The I'll Just Go Ride My Bike Theory of Leadership

There is always a guy that makes worse decisions than you

Yesterday rookie Redskins head coach Jim Zorn accepted president Bush's invitation for a nice bike ride down at Fort Belvoir, uncomfortably close to where I live in Alexandria Virginia. There were no reported political overtones to the story and I have no idea what Jim Zorn's politics even are which I think is a good thing, I don't want to go there and if I find out I will have no choice, for example we know that cornerback Fred Smoot is a flaming liberal and former Redskins quarterback Mark Brunell is wickedly conservative.

I just want to enjoy football and as commenters and emailers have mentioned since I expressed disappointment in seeing Joe Gibbs at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, or rather did not see him since I was watching the Redskins game, politics should not be a factor in my enjoyment and coverage of the game. I know that and yet I cannot stop myself. We are in a hyper partisan era of US history and I am not unaffected. I'll just leave it at that.

I would hazard a guess that the president would never invite someone that will hang up the phone on him or wait until they are together on the bike trail to give him the finger or tear off his Redskins t shirt to reveal Code Pink or wait until after the ride to use it as a tool publicly to condemn the president so coach Zorn must have been vetted somehow.

We do know that one of Jim Zorn's best friends is Steve Largent, Hall of Fame receiver and former Seattle teammate of Jim Zorn and that one of the benefits to Jim taking the Redskins job was proximity to his good friend Steve.

After his playing days ended in 1992 Steve moved back to Oklahoma and ran for Congress, becoming part of the 1994 Republican takeover, Steve was so far to the right in Congress that even the evangelicals occasionally wanted no part of him. This not being a political blog I'll leave it to readers to see for themselves, see here and here.

In 2002 Steve opted for a run at the Oklahoma governorship and lost a close three way race. Surprise surprise Steve is now a high powered lobbyist as the head of CTIA, the wireless telecommunications industry group. This is Jim Zorn's best friend.


DCist on the ride.



Jim Zorn leaving the White House Sunday: Reuters image from here.