I don’t know if you’re familiar with what’s going on at Grambling right now – the football team walked out of a Tuesday meeting with the school’s president and athletic director, boycotted practice and won’t travel to Saturday’s game with Jackson State – but it is one sad story of crumbling financial support and dysfunctional administration.
I know a lot of people think all-black institutions like Grambling are anachronisms now, but many have a rich history, both athletically and academically, and have served a purpose that I’m not sure we can say has entirely expired. Not that it matters at this point, because it’s clear that in many places state financial support for higher education has diminished and that finding other sources of revenue to make up for that is the name of the game. Schools like Grambling don’t have a shot.
It’s depressing to see how far Eddie Robinson’s program has fallen.
Get The Picture 
Just awful for the institution, for alumni and for the players – this all may be coming to mid-majors near you soon as operating costs continue to skyrocket
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At the risk of being a Debbie Downer….the armies of the night come to Grambling, the pale husk of a once-proud insititution.
But hey, the free market will certainly continue to correct the marketplace.
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Maybe we can just declare academic institutions “too big to fail” and throw more money at them.
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Worked pretty well for the auto industry. 😉
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Until next time.
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The part about this story that really floored me was when the former coach (the first one they fired, not the interim guy) raised money to buy new mats for the weight room, and the president took them away and stored them elsewhere because he didn’t raise his money through the school’s foundation. That, my friends, is the definition of a douche.
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Previous coach Doug Williams–Super Bowl hero, that is.
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But the larger picture issue–Williams not filtering the money through the Foundation–that’s a fireable offense anywhere in universities. Let’s say you’re running a business and an employee installs new flooring in the business. Doesn’t tell you where the money came from or provide documentation of go through you at all. It’s comparable here.
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I actually work at a University in a department that is supported, in small part, by generous alumni who sometimes donate small sums or money and/or equipment. If I needed a new floor and talked a bunch of people into donating the flooring and it didn’t cost my department a cent, I’d expect to be the apple of my boss’s eye.
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It is a sad situation but at the same time the players cannot just quit. I would cancel the rest of the season.
On a side note, is their defensive coordinator any good?
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+1
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DO predominantly black colleges still serve a purpose? University systems have integrated everywhere, and black applicants are often given preferential treatment in admissions. I don’t care whether or not they exist, mind you, but just because a thing has existed for a while doesn’t mean it must exist indefinitely.
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Dunno. You tell me.
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let the marketplace answer that one but I think we’re getting some leading indicators that they don’t. Creative destruction is both necessary and indicative that things might not be useful or necessary..
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The marketplace? You think secondary education is a normal, free-market setting? Or even that it should be?
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No and yes
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It’s obviously not. And it obviously should be.
However, if we’re simply operating in the current climate and we want to get more black kids at UGA, then you obviously have to give more preferences to them in admissions, and more preferences to them once enrolled, to ensure they don’t leave. Problem solved. Sort of.
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It obviously should NOT be. The purpose of a business is to make money. The purpose of a college or university is to educate. It’s apples and oranges. The corporate or free market model isn’t a universal panacea. As for preferences in admissions, what would you propose that wouldn’t draw an immediate lawsuit? What preferences would you use to keep them enrolled that wouldn’t draw an immediate lawsuit? Again, not. A. Business.
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Creative destruction is not a bug, it’s a feature
http://wuis.org/post/judge-says-maryland-promoted-separate-equal-colleges
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UGA is not the only college in the state, and with it being the most competitive non-specialty school, it is not surprising that it has a lower percentage of black students than other schools. Nor is it surprising that the largest minority group on campus is Asian, for the same reason.
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Which means perhaps there’s still a place in the world for schools like Grambling, no?
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Perhaps, or perhaps they are superfluous given the number of Universities in operation that are less competitive than UGA or Georgia Tech.
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Morehouse seems like a better example to me. Ever been to Grady Hospital.
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Racial preferences in college admissions are not so clear cut. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/15/supreme-court-affirmative-action-race-michigan/2969443/
Additionally, one of the schools at the center of this issue, the University of Michigan, has had a significant problem attaining diversity in its student populations. http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2013/10/affirmative_action_ban.html
If minority students are going to have an overly difficult time gaining admittance to graduate programs, especially, then yes, HBCUs still have a very important role to play. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. need to come all stripes and be willing to serve different communities.
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I remember there being something screwy about their logo changing after Robinson left. IIRC they said that the Packers and UGA told them they had to stop using the “G”, and of course that was a lie.
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I remember when they played Florida in 2009…
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GOOD RIDDANCE……
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Wow, stay classy…
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Great. One of those. You’re the reason HBCUs existed at all, knucklehead.
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Because?
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Assholism?
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“What a bunch of ungrateful, spoiled athletes. When’s the last time a bus boycott actually did anything?”
http://deadspin.com/what-a-bunch-of-ungrateful-spoiled-athletes-whens-the-1447459789/@nleider122
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