Pop Warner Trophy Returns; No Pearls of Wisdom From Bruce; War Games

Sometimes good things can disappear for a while and then come back from the dead. 

Like the Golden State Warriors, when Joe Lacob bought the team from Chris Cohan. Or Indiana football, when Curt Cignetti was hired as head coach.

Such is the case with the Pop Warner Trophy, a prestigious award that was given annually to the best college football player on the West Coast from 1949-2004. 

The award has been dormant for 21 years, but thanks to the efforts of former Stanford football and basketball star John Paye, the Warner Trophy has been resurrected. 

The first winners of the reborn trophy are Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, the 2025 season honoree, and former Stanford quarterback and current General Manager Andrew Luck, who is being honored retroactively for the 2010 season.

Sagapolutele started for the Bears as a true freshman last fall, leading them to a 7-6 record and a berth in the Hawaii Bowl. He completed 316 of 492 passes for 3,454 yards and 18 touchdowns, and finished the season by throwing his last 178 passes without an interception.

Luck was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy and Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2010, leading Stanford to a 12-1 overall record and a final No. 4 national ranking.

The trophy honors perhaps the most famous coach in college football history, Glenn S. "Pop" Warner (above). Warner built powerful teams at Georgia, Cornell, the Carlisle Indian School, where he coached the great Jim Thorpe, Pitt and Temple, but it was during his years at Stanford (1924-32) that his fame peaked. One of his players was the man chosen by Sports Illustrated in 1962 as the greatest of all time, Ernie Nevers.

Warner posted a 73-17-8 record on the Farm and led his 1926 squad to a 10-0-1 record and the national championship, the only Stanford team ever accorded that honor.

But he was also a great innovator. Historians credit him with the invention of the single and double wing attacks, forerunners to the spread and shotgun formations, as well as the reverse play, the crouching start, and various hidden ball plays. Warner was also the first to use huddles, assign numbers to plays, and put headgear on his team.

The Warner Trophy was presented from 1949 to 2004 to the top senior in the West, but under the new format will honor the best player, regardless of class. 

The first winner was Pacific quarterback Eddie Lebaron. Other notable winners have included Ollie Matson (USF, 1951), Joe Kapp (Cal, 1958), Jim Plunkett (Stanford, 1970), Chuck Muncie (Cal, 1975), John Elway (Stanford, 1982), current Cal GM Ron Rivera (1983), and Tommy Vardell (Stanford, 1991). 

Plunkett is one of eight Heisman winners to receive the Warner award; the others were Terry Baker (Oregon State, 1962), Mike Garrett (USC, 1965), Gary Beban (UCLA, 1967), O.J. Simpson (USC, 1968), Charles White (USC, 1979), Marcus Allen (USC, 1981), and Carson Palmer (USC, 2002).

Paye, one of the genuinely good guys in the world of sports, has been working hard for the past couple of years to bring back the Warner Trophy. During his playing days, he pulled off the borderline incredible feat of starting for Stanford at quarterback in football and point guard in basketball. His sister, Kate Paye, is the current Stanford women's basketball coach.

"I got to see the presentation of the 1977 Pop Warner Trophy to Guy Benjamin, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Paye said. "I am super excited to be part of the group that is giving a rebirth to the Pop Warner Trophy. He had a tremendous impact on the game of football that so many of us love, and it is an honor to introduce him to a new generation.”

The two awards will be presented Saturday at the annual dinner of the National Football Foundation's Northern California chapter.

In years past, the Warner Trophy was part of the Palo Club's "Million Dollar Banquet," back in the days when a million dollar sports contract meant something. When the Palo Club faded away, the Warner Trophy went with it.

These days the West has to struggle for recognition, given the media's East Coast bias, the dominance of the Big Ten and SEC, and the tragic demise of the Pac-12.

Let's hope Paye can build on this year's event and re-establish the Pop Warner Trophy to its rightful place as one of the crown jewels of college football.

No Pearls of Wisdom: In a debate that is reminiscent of the controversy over whether Group of Five teams should be included in the College Football Playoff rather than three-loss SEC teams, some pundits want to deny the unbeaten Miami of Ohio RedHawks a slot in the NCAA Basketball Tournament if they fail to win their conference championship.

Which would be ridiculous, in my book. The RedHawks are 31-0 and even if they are upset in the conference tourney, they deserve a chance to compete in March Madness.

The leading proponent for freezing them out is one Bruce Pearl, the oft- penalized coach now an "analyst" for TNT. 

Pearl, the former Auburn and Tennessee coach deservedly known more for his serial cheating than for any worthwhile opinions or perspective, is arguing that a 15-loss Auburn team is more deserving.

It just so happens that Auburn's first year coach is Pearl's son, Steven Pearl. The elder Pearl retired just before the season started, effectively forcing the school to hire his son.

The Tigers finished 16-15, 7-11 in league play, under Pearl the younger, whose inaugural season was marked by one of the most profane vocabularies in college basketball. 

Yet his dad, who never met a microphone he didn't like, says Auburn should be in the tournament and "there's no nepotism involved here."

Sure, Bruce, just like there was no cheating involved in your successes at Auburn or Tennessee.

(Yesterday Pearl walked back his comments and said Miami should be in, either bowing to the public backlash or havng a rare moment of self realization.)

War Games: The Trump administration apparently believes war is a sports game, or an action movie.

We wrote last week about Donald Trump's attempt to sportswash the Epstein Files, his absurd tariffs, and the rampant corruption and racism in his regime.

Well now he's taken it one step further. He's using sports to "highlight" his illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran, which has included the shameful slaughter of Iranian schoolchildren.

Last week The Trump administration intermixed footage of military explosions with Major League Baseball and National Football League highlights in a pair of social media posts.

The White House posted the two videos — one dedicated to baseball and the other to football -- intermixing sports highlights set to music with aerial footage of U.S. bombs hitting ground targets in Iran. 

The 27-second-long baseball reel, posted to X with the caption “Pure American dominance,” features in-game clips of former stars Barry Bonds, Cecil Fielder, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa, cutting from home run swings to explosions at unspecified sites. 

The 33-second NFL video, posted with the caption “Touchdown,” features the likes of Sheldon Brown, Ryan Clark, Ed Reed and Ray Lewis, cutting from big on-field hits to military explosions at the point of impact.

A day earlier, the White House posted a similar video featuring action-movie scenes intercut with bombing. 

Trump and his "Secretary of War," Pete Hegseth, appear to take delight in killing people and apparently equate dropping a bomb with hitting a home run or scoring a touchdown.

Hegseth's tough guy hubris, cockiness and posturing are, frankly, sickening. He mocks Democrats, previous administrations and allies "who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force."

In years past, more professional and empathetic leaders have put war in perspective.

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” said the late General and President Dwight Eisenhower."

"War is hell," according to William Tecumseh Sherman.

Yes it is. What it's not, is sports, movies, or music.