93 Comments
Comment removed
Expand full comment

The Pulse dot One?

I am begging you for the love of god, please use reputable sources.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

it's not my job to teach you media literacy.

Expand full comment

Really? Starting a post with "Not saying it's correct , but the article below is out there"? I really wish we could post memes...

Expand full comment

Just our luck. He gets fired AFTER he beats us.

Expand full comment

Usually teams fire before they play us and the interim whoops us.

Expand full comment

This is the truth. WSU would have beat us by even more if they had an interim HC for our game.

Expand full comment
author

Doom jokes aside, it'll be interesting to see how they rebound since they've lost basically half of their coaching staff. It's one thing to see a team rally around an interim coach (see the also-in-the-news Coach O going 6–2 at USC), but when half of the staff is gone?

Expand full comment

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out. How does the interim coach fill all vacancies on the staff in season?

Expand full comment
author

Probably with quality control assistants (e.g., Coach Browning was a quality control assistant with us before he was promoted to DL Coach). Maybe grad assistants? Maybe they can make short-term hires?

Expand full comment

You’re probably right but that’s a lot of backfilling.

Expand full comment

this was my actual first thought too lol

Expand full comment

Yep

Expand full comment

welp he also beat furd, so that at least was thoughtful of him

Expand full comment

That's the Sunshine in this picture.

Expand full comment

I'm sure he'll parlay his misfortune into a number of right-wing speaking gigs. Be interesting to see where he ultimately lands again.

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le

Next head coach for Liberty is in his future.

Expand full comment

Nailed it.

Expand full comment

He had Wazzu with some momentum...wonder if UNR would take a look at him when Norvell gets hired at the end of this year?

Expand full comment

Nevada and WSU might be trading coaches.

Expand full comment

My thoughts exactly

Expand full comment

Kiffen back to USC, Freeze back to Ole Miss, and Rolo slides in the DM with Jerry Falwell

Expand full comment

He's a medium-hot commodity, and could double his salary in a region of the country where mandates are shall we say, unpopular. Not to be cynical, but this could have been strategic move.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

"you have to respect people who are willing to lose their jobs over this issue."

I don't have to respect them.

If they don't have a medical issue or a sincerely held religious belief, then they are choosing to put themselves over protecting their community and the people around them. Rolovich and the terminated assistants put their players, recruits, families, and the Pullman community at risk.

Do you have to respect people who are willing to lose their license to keep driving drunk and endangering others around them?

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

There is a mandate in Washington about state employees not getting vaccinated. That's quite literally the impetus of this issue. Beyond that, putting other people's lives at risk should be considered of the utmost importance and not just be an issue of legality.

"a lot of people, who are clearly not the majority, believe that getting the latest Covid shots is not safe for them to do, and [there] is a lot of evidence to support that"

Could you provide some of this evidence?

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

Thanks. I don't see anything on that site about how the vaccine is unsafe. It's asking if there's a comparison between antibodies acquired via infection vs. via vaccination and saying there's uncertainty about which offers more protection. That doesn't mean it isn't safe and it's also not out of the question that they don't have data on that comparison yet.

Expand full comment

Trial Site News.

Yeah, sorry that isn't going to do it for me.

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le

I’m guessing he won’t be able to because Wikipedia doesn’t have a page to support anti vaxxers.

Expand full comment
author

Buddy never even stated what his beliefs were. He wasn’t standing for ANYTHING. He just declined to comment.

Expand full comment
author

"Also, I heard today on TV that 40% of so of people who die from Covid were fully vaccinated, though that number seems high."

That is incorrect. The latest data show that in August, 11.3 times more unvaccinated people died of covid than vaccinated people. That corresponds to about 8.8% of deaths for vaccinated people and 91.2% for unvaccinated people.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status

Expand full comment

Please tell me you aren’t getting your news from OAN or Newsmax because that false statistics seems like some they would “report” on.

Expand full comment

It is literally a law that he broke (that's the whole point of a mandate).

Also btw by now we know who you are, you don't have to point it out every reply.

Expand full comment

I don't know him so I did a Wikipedia search on the name but there isn't a Wikipedia page for that name?

Expand full comment

But sometimes he doesn't write (Gobears49) so those times he wants to be called Bob.

Expand full comment

"Also, I heard today on TV that 40% of so of people who die from Covid were fully vaccinated, though that number seems high. This is not an easy issue and if people are willing to sacrifice their current livelihood if they choose not to be vaccinated is something I have respect the courage of their convictions."

