Portrait of a Bravo

Peter King interviews recently retired Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees:

Pees, 70, retired last week after finishing his 47th year of coaching at the high school, college and NFL level. It’s one of the most interesting careers in coaching history. Not only because he got to coach under two legends, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick, but he also got to coach under two coaches he coached as players—John Harbaugh (Miami of Ohio, then the Ravens) and Mike Vrabel (the Patriots, then the Titans). Thirteen jobs in 47 years, and . . .

“I’ve never applied for a job. I never got fired from a job. I never really sought another job. I never said, ‘I’m going to climb the ladder.’ I just did the job I had at the time, did the best I could. And I was lucky: I loved every job I had.”

Starting in Bloomingdale, Ohio (pop: 754), at little Elmwood High School.

“I played in a winter basketball league in [northwest] Ohio after college, when I met the principal at Elmwood High School. I was running a men’s clothing store in Bowling Green, Ohio. They had some openings on the football staff at Elmwood and he asked me if I wanted to coach. I said sure. I was hired to coach the secondary and be the track coach. But at our first meeting, the head coach made me the defensive coordinator. I did that two years, then became the head coach for four. Then I went to Findlay College as defensive coordinator and head track coach in 1979. After my first year, I went to Miami of Ohio to learn about their defense—which was the same defense we ran—from their coordinator, Tim Rose. In 1983, he got the head job there and hired me to be his defensive coordinator. Stayed there four years, and then Elliott Uzelac, the coach at Navy, called and hired me to coach the secondary. He got my name from Lloyd Carr, who I’d done some clinics with.

“After the ’89 season, Nick Saban called me. He was the secondary coach with the Oilers then, but he’d just been hired as the Toledo coach. He asked me to fly down to Houston, just to talk. He got my name from [longtime Navy assistant] Steve Belichick. So I flew down, and he offered me the defensive coordinator job at Toledo. Loved working with Nick—so good to me and my family. He left to coach with Bill [Belichick] and the Browns after one year, but Gary Pinkell was hired by Toledo and he kept the staff. I stayed three more years. After signing day [in 1994], Gary said to me one day, ‘[Notre Dame coach] Lou Holtz is on the phone. He’s gonna offer you a job.’ I picked up the phone, and Lou offered me the linebacker job. Then he said, ‘I hate to ask you this, but can you be here this afternoon?’ I said sure, I’ll call my wife on the way. So I was at Notre Dame one year. Then Nick takes the Michigan State job, and he hires me as his defensive coordinator. I was there from ‘95 to ’97. Kent State fires their coach after the ’97 season, and their AD flies up to meet me. We have breakfast, and I guess you could call that an interview, but it basically was a conversation—he just wanted to get to know me. He offered me the job over the phone.

“I’m at Kent six years. One day I had a question about defense for Bill Belichick, and I called him. He called me back and said, ‘I’m losing a linebacker coach. Ever thought about leaving college?’ We met at the scouting combine. He offered me the linebacker job. Great experience, with [Tedy] Bruschi, [Willie] McGinest, [Mike] Vrabel. In 2006, he made me the coordinator. Just a great experience, to see how the very best do it. But after four years as the coordinator, I needed a break. I made a smooth exit from New England. Then John Harbaugh offered me the linebacker job in Baltimore, which is what I needed at the time. How great that was, coaching Ray Lewis. Then John named me the coordinator in 2012. After ’16, I’m thinking of retiring. John said, ‘How about one more year?’ But after the ’17 season, that was it. I retired.

“So we [Pees and wife Melody] went up to our lake house in Michigan. It’s a Thursday night in January. We went out to dinner with our financial adviser, and we’re figuring out the NFL pension and how we’re going to live. Melody was planning this river cruise in Europe. The next morning, the phone rang. I said, ‘Hi Mike,’ and she knew. Mike Vrabel. He’d just gotten the Tennessee head-coaching job. He needed someone with experience to run the defense. He wanted me to be the coordinator.”

Pees’ only son, Matt Pees, was a high school coach in Denver. Dean Pees might have taken the Titans job anyway, but he asked Vrabel if he could bring Matt as defensive quality control coach. Vrabel checked, called the next day to say Matt was welcome on the staff, and the deal got done. Father and son coached together in 2018 and 2019.

