I do remember you; it’s a little disconcerting to know that someone almost as young as me has a high school age son. You must be proud of him and it’s interesting to hear more about the story behind the picture. Even though I’m sure the newspaper didn’t intend to demean his effort, it did lead to a pretty interesting discussion on semantics.

Hope all is well with you. Thanks for commenting.

Dan

“Allowed” is more accurate and less wordy than saying “failed to prevent” or “gave up.”

First of all, I disagree; “allowed is NOT more accurate. That is the whole point.

Secondly, is your argument that “allowed” is less wordy than “gave up”? Well, I suppose it is, for it is one word instead of two. However, they are the same number of key strokes. Furthermore, “gave up” is certainly not clumsy as is “failed to prevent.

I do not believe sports writers use this word in hiding meaning. I simply believe it is a common misuse of the word that seems to exist primarily in the sports world. Of course, if you misuse a word frequently enough, it becomes the proper usage. I personally do not like this.

Thanks,
jdurham

In the first instance, Davie “allowed” time to expire, he didn’t try to stop the clock because he had conceded that they were going to lose.

In the second instance, he did everything he could to preserve time in hopes of pulling out a victory, so he didn’t “allow” time to expire, he was just unable to stop the clock any longer.

If you had an old dog that contracted a disease, you might decide not to have the disease treated and “allow” the dog to die.

If it were a pup that had the disease, you might tell the vet to do everything in her power to cure it. If the pup died anyway, would you still say that you “allowed” the dog to die?

The fact that this is so clear to me, but not to anyone else just proves that I’m correct. Right?

Thanks for commenting,
Dan

The clock does need permission to run. It starts and stops according to the rules of the game. A coach has some control over this by using timeouts, calling pass plays that go at least ten yards for a first down, and calling running plays to the outside so the back can get out of bounds.

If Davie was losing a game and intentionally didn’t do these things, perhaps because they were down by several scores, then he did “allow” the clock to expire. Although he didn’t intend to lose when the game started, once the outcome became inevitable, he didn’t want to prolong it any further. Some might say the outcome was inevitable by virtue of Davie being on the sidelines, but that’s another issue.

If, however, he had used all of his timeouts wisely (unlikely) and called plays that if successful would lead to the clock being stopped, and they still ran out of time, then I don’t think you can say that he “allowed” time to expired, it simply expired.

Thanks for commenting,
Dan

Former Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie was infamous (at least in my opinion) for his horrible clock management skills. When he allowed the clock to keep moving, it was almost always the wrong thing to do. Insead of strategically using his time-outs to his advantage late in a ball game, he would ‘allow’ the clock to run too long, and then be left with not enough time to set up a potentially game-winning field goal or even a desperate hail mary heave, thus costing his team a chance at a victory. Can we say he allowed time to expire, or do we have to say he failed to stop the clock? And, regardless, is it ok if we blame him, since he was making millions of dollars while making millions of Irish fans miserable?

Thanks for commenting,
Dan