I'm gonna need a citation on that 40%

Expand full comment
author

>Also, I heard today on TV that 40% of so of people who die from Covid were fully vaccinated, though that number seems high

Closest I can find is that 37% of all >65 cases of Covid were vaccinated. Death rates are split 84/16 (unvax/vaxxed) for all ages and even in the highest risk >65 pop. the split is 78/22.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037e1.htm

>especially when the creation of the latest shots seems to hurried

mRNA vaccines have been in research since 1978. Testing on mRNA flu vaccines began in 1993.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

Expand full comment

It's definitely not 40%... it's not even 10%. Again - this doesn't change peoples choices but if it's some form of "because the vaccine isn't that helpful", then that's not true.

Expand full comment

Heard today on TV.... where? when? That just nonsense.

Expand full comment

I don't respect him one iota. I don't understand how any sane person could place any value on the right to spread deadly plagues.

Expand full comment

Well he did place a value on it, his salary in his contract. I don’t see how any sane person could walk away from those millions of dollars because they would rather spread a deadly disease.

Expand full comment

He's an idiot. There's not much more to it tbh

Expand full comment

Forget about respect for this decision. I think that this decision to quit (I am using the word "quit" intentionally - it was a conscious decision not to get vaccinated) was really, really selfish. The players who decided to go to WSU to play football depended on these coaches to be there for four years and prepare them for whatever the future brings to them. There is only a limited amount of time that the players have a chance to compete in college football and, IMHO, the coaches have to do whatever they can to prevent something like this from happening. I completely understand that coaches get fired all the time, but that is not something that is entirely under their control. I can even understand a coach leaving for greener pastures for the betterment of their families. I just can't understand choosing not to do something that is proven to promote better health among a population and that is mandated by your employer at the expense of those players.

Expand full comment

I don't really respect him for getting canned over this issue but I suppose some of America's magic is that even a fool can get ahead enough to coach Washington State.

Expand full comment
author

Is anyone out there willing to pay this fool $3M? I'd be cool with $2M, tbh. Hit me up.

Expand full comment

Self-limiting his hiring options ain't gonna help him at the negotiating table.

The Wazzu to SEC pipeline had already been filled by his predecessor unless the LSU job has lost its desirability.

Expand full comment

Lol gunna get chewed out for this, but I’m also anti mandate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully vaxed and have fully vaxed my family. I’m also a liberal leaning cal alumni.

I just don’t believe in forcing people to get a vaccine via taking away their livelihood. There are legitimate reasons for not getting a vaccine. For example, natural immunity from prior infection is 27x more effective than the vaccine, making it largely redundant for those recovered. Some people may also have sincerely held religious beliefs.

One can be pro vaccine but anti mandate.

Expand full comment

What religious belief does one hold that is against vaccines?

If you're referring to the Israeli study, it's 13 times efficacy - but the same study concluded that natural immunity PLUS vaccination was even better - this is the study https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1

Results showed that a single vaccine dose with natural immunity provided greater protection against reinfection than people with natural immunity alone.

Also - Rolovich isn't a guy working at home along - he's amongst 80+ players + 30 plus support staff and stadium employees - all of whom he's putting at risk.

There's no guarantee that you get to coach college football.

Expand full comment

As someone pro vax, I’m not denying having both is even better. All I’m saying is if natural immunity is just as good in the face of science then it should be just as good in the face of law.

As for religion, I’m atheist so I don’t know. Vanderbilt lists some exceptions here though.

https://www.vumc.org/health-wellness/news-resource-articles/immunizations-and-religion

Expand full comment

Rolovich is none of those religions which are exempted. And he also, by career, needs to work in close quarters with 200 other people.

"By making a personal decision to not be vaccinated in a pandemic, and then stubbornly sticking with it, Rolovich chose himself over the university he works for, his program, players, and fellow coaches. From the moment he released his statement on Twitter — at a time when WSU was in the middle of an all-out push to get students vaccinated and back on campus — he put himself over others in an incredibly selfish way, and made the lives of his team more difficult. They’ve spent months covering for him now, including when he couldn’t be at media day in person."

https://www.cougcenter.com/2021/10/18/22721956/nick-rolovich-fired-wsu-football-covid-vaccine-mandate

Expand full comment

Also, it must be said that this guy is the worst Catholic.

Expand full comment

That's an interesting list. Not that I can tell any difference between all the Christianity denominations

Expand full comment

I would tend to support that argument for things that don't require a high threshold for the benefit. With Delta, we probably need almost 100% immunity now since we can no longer assume vaccination fully breaks transmission (but helps a ton).