“Of course losing at Kansas City was disappointing. But winning at New England and winning at Baltimore in the playoffs, against two coaches I have so much respect for, was an incredible way to go out. That goal-line stand in the second quarter at New England is a career highlight. But this time, I’m done coaching. Forty-seven years is enough. Not saying I’d never do some other job in football, but not coaching.

“It’s been a great career. Very, very blessed. My wife’s been fantastic. My kids have been fantastic—their whole lives, they just take off one jersey and put on another. I’m looking at my grandson right now—he’s 8, and he’s wearing a Titans cap.

“People ask me, ‘What’s your favorite place you coached?’ All of ‘em. They ask, ‘Who’s your favorite player?’ All of ‘em.

“In this football business, who can say they never got fired? Who can say they loved every job they had? For 47 years!”

That is the very quintessence of Bravo. Competent, hard-working, loyal, and valued by every Alpha he encountered. Limited ambition combined with incredible success. This is why it is so valuable for a man to know and understand his place in the hierarchy. Hierarchical fit is one of the key components of long-term success.

The Post polices the narrative

It’s fascinating to see the way the mainstream media ruthlessly polices the narrative du jour:

A Washington Post journalist has been suspended by the newspaper after she tweeted a link on Sunday to a years-old story about the Kobe Bryant rape case just hours after the basketball legend and his daughter were killed in a helicopter crash.

Felicia Sonmez, who covers national politics for the Post, took to Twitter shortly after the world learned of Bryant’s death along with eight others aboard his private helicopter which crashed outside of Los Angeles.

She posted a link to an April 2016 story from the news site The Daily Beast which carried the headline: ‘Kobe Bryant’s Disturbing Rape Case: The DNA Evidence, the Accuser’s Story, and the Half-Confession.’

Tracy Grant, managing editor of The Washington Post, told DailyMail.com on Sunday: ‘National political reporter Felicia Sonmez was placed on administrative leave while The Post reviews whether tweets about the death of Kobe Bryant violated The Post newsroom’s social media policy.

“The tweets displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues.”

That quote is an interesting confession. What, exactly, is “the work of her colleagues” that is “undermined” by a simple link to a four-year-old news article? In context, that “work” would appear to be whitewashing Kobe Bryant’s sordid historical behavior in order to establish a narrative that portrays him as a much-loved black celebrity whose untimely death will be mourned by Americans of all colors.

RIP Kobe Bryant

After a weekend that began with Lebron James surpassing him on the all-time scoring chart, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash at the age of 41:

Kobe Bryant died in a helicoper crash in Calabasas Sunday morning … TMZ Sports has confirmed. Kobe was traveling with at least 3 other people in his private helicopter when it went down. A fire broke out. Emergency personnel responded, but nobody on board survived. 5 people are confirmed dead. 

Why does anyone who isn’t in the military ever fly on those things?

The Secret King of ComicsGate

It would appear the armistice for which he sued is over. Ethan van Sciver has revealed himself to be a two-faced, shameless, and unrepentant liar. Again. In January 2019, five days after I posted about his two-facedness and historical revisionism, he emailed me out of the blue

An excerpt: Suing for peace.  This is stupid.  SJWs ALWAYS DOUBLE DOWN is too important for me to be in a fight with you.

I accepted, because for all his flaws and idiosyncracies, 2VS is not the enemy. Even now, he’s not the enemy. He’s not a friend, he’s not an ally, but he’s not actually trying to deplatform or disemploy anyone. So, he’s not an enemy, he’s just another anklebiter looking to catch a wave from someone else’s motorboat. So be it. It is what it is.

One of his goals which was to fight the culture war in comics on his own terms he was going to answer the social justice way comics with books like what was that book that he had with Daisy Duke… oh he was gonna fight it on on that level and here we come we here we come we swoop in and go know the way to fight SJWs is to simply succeed it’s not to fight with them on their own terms it’s to actually do good business and make money by being apolitical.

