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WCP/Dave McKenna: Dan Snyder: Unsportsman of the Year, 2011

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http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/42006/dan-snyder-unsportsman-of-the-year-2011

By Dave McKenna • December 30, 2011

As both my readers know, the Unsportsman of the Year balloting has historically been as one-sided as a Vanilla Ice 45.

Guess that makes this year historic: Dan Snyder, stay on down! You’ve won again!

Throughout 2011, Snyder and his enterprises showcased all the unsportsmanly traits that brought him home the hardware in the past. The Redskins, who on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks sold Pentagon hats for profit, commemorated this year’s 10th anniversary of the tragedy by taking out a full page advertisement in the Washington Post showing a drawing of the Pentagon with a big team logo pasted right about the spot where the plane hit.

Crass act, indeed.

Then there’s the email Snyder’s marketing geniuses blasted out earlier this month disguised as a holiday greeting. The email was actually an advertisement from Audi, a major Redskins sponsor, which hailed those Redskins fans who “enthusiastically embraced” such “traditions” as wearing “feathers and war paint” to feel “oneness with the tribe.”

Hey, Dan, 1932 called! It wants its cultural sensitivity unawareness back!

And while Snyder continued shunning most real interviews for another season, he did sit for a Q and A in October with a Leesburg fifth-grader named Sully. That encounter ran on Redskins Nation, a daily infomercial produced by Redskins Broadcast Network, which Snyder owns.

Snyder’s never been too successful at staying away from labor lawsuits, and he kept that going this year: The Snyder-controlled Dick Clark Productions was hit with a class action suit last month in which a contract employee named Charles Griffin led a group accusing the company of chronically stiffing low-end workers on awards shows. “[L]ate payment of wages is customary rather than exceptional,” the complaint alleges. For years, lawsuits alleging that he and his businesses stiff the little guy have followed Snyder the way a Labrador retriever follows his master. In 2007, a nanny for Snyder’s children won a suit filed over illegally withheld wages, and in 2010, a class of litigants made up of staffers in the Redskins ticket office got paid after suing the team for ignoring overtime laws. (Briefly back to Dick Clark: Snyder does deserve some huzzahs for the company’s recent revival of Bloopers, which for decades was appointment TV for shots-to-the-gonads aficionados. Yet, for Redskins fans, discovering Snyder is behind a show called Bloopers should be as surprising as learning Kim Kardashian is involved in a show called Kim Kardashian.)

Then there’s all those Redskins season ticketholders who paid their 2011 invoices on time during the last offseason because of a promise of free tickets to either Manchester United v. Barcelona, University of Maryland v. University of Notre Dame, or a Kenny Chesney concert at FedExField. Many on-timers later took to message boards claiming the team offered them the Chesney tickets after they requested the football or fútbol ones, due to high demand. Over the weekend, after the last home game of the season was played on Christmas Eve against the Minnesota Vikings in front of what looked on TV like a half-empty stadium, Snyder’s crack media staff issued a press release opening with, “The game was the Redskins’ 368th consecutive sellout.”

Unsportsmanlike conduct! Half the distance to the goal line!

And of course, there was also the matter of the lawsuits he filed againstWashington City Paper and me. More on that later. But, in the end, Snyder earned his latest dishonor as much by what he didn’t do as by what he did.

click link at the top for entire article

_________________________________________________________________________

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Dan T.

Dan T.

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There is legitimate criticism to be made about Dan Snyder, but McKenna's relentless shotgun approach ruins his credibility on the subject. BTW, for you McKenna haters, you might be interested in the last paragraph of the column.:

And a final note: This will be the last Cheap Seats column. In our 25 years and 51 weeks together, City Paper and I have gotten everything out of each other we’re going to get. I’m grateful for all the people who told me their stories, and anybody who ever read my attempts to retell those tales in this space, and, well, anybody who didn’t read but sued me anyway. Be well...

Snyder-bashing aside, McKenna wrote some really, REALLY good pieces about the local Washington sports scene in the City Paper "Cheap Seats" column. I'll miss it. I wonder where he's headed...

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Dan T.

Dan T.

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Even I'll admit that this one is pretty petty, though it does beg a good question...

Where the hell is the practice bubble?!

Seems like a lot of hot air, just like the party decks.

I wonder if lack of a practice bubble is a sign that they really are looking to move the practice facility into DC or Maryland. Why invest in such a costly project if you're not going to be around to use it?

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Califan007 The Constipated

Califan007 The Constipated

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Snyder-bashing aside, McKenna wrote some really, REALLY good pieces about the local Washington sports scene in the City Paper "Cheap Seats" column. I'll miss it. I wonder where he's headed...

Yeah, I especially loved the article he recently did on how Phillip Daniels tried to rig the prep player poll :thumbsup:...that's good journalisms right there.

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TheGoodBits

TheGoodBits

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I would like to request that the link in the OP be deleted, so as to discourage people from adding a view to the article. McKenna is a ****ing idiot, a douchebag, and has a profession that allows him to share his dumb opinions with others. Dangerous combination, and adds to the stupidity of the average DC sports fan who reads this crap on a regular basis.