Also remember that natural immunity gives the virus an opportunity to reproduce and innovate. Vaccination conveys immunity without that.

If we only had like 5% holdouts then, yeah, you could probably leave them alone. But 25% would barely have worked with the original strain. So I'm pro-mandate.

Expand full comment

Now if one option was to live on some COVID island with others who don't get vaccinated then, fine, they're only hurting themselves. But one CAN'T be allowed to choose to live one's life normally while unvaccinated. They're imposing a cost on others without imposing costs upon themselves. That don't fly. He can either choose to work in close quarters with a bunch of people while being vaccinated or be vaccinated and isolate himself to a degree where he can't function as a football coach. They gave him the choice and he took the latter so they fired him.

Expand full comment

I can definitely be convinced to change my mind if the science demonstrates vaccines reduce mutation. I haven't really seen any controlled studies so far but feel free to share.

Here's a counter argument from Bossche who has a PhD degree in Virology from the University of Hohenheim. The TLDR is the vaccine actually allows viruses to mutate more than innate immunity as the latter causes the body to produce Neutrophils/Granulyctes/Basophils etc, the absence of which allows the virus to linger and evolve in the body.

Now I'm not a biologist and Bossche's paper also isn't a controlled study. I'm merely stating there are arguments on both sides and I'd like to see more research on the topic.

Expand full comment

I can definitely be convinced to change my mind if the science demonstrates vaccines reduce mutation. I haven't really seen any controlled studies so far but feel free to share.

One doesn't need a "controlled study" to understand that if the virus isn't spreading because everyone is vaccinated, then it lack the chance to mutate further. And vis-a-versa.

Expand full comment

The mechanism is simple. Viruses tend to have a known mutation rate. More replication, more mutation. Vaccinated people don't get infected as easily so less replication happens inside them as a population.

It's basic epidemiology, not biology.

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Christopher Helling

natural immunity from prior infection is 27x more effective than the vaccine

Says who? This is some serious BS.

Expand full comment

From your article:

But experts are stressing that the results shouldn’t be interpreted as discouragement from vaccinating. Immunologist Prof. Cyrille Cohen of Bar Ilan University, who was not involved in the study, told The Times of Israel: “Certain people who are not inclined to get vaccinated might be mistaken and think that this means you’d better get sick a priori and not get a vaccine. Such a thinking is medically wrong, and the results of the study do not mean that people should expose themselves on purpose and get sick.

“As with other disease, it is much safer to get the vaccine and prevent COVID-19, a disease that puts one at risk of hospitalization, death and long-running after-effects.”

Expand full comment

I wholeheartedly agree and will continue recommending the vaccine for friends and family.

That's orthogonal to the point that those who have recovered have just as strong immunity as those with the vaccine.

Expand full comment

As a fairly strict "healthy lifestyle" person, the vaccine was a no brainer. I imagine that a great deal of the non-vaxers are probably what I would consider, harming themselves more by what they put down their pie holes and other attendant behaviors.

Expand full comment

I always enjoy it when people who smoke are also anti vaxxers because they don’t want that “poison” in their bodies and they don’t know what’s in that vaccine while deeply inhaling a cigarette.

Expand full comment

If this is a strategic move, it's an incredibly risky one. He was 5-6 at WSU. I don't see any P5 schools touching him for awhile as a HC for awhile after this stunt and those credentials. I think he's probably gonna need to take a step back in school stature or otherwise go back to being a coordinator for awhile. Someone mentioned UNR, but I think that undersells that program and that state.

Expand full comment
author

His buyout after this year would have been $3.6m, and he still had 3 more years on his contract. He turned down between $3.6m and $6m not to get a vaccine. What a colossal idiot. Staggeringly, mind-bogglingly stupid decision.

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Christopher Helling, Berkelium97

Well well well if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions

Expand full comment

We’ll take him

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le, Christopher Helling

If we == Cal, then fuck no

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le, Christopher Helling

I would take another 5 years of Wilcox before him.

Expand full comment

I'll take three years of Holmoe, but that's as far as I'll go.

Expand full comment
author

no

Expand full comment

I wonder what religion prohibits vaccination

Expand full comment
author

There is speculation that he is Catholic based on his family and the fact he went to Marin Catholic, but the Pope is in support of vaccination.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/oct/09/report-washington-state-coach-nick-rolovich-applie/

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le

It probably starts with the letter Q and ends with anon.