Now you know Vox Day took a real shot, Vox Day took a shot at taking over comicsgate. He took a shot because he tried to start an imprint called comicsgate and he invited people to come his way. I said everybody if your comics say come to me I’ll publish you. That was Vox Day trying to take control. Now we reacted to that a certain way didn’t wait if you remember back to 2018, comicsgate panicked and I invested eight thousand dollars of my own money in a lawyer to cease and desist and to claim ownership over the word comicsgate because I monetized it in my comic see livestreams.

Now that sent Vox Day away but he’s been pouting this entire time. I will reveal to you the Vox Day calls me constantly. I haven’t taken a phone call from him in months, probably a year but he still calls me and leaves messages on my machine. He’s watching comics gate very very closely and he’s using John del Arroz, who has a passing interest in comics.

Allow me to set the record straight:

  1. I have not been pouting about anything, least of all ComicsGate. I don’t care in the slightest about ComicsGate and I never did. I was dragged into that pointless, idiotic conflict by Will Caligan, and I no longer have anything to do with either ComicsGate or Caligan beyond continuing to publish Gun Ghoul.
  2. I have no interest in working with or talking to Ethan van Sciver.
  3. I did not drop the ComicsGate imprint as a result of 2VS’s trademark filing, I dropped it because I did not wish to be associated with the inept and incompetent individuals who identified themselves with it.
  4. I called Ethan van Sciver several times after the resolution of the Indiegogo situation. I thought, as someone with a vested interest in it, he might like to know that it was satisfactorily resolved. As I was incorrect and he did not return my calls, I stopped calling him several months ago.
  5. I do not follow ComicsGate at all. I have no idea what is going on in that little cesspool of the comics industry. John Del Arroz and I do talk about our mutual projects, but I never talk to him about 2VS or ComicsGate.
I don’t know why 2VS felt the need to start talking about me again; perhaps he is upset by the total irrelevance of Cyberfrog when Arkhaven is moving forward steadily on all fronts. Or perhaps the fact that ComicsGate collectively raised one-third the funds it did in 2019 that it did in 2018 has him rattled and looking for me to reprise my villain du jour role.

The problem is that other than setting the record straight, I simply don’t care what he does or says. And now that he has confirmed what we originally believed him to be, there is no need to pay any attention to the Secret King of ComicsGate.

Romulans are the new Muslims

It’s not really possible to ruin Star Trek, in my opinion, but according to the Dark Herald, to the extent it is possible to ruin it, Bad Robot appears to have successfully done so with Picard:

The blitheringly incompetent Bad Robot productions is producing Picard, so it takes place in the Kelvin timeline, because everyone wanted more of that! Kurtzman is running it so you know it was born as a festering boil covered abomination. And he has admitted that Picard is NOT a canonical sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation.

You heard that right. The much ballyhooed Picard is more J. J. Abrams fanfic!

And it’s been written by Avrika Goldman who wrote A Beautiful Mind (Wait! Stop! Don’t get your hopes up) as well as Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, plus the Lost in Space movie. When Goldman is only in it for a paycheck he is the living embodiment of phoning it in.

And phone it in he did!

Starting off a Star Trek series with a anti-Nationalist political rant was a bad enough start, but following that with an action scene let all of the Star Trek fans know upfront that this one is on the fast track to ST:D-ville.

I’m not even going to pretend to care since I am congenitally indifferent to all things Star Trek, but I post this here as a public service.

Atheism is genetic

Or is, at the very least, a developmental disorder linked to genetic causes:

The largest genetic sequencing study of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) ever conducted has found 102 genes associated with autism, a major step towards an eventual cure, which may involve genetic manipulation. Most of these 102 genes were expressed in the brain, and affect synapses or regulate other genes. This means they have important roles in switching other genes on and off.

Furthermore, 49 of these genes are also linked to other developmental disorders, underlining the fact that the neurobiology of many such conditions are likely to overlap.

I first postulated my hypothesis concerning a link between the autism spectrum and atheism back in  2007 in response to a post by PZ Myers at Pharyngula in which he and other atheists were bragging about their relatively high Asperger’s Quotient scores. I wrote: “Obviously, more comprehensive and scientific tests would be advised before any definite conclusion can be reached, but these initial observations do appear to indicate a possibility that atheism could be nothing more than a minor mental disorder.”

Since then, at least two scientific studies that were directly inspired by my hypothesis have found that there is a statistical correlation between atheism and the autism spectrum.

