It’s been approved by a high-ranking SEC official. Trust me on this.
- The top 55-paid government employees in the state of Washington are either coaches, administrators, professors or other staff at state universities. At least the coaches don’t cost the taxpayers any money.
- Mike Gundy is a sensitive soul.
- Mike Bobo and Will Friend like what they see out of the first team offensive line.
- Derek Dooley’s got the problem of balancing work against the risk of injuries.
- Dan Shanoff takes yesterday’s hot issues of SEC expansion and playoffs and cooks up this gem.
- You think Todd Grantham is happy about Jarvis Jones’ situation being resolved? “What do you think? Put yourself in my shoes and what would you think?”
- While a little overstated, Jeff Schultz makes a fair point about hypocritical financial priorities in a world of NCAA amateurism standards and conference expansion news.
- If you’re Isaiah Crowell, it’s not easy being a rock star in Athens.
Get The Picture 
For once, Jeff Schultz wrote a column that (1) makes sense, and; (2) speaks the truth. (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little after saying that.)
LikeLike
While shamefaced and avoiding eye contact, I concur with you Mayor.
LikeLike
I must dissent regarding Schultz’s piece. Overstated? Honestly I couldn’t even figure out what his point WAS, much less whether it was overstated. His argument, such as it is, is missing it’s Stage Two. Stage 1: College administrators talk a lot of bosh about their noble standards and amateurism, check. Stage Two: ? Stage 3: Therefore, all these moves to bolster the bottom line are hypocritical avarice!
It read to me like someone saying “All these people lecture us about being healthy, but then they drive Corvettes!” Um…maybe there is some inherent connection between Corvettes and lack of health, but I don’t think so, and in any event it isn’t obvious so it needs to be spelled out by the person making the tsk-tsk argument.
“These college people talk about high principles, but then they make decisions that are profitable!” Yeah, I’m scratching my head.
LikeLike
So you are saying principles and profitability are synonymous and rarely conflict?
On a similar note, I would say there are still some principles out there that conflict with profitability. It would of been profitable for Richt to save those 8 scholarships he gave to walkons, but he didn’t.
LikeLike
Zdawg, no, I’m saying that even if principles and profitability do conflict with some modicum of regularity, it still does not follow that any old decision to pursue profit equates to a betrayal of principle. It would all come down to the particulars of each situation, and all Schultz did was raise his eyebrow and tut tut the very fact that officials were pursuing profit, as though that is automatically some kind of betrayal of principles.
Having said that, however, I will happily take an even more extreme position than this, because I actually DO believe that principles and profitability conflict only on rare occasions. Most of the time profitability is a very useful economic tool that helps guide us towards the most efficient pursuit of our principles, not a contradictory temptation away from those principles. But that opinion has nothing to do with my original comment. 🙂
LikeLike
“It’s going to be hard for that kid to pump gas without people knowing who he is and asking him something,” running backs coach Bryan McClendon said
————-
Bryan, we have South Carolina grads who pump our gas.
LikeLike
I wish the guy had punched that d-bag Gundy right in the kisser. He would have deserved it.
LikeLike
The carpenter guy shows up knowing good and well it’s the head coach of OSU’s house….wearing OU stuff. What a dumbass. He should have had his ass kicked out the front door for intentionally pulling that kinda stunt. Dont blame Gundy at all
LikeLike
It’s just a doggone shirt. If some contractor showed up at my house wearing a UF or Tech t-shirt, sure, I’d probably give him a little good-natured flak over it. But to completely lose your cool over it and claim that your wife is insulted? Give me a break! I don’t care if you’re the coach, you shouldn’t be a jerk. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that since he is the coach, he should probably play it a little cooler than someone else, as a representative of his university.
LikeLike
+1. He is paid to act a little better than that. Well, a lot better, actually. Gundy has racked up a couple of these now…wouldn’t be surprised to his job status come into question over one of them eventually.
LikeLike
He’s “40 and a man” though.
LikeLike
Yeah well the difference with your example and Gundy’s is this guy was not some unsuspecting schmuck wearing a rival’s t-shirt showing up at a random guy’s house he didn’t know…he obviously did it to provoke and pretty bold/disrespectful in my opinion. Again, this guy to show up (even if he was ignorant) and expecting to wear it around the OSU head coaches house is just plain stupid.
LikeLike
I think both could have handled it better. Sure Gundy over reacted a bit and the guy wearing the shirt showed a lack of respect to a customer who was paying for a job to be done and done well. The only thing this situation did was remove all doubt about two things….One that Gundy is a whinny little coach with thin skin and two that Oklahoma fans are some of the biggest a-holes around college football.
