This week Colorado let the football world know that the school was retiring the numbers of Travis Hunter (who won the Heisman Trophy about 15 minutes ago) and Shedeur Sanders (who didn’t).
Of course, the school is free to do what it wants just as much as people with common sense are free to say how ridiculous it is. Especially to retire the number of a quarterback who was 13-12 as a starting quarterback for the Buffalos.
Deion Sanders, Shedeur’s father who just so happens to be the head coach, said of the public outcry “If his last name wasn’t Sanders, we wouldn’t have this discussion.”
He is 100 percent correct. If his last name wasn’t Sanders, they also wouldn’t be retiring his number, so there would be no discussion.
A quick reminder: Tim Tebow won two national championships and a Heisman Trophy and two decades later, his number still isn’t retired by the University of Florida.
But all of this brings up a bigger issue that I have railed against every chance I get. And that is, why every school/organization feels the need to retire a jersey.
Or name a facility after someone.
Or build a statue.
All of these arguments about who is “statue worthy” is especially silly. How did that work out for Joe Paterno? It wasn’t long after his statue was erected that it received the Saddam Hussein treatment and got dragged down the street to the scrap heap.
LSU folks got in a big to-do about whether or not to name the basketball court – not the arena – after Dale Brown. Instead, they did something even sillier by naming it after Dale Brown and Sue Gunter, a decision that pleased about six people.
Speaking of LSU, the football facility is named Tiger Stadium. That’s how you do it. Michigan Stadium. Notre Dame Stadium. You think those schools haven’t had a couple of dudes who have a few noteworthy accomplishments?
Alabama has a stadium named after two people (Bear Bryant, who won a bunch of national championships, and school president George Denny, who didn’t win any) as well as a field named after another (Nick Saban). What’s next, the Gene Stallings End Zone?
And don’t get me started on retired jerseys. Two of most storied franchises in pro sports – the Boston Celtics and the New York Yankees — have made a mockery of this. The Celtics have retired 23 numbers, including Cedric Maxwell (31) who was a nice player but didn’t do much more than give Robert Parish the nickname “Chief.”
The Yankees retired Lou Gehrig’s number in 1939 and then just can’t seem to kick the habit. They are up to 21 now, which is why current Yankees have to wear awful baseball numbers like 95 (Oswaldo Cabrera) and 71 (Ian Hamilton). There is literally not a number available until you get to #11 (but don’t give them any ideas about honoring Brett Gardner or Fred Stanley).
But the biggest don’t-go-there for number retiring numbers is for high school athletes. That’s not just a slippery slope; it’s a sheet of ice.
Many years ago, I did a story on a legendary basketball player at a local high school which mentioned that his number has been retired more than 20 years earlier.
Except that it wasn’t.
Nobody had bothered to notice that number was being worn by the backup point guard.
There are too many things that can go wrong when you start retiring high school numbers. Accomplishments that seem great to some in the moment might not seem as great a few years down the road.
Stadiums, statues and retired numbers all seem like wonderful ideas at the time. But far too often, that time passes.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com