This new study indicates – it does not yet prove, but it indicates – that scientists will eventually be able to find a link between those 102 genes and atheism, which suggests that it is atheism, not religion, that will one day be cured by science. One should note that this genetic link also explains why atheism has never propagated very successfully from one generation to the next, as atheists tend to be very unfit in the evolutionary sense of natural and sexual selection.

So, don’t be bothered by your shower-averse, science-loving, fedora-sporting acquaintance who insists on quoting Richard Dawkins at everyone apropos of nothing. Just assure him that he does well to trust in science, as one day science will cure his genetic developmental disorder.

No one cares

Everyone on both sides is perfectly aware that the impeachment is Fake News, which is why no one is interested in the “historic” event:

The Senate spectator gallery was at least half-empty throughout the first week of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and senators serving as the jury in the marathon sessions are taking notice — some stunned that there aren’t more people watching history unfold, while others understand the public avoiding the repetitive proceedings.

“I’m really surprised at that because this is kind of historic and I would think this would be an opportunity for people to get in there regardless of whose side you are on,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told The Post Friday.

So, the Democrats lied about a lot of things, nothing is going to happen, and no one is going to pay any attention to stories about how you were there. And, on top of all that, it requires listening to a bunch of old people blathering on and on. There is literally nothing to appeal to anyone.

I’m surprised the gallery is anywhere close to being half-full.

Thank you, Corona-chan!

Corona-chan offers yet another powerful argument against globalization, open borders, and the free movement of peoples. Plus, a guide to ensure the good favor of Corona-chan:


 

  • Don’t worry much if you’re not a boomer – for now.
  • Once it lands in your region, try to minimize contacts with other people. Brush up on your hikikomori skills, they’ll finally come in handy.
  • Obviously no idiot-tier things, like going to restaurants, cafes, concerts. Minimize public transport usage.
  • Try to get a work-from-home arrangement.
  • Be aware that face masks offer minimal protection (and this Corona can spread through the eyes).
  • Keep hands away from face.
  • Do the usual prepper things: Get supplies of grains, meat in bulk for the freezer, water, coffee, etc. Even better, get to an isolated rural retreat, if it’s a realistic option.
  • Make sure any entertainment is strictly thematic:
      • Stephen King’s classic, The Stand.
      • Richard Preston on Corona-chan’s more bloodthirsty but stupider sister, The Hot Zone.
      • Russian cult classic video games Pathologic and the more recent Pathologic 2.
      • Plague Inc. video game.
      • Zombie movies
  • Maintain positive outlook. At least we’ll get a temporary reprieve from cheap Chinese tour groups.
All in all, it strikes me as a good time to get caught up on the writing. Back to Selenoth….

UPDATE: Doesn’t evacuating people from a hot zone tend to violate the primary objective of a quarantine?

The US, which has around 1,000 citizens in the city, is set to evacuate those it knows about – including diplomats – on a 230 seater charter flight tomorrow. 

Why not simply declare those 1,000 citizens to be New Chinese, every bit as Chinese as the other residents of Wuhan, and leave them to bravely face the Mandate of Heaven with their fellow Chinese. 

Russia bans dual-citizens

No wonder the neoclowns have been clamoring incessantly for war with Russia. They recognized, before anyone else did, that their “hello, fellow Russians” jig was up:

Dual citizens and holders of foreign residency permits will now be barred from holding official positions within the Russian Federation. In addition, 25 years of Russian residency will be required of anyone running for President instead of the current 10. This may seem like a minor change, but it is causing Russia’s fifth-columnists and members of the liberal opposition to tear their hair out while gnashing their teeth because most of the current ones will be automatically disqualified from holding office while any future ones will be forced to choose between serving Russia and having a bug-out plan.

More specifically, given their new outsider status, their Western masters will consider them useless and will no longer funnel funds to them or offer them free regime change training. This approach is sure to be more effective than the current, more labor-intensive one of playing whack-a-mole with foreign-financed NGOs and foreign agents attempting to infiltrate Russia’s government.

The United States and other Western governments desperately need to enact a similar law. Ideally, even being eligible for dual-citizenship would disqualify a citizen from holding office or working for the national government.