I could see Richt turning this around on the guy by bringing his foolishness to light in an unassuming way and still getting the work done at a discounted price all the while with a smile on his face and the guy leaving the Richt household thinking our coach hung the moon.
LikeLike
Richt probably would have joked, given him a UGA shirt and might have turned him into small fan because of his classy nature.
LikeLike
The contractor should have thrown the shirt in the dirt on Gundy’s property, then jumped on it while scuffing it further in the dirt. Then he should have walked in a circle around it and chanted a little Cherokee. Then walk away and let Gundy contemplate. Just whose “sacred soil” is this, anyway?
LikeLike
Think that Jeff Schultz should consider the recruiting angle for the SEC members before accusing the money-grubbing assholes of, …well…, being money grubbers.
LikeLike
On a slower news day, we’d all be in stitches over that moron Mike Gundy. He’s just a little but tightly-wound, huh?
LikeLike
WHAT!!?? WHAT!!?? Who the hell are you calling “TIGHTLY-WOUND”? Pick on somebody more mature, you A’HOLE. Quit pickin’ on the mentally disfunctional!!
LikeLike
LOL!
LikeLike
RE: Mike Gundy
What a cod. This is as absurd as a “Coke” family taking Pepsi products out of your fridge and pouring it down the sink. I don’t know the truth of those stories but I’ve heard my share of them over the years.
LikeLike
I probably wouldn’t pour your Pepsi down the sink, but I might think twice about visiting a second time. And this time? just water for me, thanks. And not Aquafina.
LikeLike
Even so, pouring one’s $2 Pepsi down the sink is nothing compared to canceling an entire contracted job, pitching a fit over a t-shirt, and possibly putting a person’s job in jeopardy for losing a contract.
LikeLike
you get a contract because the person chose you. You work for them. They happen to be the coach of your rival. Be respectful or don’t bid on the job. Personally as a consultant I don’t go to do a job at Coke wearing a pepsi shirt. You better believe they would kick me out the door and tell me to never come back. If not fire my firm. Just because it is construction doesn’t change the rules. Gundy was completely within his right if you ask me.
LikeLike
Doesn’t give you the right to do anything you want, however.
LikeLike
It does however give you the right to choose who you hire. School affiliation is not a protected class and poor judgement hopefully never will be. His language choice was inappropriate (his anger issues again), but the action of sending the guy home and firing him was perfectly acceptable (once again in my opinion).
LikeLike
The thing is…he already hired the contractor, and I assume that they had already entered into a contract. I doubt the “Contractor is a fan of a rival school” clause is included in the boilerplate. Breach of contract can have consequences.
LikeLike
Thank you…this carpenter guy has some balls to do that. The lack of rationale with the previous comments is just as absurd
LikeLike
Gundy’s rationale ain’t too swift, either. If Gundy sees the t-shirt at the mall in “his” town or on “his” campus for a ball game, what the hell does he do? Turn purple silently? If he were to lose it, then I could see his vision blocked by 10k Ok t-shirts wherever he goes. Ok fans would make a point of it.
LikeLike
Or is the ground where his home sits the only “sacred ground” to be found around there. T. Boone Pickins may think that description fits only to the ground padded by his money and trampled by little Buckaroo’s cleats.
LikeLike
That’s not relevant, read the story. An employee showed up to work at the CEO’s house wearing the competition’s t-shirt. That is never acceptable and nobody is that dumb to not realize what they did. Yes Gundy has anger issues (hence his chosen language when responding to the situation). However it would be considered an appropriate response to send the person home in most business environments (and his house counts as one since that guy was coming there to work). I would have fired them in that circumstance as well (someone with that poor judgement shouldn’t be working on anything for me).
LikeLike
Sending him home and telling him to return dressed more appropriately is one thing. Firing him over an affiliation on a t-shirt is quite another – unless they had a contract that specified working attire, which I doubt.
LikeLike
They apparently had something. What else could the suit be about?
LikeLike
Senator, don’t these things usually have an expectation of reasonable rationale for hire and fire beyond the verbiage in the contract?
LikeLike
Senator, you could say he fired him for creating a hostile work environment. In which case the offending his wife comment supports it…
LikeLike
Senator, the guy showed up with the full intent of being a disrespectful asshole at the mans house. And Gundy was gonna have to put up with this for several days…? cmon Gundy was totally justified to kick that guys ass off his property
LikeLike
First, how do you know what the guy’s intent was? Second, all Gundy had to do was tell the guy to dress more appropriately going forward.
What if the guy simply told Gundy that he was a Sooner fan? Or teased him with a “Boomer Sooner” cheer? What if his truck has Oklahoma gear on it? That grounds for dismissal, too?
