John Wall just retired, and Lee Corso is about to do so. My question: Were they good?
They were significant – Corso, the college football analyst, more so than Wall, the NBA point guard. They were entertaining, I guess. But were they good?
I admit to watching ESPN’s College GameDay as little as possible. In fact, I’ve sworn off all pregame shows besides “Inside the NBA,” believing they don’t educate and they barely entertain – that it’s just a bunch of people sitting around, spouting hot takes and laughing at unfunny things.
That said, I’m well aware of Corso’s shtick. How the former college player and coach would counter his fellow panelists’ points by screeching, “Not so fast, my friend.” And how he would don the head of the mascot of the team he picks in the game of the day, at whatever site the show happens to be emanating from.
That’s all harmless fun, I suppose. But then I read something journalist/GameDay Insider Pete Thamel said in a piece about Corso for The Athletic.
“When the definitive history of college football is written,” Thamel said, “there may not be a more important person in helping popularize the game than Lee Corso.”
Maybe that’s so. A bunch of legendary coaches – everyone from Amos Alonzo Stagg to Nick Saban – is in that discussion. So too are guys like Keith Jackson (RIP), who in the minds of geezers like me remains the definitive voice of the college game. (Quick aside here: I once interviewed Todd Blackledge, the former Penn State quarterback, who recalled watching Keith call his touchdown pass to Gregg Garrity in the January 1983 Sugar Bowl, a game that secured for the Lions the first of their two national championships: “Blackledge, going for the bundlllle …” A few years later, Blackledge was working with Jackson.)
Loved me some Keith Jackson, back in the day. That said, was his impact greater than that of Corso? Was the impact of all those coaching icons greater than that of a man who coached Louisville, Indiana and Northern Illinois to a 73-85-6 record over 15 seasons (ending in 1984)?
Maybe not.
Corso has been on the air since 1987, for goodness sake. The game has grown, evolved, swallowed the nation’s Saturdays whole. And he’s been blessed with an enormous platform.
But that sidesteps the question of whether he has been good.
I guess he’s good if all you’re looking for is a grown man performing a circus act, if all you want is college football’s answer to Dick Vitale. I personally could live without either of them, but if that’s your thing, you do you.
As for Wall, he made five All-Star teams while playing 11 NBA seasons. The first nine of those were with Washington, which chose him atop the 2010 draft. In all he averaged 18.7 points and 8.9 assists, and few players have ever been quicker with the ball in their hands. When Doug Collins coached the Sixers several years ago, he always asserted that Wall was “a one-man fast break,” and that was true. The guy could really go.
Whether he was good or not is, again, a complicated question. In an era where it seems like everybody can shoot, his jumper left much to be desired. He made just 32 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Then there’s the question of impact. When you take a guy No. 1 overall, you are hoping he can be a transformational player, and Wall simply was not. The Wizards were .500 or better in five of the nine seasons he spent in Washington, made the playoffs four times and won three series.
Rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, you would expect more from a supposed franchise player.
So call me curmudgeonly. Tell me I need to grade on more of a curve, or that I’m old and out of touch. But I’m just not sure I see these two in the same light as some might.
In a related development, everybody needs to get off my lawn.