Grand Valley State OC Suspended After Praising Adolf Hitler's Leadership Skills

Grand Valley State announced Morris Berger, their offensive coordinator hired only one week ago, has been suspended for comments made about Adolf Hitler's leadership style in an interview with the school newspaper.

Berger conducted a Q&A with Grand Valley Lanthorn editor Kellen Voss about his life and other standard info to give supporters of the university an inside look at the man who was supposed to help improve their offense. It was all going well until Voss asked which notable historical figures, dead or alive, he'd like to have dinner with:

"KV: So you graduated from Drury with a degree in History, you’re a history guy. If you could have dinner with three historical figures, living or dead, who would they be? And I’m ruling out football figures."

"MB: This is probably not going to get a good review, but I’m going to say Adolf Hitler. It was obviously very sad and he had bad motives, but the way he was able to lead was second-to-none. How he rallied a group and a following, I want to know how he did that. Bad intentions of course, but you can’t deny he wasn’t a great leader."

"Probably not going to get a good review" is a strong contender for understatement of the year (next to describing Hitler's intentions as "bad"), and we're not even out of January yet. This poor college kid handled it as best he could with the follow-up:

"KV: The way he was able to get people to rally around him was crazy."

"MB: Yeah, that’s definitely one. You have to go JFK, his experience with the country and being that he was a good president and everything. And this might sound crazy, but Christopher Columbus, the ability to go on the journey he was on and his emotion into the unknown. Think about putting yourself in the setting of that unknown, and then to take it all in as you arrive is crazy."

These quotes were "mistakenly deleted" after the initial publication of the piece, but as the paper notes, it was reverted back to the original transcription. JFK is a solid one, but I mean, Christopher Columbus, too? That's quite a double whammy from this guy.

For all you aspiring football coaches out there-- maybe praise someone, or nearly anyone, other than Adolf Hitler when you want to point to a quality leader. Just some food for thought.