Holee Mother of Crapola… look what the Big Ten is contemplating.
The Big Ten is mulling a proposal that would give its commissioner, already one of the most powerful men in college sports, the authority to fire coaches himself, The Chronicle reports today.
The proposal, part of a plan being circulated among Big Ten leaders, would give James E. Delany, who has overseen the league since 1989, and a powerful committee of conference presidents the ability to penalize individual members of an institution, should their actions significantly harm the league’s reputation.
The sanctions, spelled out in a document obtained by The Chronicle, could include financial penalties, suspension, or termination of employment.
My, my, my. Talk about your vote of confidence in Mark Emmert. Wonder how long it takes for Mike Slive to start pushing something similar?
Get The Picture 
My, My, My indeed….a whole new series of lawsuits to determine if an outside entity has the authority to tell a state institution’s governance group what to do with its employees.
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I can’t understand why the university presidents or ADs would support that, though. Why would they be OK with firing power being taken out of their hands and put into someone else’s? Am I missing something?
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Exactly. The Big 10 is contemplating it, not the Big 10 university presidents.
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Yeah, I have to agree…if the PSU and OSU scandals will leave the academic units anything re: administrative models, it’s that they will be thinking they need MORE control of the athletic departments, not LESS.
Moreover, Delaney’s hubris is likely to be seen as exactly the sort of approach by athletic depts. that created the OSU and PSU problems to begin with. No way this will fly.
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they might let Delany have this power if the Big 10 will accept the responsibility for the lawsuits that will come from the Sandusky case.With power comes responsibility which traslates as liability. Delany might want to be careful what he wishes for.
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Bang on, joedrip.
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The Capo di tutti capi…
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This proposal is going to be DOA. If nothing else, this is going to have a chilling effect on coaches wanting to come in to coach Big Ten institutions. If I’ve got an opportunity at Ohio State or at Texas, and I see that I can get canned at tOSU for losing OR for crossing some line that displeases the curmudgeon conference commissioner, then I think I’m going to Texas.
What a stupid idea. Folks, when things rise to that kind of level, the coaches get fired anyway. I mean, hell, Penn State fired JOE PATERNO for Christ’s sake. Ohio State fired Jim Tressel. I’m sure the league office was in the loop on the tOSU situation, so why spin up legislation that you don’t even need? To me, it’s the same thing as giving referees the power to take points off of the board for a celebration penalty. You don’t give them the power without knowing it’s going to come back to haunt you at some point.
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I think folks need to take a deep breath. When exactly would Delaney have fired Paterno? Not one second before Penn State did.
And I thought one of the big issues here was Penn State’s so called leadership’s desire to portect the image of Penn State. Now we have a dictator who would be given power to protect the “image” of the B1G. This is complete overreaction.
The PSU thing was horrendous. No words can describe how bad it was. But this type of crap will never fly and it shouldn’t.
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And, Penn State isn’t happening again in my lifetime. Giving someone absolute power over firing coaches in an entire conference as a reaction to a unique set of circumstances that really couldn’t exist anywhere else in the country is ridiculous.
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Agreed.
Delaney is an asshole on wings if ever I saw one.
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I, for one, welcome our new Muppet Overlord.
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Wocka, wocka.
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🙂
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Sam the Eagle?
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Delany goes into four-corners offense for Penn State damage control.
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Not sure how things work up there, but here in the state of Georgia, it simply would not be legal for an outside entity to make employment decisions for the university system. The SEC could kick UGA out of the conference I suppose, but they would have no legal standing to make personnel decisions regarding any coach who works for a particular school within the USG.
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If it can be done. Slive would have done it years ago.
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With the Saint and the Senator going down in flames, the B1G needs something to prop up their holier-than-thou attitude. Given that their actual behavior doesn’t merit it, it’s back to the rule book. How many miles did they get out of their over-signing rules and paid mouthpiece.com of the same name?
At this point, I think every B1G football program could get busted for using sex slaves to lure recruits, and they would still point fingers at the SEC for overemphasizing football and running unethical programs.
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Naturally, this would make it tougher on Bobo when he is blamed for the many things for which he is blamed.
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+1
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I doubt there would be firings from the conference office very often. I would bet, though, that it would be easier for ADs and Presidents to allow the conference office to fine people for bad behavior.
Don’t you think Mike Adams would love to have the ability to call up Slive and (secretly) ask him to fine Todd Grantham for embarrassing the conference with his sideline and postgame behavior?
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If the university presidents/ADs had any gonads, or brains, Slive would have been fired before now. The idea of him actually being given more authority is laughable to me. But then, I don’t measure success solely by bank account balance. Unfortunately for all of us, some do.
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+1. Slive is about nothing but money. He is of questionable ethics and cares not one whit about the SEC member institutions and their traditions but as long as he is filling the SEC coffers………
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He does not and cannot do anything without the approval of the university presidents.
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I think that is basically true, because the university presidents ultimately determine who has that job and have the authority to remove anyone that does. But just like our elected leaders serve at approval of the voters, they are not held to the standard of doing what the majority prefers (there are many examples of this). Just like the voters, the presidents have to get off their arses and get involved to make things better. I don’t think the presidents are good managers: of the conferences or the schools. Having a title and the authority does not necessarily make anyone talented.
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Slive reflects both the interests and apathy of his constituency, we can certainly agree on that. Slive’s position is much more Speaker of the House than President.
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Perhaps, but both are dangerous when unchecked. Apathy is a terrible excuse though, life is too short to not be engaged.
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Slive is more like a Prime Minister in a parliamentary system–he’s in charge until the University Presidents vote him out. Until then, he is in control. As long as he is delivering the $$ to the conference the Presidents will not do anything to get rid of him.
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And that is what is the root cause for all the BS. Twenty pieces of silver is all it takes to corrupt these prima donnas, and that is who sets the standards? We need to flush this group.
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It sounds like this could be similar to the NCAA Show cause punishment for coaches. They can’t fire them, but they can make sure they aren’t allowed to coach in the NCAA (or in this case conference). I doubt it gets much traction and probably doesn’t need to like everyone above has commented, but the NCAA can enforce pretty much the same thing.
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