And I'm by no means a Snyder fan either, so dont take this as a defense of him. I just have no idea what the article is about because I refuse to read it.

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HailGreen28

HailGreen28

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I would like to request that the link in the OP be deleted, so as to discourage people from adding a view to the article. McKenna is a ****ing idiot, a douchebag, and has a profession that allows him to share his dumb opinions with others. Dangerous combination, and adds to the stupidity of the average DC sports fan who reads this crap on a regular basis.

And I'm by no means a Snyder fan either, so dont take this as a defense of him. I just have no idea what the article is about because I refuse to read it.

Bold and underline mine. :ols:
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Crazy Levi

Crazy Levi

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I would like to request that the link in the OP be deleted, so as to discourage people from adding a view to the article. McKenna is a ****ing idiot, a douchebag, and has a profession that allows him to share his dumb opinions with others. Dangerous combination, and adds to the stupidity of the average DC sports fan who reads this crap on a regular basis.

And I'm by no means a Snyder fan either, so dont take this as a defense of him. I just have no idea what the article is about because I refuse to read it.

Dave's article on Snyder - the cranky fan's guide - should be required reading for all Redskins fans. It's genius - humourous, informative, and perfectly encapsulates the misery of being a Skins fan since Snyder took over.

Yeah McKenna isn't perfect but his writing was a great part of the City Paper.

---------- Post added December-29th-2011 at 02:41 PM ----------

This photo was taken on DEC-22. The practice bubble will be ready for 2012.

That's great news.

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Dan T.

Dan T.

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Yeah, I especially loved the article he recently did on how Phillip Daniels tried to rig the prep player poll :thumbsup:...that's good journalisms right there.

I didn't see the piece, but personally I found it just a little icky that Daniels came here begging for votes for his nephew in Georgia to win some award. It was the whole process that was unseemly, so it wasn't all on Daniels. Though I'm sure with McKenna's Redskins bias, it was a hit piece on Daniels.

But for every column bashing the Redskins, I can show you three good quality pieces... about local hoops legends or longtime contributors to the local sports scene or others with a local sports flavor.

McKenna did good some stuff, despite the blatant Snyder bias.

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DC9

DC9

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While I sided with McKenna on the City Paper Lawsuit fiasco... I heard him talk on the radio after the lawsuit was dismissed. I've heard no bigger tool on DC radio this side of Lavar Arrington and Chad Dukes than a Dave McKenna. You'da thought Snyder slept with his little sister or something. I am glad you posted the paragraph because I refuse to support this guy by clicking on his link.

I feel Ted Leonsis teams and players get a free pass from the media around here... Andray Blach is a child and the Caps are unraveling and sporatic winners at best. But it's the piling on of the Redskins and Snyder in particular that just makes this unresponsible. The guy doesn't talk about anything else, how do these stories still get views if that's all the WaPo and the Fan and the City Paper talk about.

HAIL!

HAIL!

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elkabong82

elkabong82

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Unsportsman of the year is Snyder? Not any of the NCAA football and basketball people caught cheating, not Sandusky, PSU members who collaborated, not the Syracuse coach, not the many players caught up in illegal activities such as Sam Hurd, but Snyder because of an annual Audi ad and some BS charges of disparaging 9/11 b/c a Skins logo was by the Pentagon symbol? The team honored those fallen and does a lot of charity work, especially around the holidays, but those facts are inconvenient to a man trying push his personal agenda.

All McKenna is doing with his latest piece of trash journalism is proving he does have a personal agenda against Snyder, which gives more credence to those allegations that were in the lawsuit. Too bad, b/c that old article had some good points in it, but was ruined by the petty personal stuff, like going after Snyder's wife, and McKenna has proven w/ trash like this and recently the Phillip Daniels article that he isn't the voice of the upset little guy, but rather he is the voice of the irrational morons.

The first words of his article are correct: "As BOTH my fans know" because 2 is about all he has left. City Paper is wise to give him the boot.

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Crazy Levi

Crazy Levi

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I didn't see the piece, but personally I found it just a little icky that Daniels came here begging for votes for his nephew in Georgia to win some award. It was the whole process that was unseemly, so it wasn't all on Daniels. Though I'm sure with McKenna's Redskins bias, it was a hit piece on Daniels.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2011/12/01/ex-redskin-phillip-daniels-trying-to-rig-prep-player-poll/

In my opinion these kinds of online popularity contests are pretty stupid, and I don't bother voting in them regardless of who asks.

If anybody visits any music forums it's always the same thing, people coming on and begging for you to vote for their band for this or that.

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Diss

Diss

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Unsportsman of the year is Snyder? Not any of the NCAA football and basketball people caught cheating, not Sandusky, PSU members who collaborated,

I'm assuming the "award" only goes to local D.C. area people. If not, then you're totally right.

I will say, though, as much as McKenna clearly has tunnel-vision when it comes to Snyder, he's brought up some good points in the past about our "dear leader," and it can be a good thing to have these sorts of checks and balances. As always, you just have to read everything very carefully. But clearly Snyder's handling of the whole City Paper suit thing was a joke. Tony Wylie should've been fired for spearheading that idiotic campaign.

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