denied being a bigoted turd, but the allegations stuck because there were plenty of them and they tended to be specific. Like, oh, telling black players he would send them back to the ghetto if they didn't work harder. Or mocking black players for the way they dressed. Or any number of other slights.

Fast forward to today, and new Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer going on the defensive because he decided to hire Doyle as his director of sports performance.

And so, voila, welcome to Doyle's second act. Which is actually a promotion, because he's gone from being a strength coach in college to an executive position in the NFL.  

This would not seem to be a natural career trajectory for a guy who, on top of being a bigoted turd, once landed 13 players in the hospital with an idiotic 100-squat training exercise. This is the guy you want running an NFL strength and conditioning program?

Apparently Meyer does. He says Doyle was aggressively vetted, and he's convinced the man has straightened up and will fly right -- which might actually be true, because, after all, this is the NFL.

See, you can get away with abusing 18, 19, 20-year-old kids on the college level, because college athletes more than any other athletes have absolutely zero leverage. Plus, they are still kids. 

That's not the case in the NFL, where Doyle will be working with grown men who in a lot of cases make considerably more money than he does. And who therefore are a hell of a lot more important to the organization.

Would love to be a fly on the wall the first time Doyle tries out the "ghetto" line on one of his new charges.

Something tells me it'll be the last time.