Hugh Freeze responds to Jim Harbaugh's criticism on satellite camps
Jim Harbaugh fired a cannon shot in the Great Satellite War of 2016 toward Hugh Freeze's bow last night, telling Sports Illustrated:
“You’ve got a guy sitting in a big house, making $5 million a year, saying he does not want to sacrifice his time. That is not a kindred spirit to me. What most of these coaches are saying is they don’t want to work harder.”
Not wanting to let Harbaugh get the last word, Freeze appeared on ESPN's Mike & MikeWednesday morning to defend himself. (Quote transcribed by Nick Bumgardner of MLive, we'll post the interview as soon as ESPN puts it up.)
"I probably should've said that a little differently, but I'll never apologize for wanting to be a father and a husband," Freeze said. "I miss enough volleyball games (and other things), that is a priority for me. ... I think we work very hard, I don't think working hard is an issue. If you're asking me if I want to add more nights away from my wife and kids, I do not. That window is closing for me to be a husband and a father and I think the kids that play in our system need to see me in that role an awful lot."
The issue is that Freeze created a false binary here. The SEC and a whole and Ole Miss in particular were doing just fine without satellite camps, and no rule said that because someone else was holding a camp that Ole Miss had to join in. Freeze was welcome to enjoy his family time without restricting the rest of college football and denying recruits and coaches the opportunity for some much-needed exposure.
But Freeze also said he is working to fix that, sort of. The voters on the D1 Council, the group that cancelled satellite camps, unwittingly threw the baby out with the bathwater in banning all off-campus camps, and now some coaches are scrambling outside to collect the screaming infant.
That would be good, but not restricting something just because you didn't want to participate it would have been better.
