Saturday, November 14, 2015

Missouri: Sportsball Genie Out Of The Bottle





By Professor Doom

     While the #1 cause of the decay of higher education is the student loan scam, the #2 reason is the obsession with sportsball. Faculty must jump through hoops to get lightbulbs replaced, must ration their use of the printer because the department begrudges spending $5 on paper to print study guides for the students…even as tens of millions of dollars are readily spent on new athletic buildings, as the highest paid officials on campus are now sportsball coaches, despite no campus mission statement saying anything about supporting athletic teams.

      Many campuses now devote more money and space to sportsball teams than any academic subject, and administrators trip over themselves to support athletics, to the point that academic integrity is ignored so often that student (sic) athlete-related scandals hardly merit a mention in the news unless it is truly epic in scale.

     Faculty have long since learned not to mess with the student (sic) athletes, to give such students (sic) special leave and consideration when it comes to grades and assignments. Even professional athletes seem to command special attention if they decide to go back to college. It’s just not a battle worth fighting—we all know that student (sic) athletes are on campus as entertainment, so we rubber stamp the athlete’s grades and wish him well.

     While athletes are mostly untouchable on campus when it comes to academics, administrators are completely untouchable in most every regard. I’ve documented more than enough ridiculous antics by administrators, with no real penalty to the administrator beyond strained back muscles from hauling huge bags of plundered money around.

      More and more power has been given to athletics over the years, and it’s quite possible that a tipping point has now been reached.

     Anyone casually following the news in higher education has heard of the fiasco going on at the University of Missouri. The ridiculous cry of “racism,” along with witch hunt against microaggressions for which there is no rational defense, has gripped another campus with paralysis. I should note that none of this would happen if we had real leaders in higher education, instead of the self-proclaimed “leaders” that are only on campus to loot, and thus make all decisions in terms of what decision will facilitate more looting, instead of making decisions with integrity and helping humanity in mind.

     Thus, when there’s a cry of “racism!” administrators on campus rush to coddle the students—the source of the sweet, sweet, student loan checks that are easy to loot—instead of maturely considering the accusations (usually vague if not outright false), considering the victims (usually nobody is hurt in any meaningful sense), and deciding the wisest course of action would be to encourage the student to ignore the silliness and get back to studying.

     Students have learned how this works, and I suspect many of them enjoy watching the buffoons administration scramble to deal with irrelevant accusation after irrelevant accusation in the stupidest way possible. Alas, the students don’t realize that watching these clowns administrators run around to put out nonexistent fires comes at a price—inevitably, a new “diversity” fiefdom is formed, staffed with another dozen or so very expensive Senior Pro Assistant Vice Presidents of Irrelevancy, and tuition gets jacked up to pay for it. Perhaps I shouldn’t hold administrators in such disdain for the apparent foolishness…they do seem to win every time there’s another vague accusation.

      Well, until now.

      After weeks of protests, a Poo Bah in the University of Missouri’s system actually resigned over his handling of the racism fiasco. This is amazing, as I’ve documented so much theft, fraud, and corruption on this blog, and those things never get resolved quickly, if at all. But this guy actually went down within weeks.

      What’s the difference?



     What, it would be an exaggeration to claim the quickest resignation ever was due to the sportsball players asking for the resignation? Au contraire! If he didn’t resign tout suite, a game would have been (gasp!) cancelled! Please understand, the resignation wasn’t about integrity. Administrators don’t make decisions based on integrity, instead the decision was based on:

“…the amount of money the university stood to lose if the players had boycotted this weekend’s game. Though Missouri has struggled to win this season, had the strike taken place, the university would have owed Brigham Young University $1 million, per the two universities' game contract…”


     Weeks of protests, even hunger strikes, did absolutely nothing. But the team threatens to miss a game (and cost the institution a million bucks), and suddenly admin decides an administrative head will roll, after all. Compare how quickly this response/resignation came to, say, the 18 year long scandal at UNC (where no Poo Bahs resigned over it, and the primary administrators involved were rewarded for their efforts in the cover-up, while whistleblowers were punished). At UNC, athletes weren’t complaining, so no resignations required. Hmm.

      Does the gentle reader suppose that sportsball players at other institutions got the message? If sportsball players, as a team, refuse to play, they can totally shut down the higher education system, getting Poo Bah after Poo Bah removed until they get whatever they want. Free degrees? Sure, why not? Elimination of all academic coursework on campus? Sure, why not…wouldn’t want to have a game cancelled, after all.

     Well, they can do this until a Poo Bah is finally anointed who says “Wait a second, this is an institution of higher education, we’re not a sportsball institution. I’m just shutting down all the athletic programs and taking this university back to education. Go away, student (sic) athletes!” And just like that, tuition would drop 30% or more and the massive financial drain that is athletics (at 90% of institutions) ends.

      I admit that’s not going to happen anytime soon, but the genie is totally out of the bottle, and I sure doubt the administration at any school will have the strength, wisdom, or, I daresay, leadership to deal with it in the proper way.




No comments:

Post a Comment