LikeLike
Well I guess assuming ignorance is the best way to go these days
LikeLike
Or perhaps they guy did a piss poor job, Gundy didn’t pay him because of that, fires him and the guy makes this story up for his breach of contract claim?
LikeLike
That wouldn’t surprise me. Although it would be fun to hear Gundy deny that he was bothered by the dude’s t-shirt.
LikeLike
I didn’t read the Gundy piece, but I did AC work during college in the summer and I did several jobs at well known sports figures and celebritieshouses in Dunwoody and I never once knew who’s house it was until I showed up at the job. I was just told you have a service job at the Wilkins residence, etc.
LikeLike
You’d think Gundy had experienced enough success by now not to have little bother syndrome.
LikeLike
Clever. Can I borrow “little bother” in the future?
LikeLike
Well, damn.
[sigh]Sure. Feel free.
LikeLike
I enjoyed it. Thought it was apropos…I’d say Gundy has a “little bother” complex a fair amount of the time.
LikeLike
OK – this is off topic, but I don’t have anywhere better to put it. All my tickets are in and I’m getting excited.
I noticed that the Chick-fil-A Kickoff tickets have the game time printed on the face. 8 P.M. EST
C’mon man!!!
I’m pretty sure the game starts at 8 P.M. EDT. If you know the difference, please don’t be fooled.
If you don’t know the difference, do yourself a favor and just use ET.
Thanks
LikeLike
Do you mean that Georgians still go by the definition of the time and remain in another time zone if they use EST? Wow, that must constitute a helluva confusion when they go to work ( I’m not late, I’m on EST”).
I’m sorry. You just wanted us to know that you have tickets, didn’t you? And what better way to validate that than by taking some Tech issue with it. Think everyone won’t show up at 8:00PM? Ok. We have your timely warning.
LikeLike
No. I have a thing about daylight saving time. And , yes, my tickets are phenomenal.
LikeLike
And I’m happy for you, Huckleberry. Is your wife going to be home?
LikeLike
I agree. Paying educators is a damn shame. Why can’t more teachers work for free?
LikeLike
The thing is, most those faculty on that list–especially the highest paid–are not really teachers or typical faculty. They are doctors and surgeons at the university hospital and/or bioscience researchers who make their salaries from grants. The state pays them but it isn’t as if taxpayers are really footing the bill for them either.
LikeLike
And it’s not as if they are doing “typical” teaching…undoubtedly they are overseeing residents and lab assistants only, not mentoring undegrads or lecturing in Bio 101.
LikeLike
grant and contract generating faculty aside, here’s a little understood fact: taxpayers don’t even foot *most* of the bill for running public higher education. tuition and fee revenues form for many publics upwards of 70% of their operating budgets. even a lowly philosophy prof at uw earning 65 grand a year is likely generating a substantial portion of his salary/benefits from his course enrollments. the more thru-put a prof generates, the more self-supporting his/her job is. faculty in high enrollment programs who do a lot of teaching are net contributors to their institutions’ budgets (and thus cost tax payers nothing)–and there are many of those. so let’s not paint with too broad a brush here, senator.
LikeLike
The brush I was really trying to paint with was that the upper fiscal rung of state employees are invariably employed at universities. The academics who complain about coaches’ salaries are being a bit hypocritical, aren’t they?
LikeLike
Yes. But the vast majority of university staff/faculty/admin do not make anywhere near that kind of dough. At my school one coach makes 2 mil–which I am personally fine with, as I know that you can’t get a decent coach (or heart surgeon or college president) without paying for it–but the president makes in the 250K range and =everyone is scaled down from there, with many faculty still in the 35-50K range.
Like I said, I’m personally ok with it…the market controls much of it, and those faculty who can leave for more money do so.
LikeLike
So – the contractor want’s to make discarimination against OU football fans a protected class?
We can help you son, if you are a minority, belong weird relegion, female/androgenous, old, or in a protected disability classification – however, if you’ve just got a good old fashioned case of the dumba$$… Then there’s not much we can do.
‘Drugs are on the table’ on this one – directed verdict.
LikeLike
Where does it say anything about discrimination? Sounds like, given the use of expected work and cost figures, the suit is about breach of contract.
LikeLike
Does “discarimination” mean putting rims on your car?
LikeLike
Does “relegion” mean you are joining the American Legion again?
LikeLike
No, it means separating the car from the owner, I think. That, or scaring someone off a second time. “Gundy proceeded to discariminate the victim from the premises.”
LikeLike
In the “How bloody stupid do you have to be” category… the winner goes to the moron who shows up to Gundy’s house wearing an OU T-shirt.
LikeLike