Expand full comment

From what I've read at the start, it has to do with the use of cell lines from aborted fetuses when developing mRNA vaccines. I think J&J used them for production in addition to development. Obviously "sincere" is the operative, as to whether someone truly objects on those kinds of moral grounds vs using the exemption as a loophole to facilitate their politically motivated actions/stubbornness.

Expand full comment

It's just a right wing talking point because moderna and pfizer do not use aborted fetus cell lines. https://www.icsi.org/covid-19-vaccine-faq/are-the-mrna-vaccines-made-with-fetal-cells/

and the right wing has been pushing the monoclodial treatment which uses the same fetal tissue that were used for vaccines. It's all the same ignorant stuff

Expand full comment

They were used in earlier R&D stages by Pfizer and Moderna for proof of concept, though not for production of their final vaccines. (that was why i distinguished production and development when qualifying J&J)

Expand full comment
Oct 19, 2021Liked by Piotr Le

Good

Expand full comment

I didn't want him to get fired, I wanted him to come to his senses and get the vax. Good on the Wazzu admins for sticking to their guns, though.

Expand full comment

I think they were forced to by the state mandate, but I agree with your sentiments.

Expand full comment

Does the WSU admin review and grant the waivers? If so, they had a choice and a potential saving face for all and easy way out but they declined the waiver and fired him.

Expand full comment

This. The WSU pres made it pretty clear..

"It certainly skews the perception of our message," Washington State University president Kirk Schulz told the New York Times. "At most universities, people pay attention to what the university president, the football coach, the basketball coach and the athletic director have to say -- that's just the reality. People look at them for leadership because they're highly visible and highly compensated. It doesn't help when you have people who are contrary to the direction we're going."

Expand full comment
author

It was a double-blind review panel, so whoever looked over the waiver applications of Rolo and the four assistants did not know their identities (unless they chose to state it in their applications).

https://www.cougcenter.com/wsu-vs-stanford/2021/10/16/22729791/nick-rolovich-wsu-cougars-coach-vaccine-mandate

Expand full comment

After the blind review they get identified and then a 2nd round of consideration is made if the person is a role that puts a significant amount of people at risk.

Expand full comment

(source)

"Rolovich faces another hurdle if his application is approved.

If an exemption is granted, the applicant is re-identified, then another committee reviews the individual’s job responsibilities to determine if public health and safety are served by having an unvaccinated person serving in that role, Weiler said."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/pac12/2021/10/09/washington-state-nick-rolovich-confirms-religious-exemption-application-covid-vaccine/6077396001/

Expand full comment

Oh no, we have to hold tight to our coaching staff. Our entire staff is from the Pacific northwest.

Expand full comment

Ragle is from the Southwest, so he'll stay and become head coach (in addition to special teams.. he'll hold on to that one and save a coaching spot)

Expand full comment

He got fired on his day off. LOL

Expand full comment
author

I think it needs to be stated for relativity to us.

There’s always worse. 🤣🤣🤣

Expand full comment
author

That being said. The guys over at Coug Center (Specifically Jeff Nussar) is a friend of the site and their coverage of the situation and developing news has been top notch. They did the best to separate fandom and the factual news today while still processing it themselves. If you have the time. I’d ask you to go read on Cougcenter.com or send them a nice tweet.

Expand full comment

Coug Center and AtQ were always good and fun sites to read over at SBN during our CGB days. Glad that the guys at Coug Center are still doing the devils good work.

Expand full comment

Out of the state's 10K employees, only 50 have so far been fired for refusing to take the vaccine. Nick and his staff comprise five of those 50. These guys are really participating in a movement of just themselves. It's interesting that his assistants joined him in a rate that is so out of wack with the norm. Were they coerced? Did they feel their stature would grant them an exception? Did they all belong to a mysterious contrarian sub-sect of Catholicism? This collusion between them to me is the intriguing part of this story.

Expand full comment

Infections after Vaccination --- one thing no one's mentioned is that a deep dive analysis of all infections, hospitalizations, and deaths (I can't recall where I saw this) showed among the vaxxed people that do get infected, a high proportion of the serious cases (hospitalizations) and deaths are those most vulnerable, e.g., underlying health conditions. In fact, many deaths were attributable to other causes like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc., but also had COVID so they are listed under that category. Colin Powell is a good example of this. The vaccine can't help people get healthier from other chronic ailments and diseases; it just helps protect against COVID. So the number of healthier vaxxed people getting seriously ill or dying from COVID is much lower than just the raw numbers that are cited for COVID infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, when the relative health of each person is taken into account.

Expand full comment