Editor’s Note: A few readers have suggested Missy Shafer’s comments were merely a light-hearted joke. I was not present when she said them. I am reacting to reading them in print. I have searched for the video of them, I have not found it. If you have a link, please email me: damon.amendolara@cbsradio.com. If she thinks the press and fans were fair to her husband, then it was lost in translation and I have no problem with them. The “You can’t win with a 5th-string quarterback” comments though, cannot be perceived as a joke. That suggests her husband got a raw deal, which I completely disagree with. -DA¬†
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I know these are emotional times for the Shafer family. I respect any spouse who will defend their loved one. But Missy Shafer’s comments are ridiculous. Bud Poliquin quoted her as saying, “You won’t have him to torture anymore. Now, you can torture the next guy.”
Torture huh? You consider this torture, Mrs. Shafer? Your husband made $1.3 million per season for three years. So before taxes, your family banked approximately $4 million since 2013. To coach football and answer questions at press conferences. This is torture?
For that $4 million, your husband delivered 14 wins. That means for every victory, Scott brought home about $285,000. Which is about twice the annual income of some of the¬†extremely fortunate households that came to support the Orange over back-to-back disgusting seasons. I’m sure the Shafers live in a beautiful, big house. With beautiful, nice new cars. And all the bills paid, and educations paid for, and no one scrambling to make ends meet for the holidays, or keep the lights on, or put food on the table. These are a lot of things that many people find torturous. Wasn’t it Scott Shafer that once reminded us not to blow football out of proportion? That it wasn’t ISIS, so we should keep things in perspective? Missy seems to be a little melodramatic.
“You can’t win with a fifth-string quarterback,” Missy also apparently said. Which she might be right about. Although Urban Meyer seemed to find a way to win a national championship with his third-string QB. Not that anyone on the SU roster is Cardale Jones, but Scott also seemed to have problems winning with a first-string quarterback. And first-string everything else. That’s the rub.
Again, I understand this is a raw moment for the Shafers, and I’d love to have my wife go to bat for me as well. But if dealing with the sharks of the cutthroat Central New York press (insert sarcasm font) for millions of dollars was such torture, maybe the Shafers should’ve been shown the door out of town before this. It’s a one newspaper city, with a pretty even-handed SU media. It’s not tabloid-ish, it’s not a culture of sports talk screamers, there’s no gotcha journos looking to cream the school. Yes, some fans booed. Some wanted him gone. But most just didn’t show up. There’s more apathy than anger. You notice those 30,000 empty seats at the Dome yesterday?
Torture? What exactly does Missy Shafer think it would be like to be the wife of Chip Kelly right now? Mark Richt? Steve Sarkesian? You think that might be a little tougher than clicking on Syracuse.com on Sundays and seeing the win-loss record?
Torture. That’s great. I wrote about this the day Shafer was canned. Everything about him is Painesville, Ohio. Some of that is great. I think he’s genuinely a good guy, I think he’s pretty honest, he cares about his players, and he wanted to turn this thing around. He seems to have a solid family, and two pleasant children. But as he snapped at critics, and overall seemed to lose control of his emotions by the end, it proved he was in over his head. Tortured by the media and fans? Maybe the family would be more comfortable at Painesville High.
I’d have one question for Missy Shafer if she felt this was such a torturous experience.
So how do you think the fans felt?
Posted: Damon Amendolara
10 responses to ““Torture” Comments By Scott Shafer’s Wife Are Ridiculous”
D.A. you’re right of course….”Hell hath no fury….”
It’s a very emotional time on so many fronts for some many people.
Keep a level head and get through the next 10 days…’s all we can do.
I have officially removed this site from my favorite list that I read from daily. Enough with the negativity already I can get that anywhere,later…
That was definitely melo dramatic. Shades of, “you won’t have old Nixon to kick around anymore…”
Just another emotional wife who is concerned about the “next paycheck forgetting that she should have at least one million tucked away in an investment fund that she or Scott can tap as needed He lady you married a football coach. If you didn’t know what that meant ,its all on you. If you want to discuss torture you might want to consider what your husban did to the fan base after coming in and describing the success our team was going to achieve. Did you forget that we had a 4star running back all set to come here until one of the brilliant assistant coaches screwed the pooch and forced the kid to say “No thanks. Add to this a 5 star tight end who was ours until your husband decided he didn’t want to wait a year for the mandatory one year sideline sitting and oh by the way,we still haven’t recruited a tight end for next year so lady you canSTFU about torture. We have had enough from your husband. Personally I liked him when he spoke about football but that never translated to the field.We all want a successfulhread coach to come to this history rich school and give us what we have too long not seen here.
Way to try to get yourself page views. You clearly have no interest in the context she said her words in. To a person close to her husband and clearly as a joke.
I’m going to assume you didn’t watch the video of her comments. Because if you had you would have seen she laughed about it. I am going to assume you haven’t followed the coverage of the team for the last couple years because if you had you would have know that this one paper town was looking for the gotcha moment. Scott Shafer didn’t like the press. He didn’t trust them because they were looking for the gotcha moment. The less he gave them the more they tried for the gotcha moment. I will assume you know nothing of the people you wrote about. If you had you would know that they are great people and don’t deserve to be kicked while they are down. They did a lot for the kids on this team and the community the lived and worked in. I’m not sure why you brought pay into this because it has nothing to do with if a person deserves to be beatin up in the press. But since you brought it up I believe Scott was the lowest paid of all the p5 coaches and to compare his pay or level of deserving of media trashing him to Chip Kelley is laughable. It’s too bad DA I used to like you when you had your show up in Boston. But if you are going to write articles without knowing what your writing about I guess I will stop reading what you fabricate.
I have read almost everything ever written by that newspaper on Shafer – I never once felt like they were looking for a gotcha moment. I grew up with the NYC media. I worked in the Boston media. If anyone thinks Syracuse press was looking for a gotcha moment, they are sorely mistaken. The SU press is overwhelmingly fair to the teams when it’s just bad teams/bad coaches – and not scandal. I never said the Shafers were bad people. I just think these comments by her are laughable.
If she was joking, then fine. I have no problem. I do have a problem with saying “you cant win with a 5th string qb” to suggest Scott got a raw deal. If your name really Click Bait? Kinda cool.
Thanks for the feedback – but man, if one negative post is too much for you, I don’t know what to say. I’ve written about coaching candidates, the Edsall rumors, we’ve done a ton on recruiting reaction to the firing, and covered the early basketball results with optimism. Sorry to see you go, but I dont agree with being overly negative at all.
People are so protective of shafer and little missy.
first syracuse wasn’t using the fifth string qb, second her comment was serious third there is no video
this cuse twitter army crap is more like cuse twitter idiots
shafer was a terrible hc and a below average coordinator
sure the player liked him
he wanted people to be happy and didnt hold them accountable on or off the field and they enjoyed that.
time to win games
also if shafer is such a great coach how come his name isn’t coming up with all of these vacant jobs? why is he not a hot coach looking to move up? oh because he is terrible.