Canzano: Bellotti's shot on Dixon was undeserved

John Canzano is spouting off again. So Oregon head football coach Mike Bellotti decides to talk publicly about his displeasure of Dennis Dixon taking off the summer to play baseball. Big deal!

Bellotti is within his right to do so. Not exactly tactful, but he's free to speak openly about it. Dixon should pick a sport, and leave it at that. You can't improve on past mistakes when you're running away and hiding from them, like Dixon did in baseball this summer.

Here's Canzano's blog post:

*Source - The Oregonian

Anyone else find Mike Bellotti's chiding of his quarterback/outfielder Dennis Dixon in today's Oregonian to be a little misplaced and foolish?

Dixon hit .188 (12 for 64) with no home runs in 24 games with the Braves' Gulf Coast Rookie League team. He struck out 18 times, walked 14 times and had only two extra-base hits. He cut his baseball season short to be back a month early.

Dixon missed valuable summer time with Oregon's new offensive coordinator, Chip Kelly, but I'm not so sure the quarterback deserved the big hit he took from his own head coach this week at the Pac-10 Conference media day.

I mean, didn't Bellotti shamelessly chase that Ducks' athletic director job while it was open during the late spring? As long as we're killing dreams, wasn't Bellotti better served focusing that time on spring practice, recruiting and 2007-season preparation after a disappointing finish to the 2006 season? Maybe it's just me, but I don't think Bellotti is in position to single out another human being for wanting to explore an opportunity.

An obviously irked Bellotti told The Oregonian's John Hunt:

"The only upside I can see is that he learned that he really loved football and his teammates. And maybe he said, 'Hey, I'm a really good football player -- I might be a better football player than I am a baseball player."

Bellotti's essentially issuing a psychological code red to a guy who struggled mightily with confidence last season down the stretch. Brilliant, coach. Brilliant. I get that Bellotti is disappointed that Dixon, a fifth-round draft pick, wasn't around during the summer. I get that Bellotti wants the rest of his Ducks' teammates to understand that if they skip out on off-season training, they'll be given the equivalent of a coaching brush-back pitch. He established all that this week.

But there's something about the way Bellotti approached this that feels wrong.

Imagine Dixon standing around after BYU pummeled Oregon in the Las Vegas Bowl last Dec. going, "The only upside I can see is that coach learned he really loved the Vegas shows. And maybe he said, 'Hey, I'm a really good regular-season coach -- I might be a better regular-season coach than I am a bowl coach.'"