Wisconsin chancellor’s threat made during her Alston testimony that the school could drop its athletics program if it has to start paying student-athletes was sufficiently over-the-top such that the athletic department felt the need to walk it back in an official statement denying that the school had any intention of shuttering it.
They’re probably the only people on the planet who took her seriously in the first place.
Filed under It's All Just Made Up And Flagellant
One more thing as a follow up to my post yesterday about that anonymous poll of coaches that seemed to be tilted — pure coincidence, no doubt — against African-American head coaches.
As Bruce Feldman ($$) notes,
Said one of the anonymous coaches of Taggart: “He was only at Oregon for one year, and it’s not like he really transformed that program — and that’s a place that’s won for a long time. Not that he isn’t good — he’s won. But usually when you get a job like Florida State, it’s because you’ve won some championships or done something really amazing.”
The guy Taggart followed at FSU, Jimbo Fisher, had never coached a game before he got the job replacing Bobby Bowden.
Well, in its own way, isn’t that really amazing?
I’m calling bullshit on this one.
[Powell, Ohio Police Chief Gary] Vest has strongly disputed any suggestion his force handled accusations with leniency because Smith was an Ohio State football coach. Vest doesn’t even like sports — he’s never watched an entire football game in his life, he said — and said he was unaware of Smith’s connection to the Buckeyes until the case drew widespread attention.
“Until the media decided Zach Smith’s link to Ohio State was important, I had blinders on,” Vest said.
Powell is a suburb of Columbus, and I’d wager pretty good money that even if the chief isn’t much of a football fan, he’s bound to have somebody on his staff who knew darn well where Zach Smith worked.
Beyond that, though, let’s not forget that Smith wasn’t shy about identifying his career to officers when he was arrested before:
The report said “Zach advised (officers) he works for UF Florida Gators as an assistant coach for the football team…
But this time, Smith decided to keep that little tidbit to himself? Right.
Corch isn’t the only one trying to cover his ass from this fiasco.
Here we go.
Well, I was wrong.
No, not about him lying at Big Ten media days that he didn’t know anything about what happened with the Smiths in 2015. Or about being a sanctimonious bullshitter. Or about not going without a fight.
Not even about having to throw somebody under the bus to save his ass.
But I got the somebody wrong. I figured he would talk his loyal wife into taking one for the team in the name of plausible deniability. Instead, his story now is that he followed the usual protocols when he learned of it and reported it “to the proper channels”, i.e. his boss at Ohio State. So it’s Gene Smith, instead, who’s smelling the diesel exhaust fumes up close and personal.
Now there’s a lot there that doesn’t pass the smell test, particularly the fiction he invents about why he wasn’t honest at Big Ten media days. Regardless, Corch wants his job or in the alternative every penny he’s got coming under his contract and he just served notice he won’t go quietly.
The big issue now is whether there’s a paper trail with the higher ups at Ohio State. If there really is, Urban ain’t the only one who’ll be shown the door. You get the feeling this won’t end pretty for somebody.
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UPDATE: Zach Smith is backing Urban’s play.
The inevitable official statement coming from Ohio State is going to make for an interesting read.
It’s gonna be hard to top this one:
The only way I can parse that sentence for it to have any logical sense is to say he means that a gun isn’t a weapon… well, unless he means that he, Dan Mullen, has a no-weapons policy personally, but that doesn’t extend to his players.
Ah, hell. I give up.
Suddenly, it makes sense. Larry Scott is making the big bucks because he pumps out the bullshit better than any other P5 commissioner.
“There are different ways to measure success in college sports,” Scott said, snuggly wearing his salesman’s cap during Wednesday’s Pac-12 Media Day. “The scorecard we think matters, and that I know our university presidents and athletics directors care about most is academic and athletic excellence across all sports.
Hell, he probably deserves a raise for saying that with a straight face.
Or, perhaps more accurately, what they want you to think it means.
There’s no money. Also as a part of that article, a stunning stat about the AD:
Michigan, for example, employed 253 people in its athletic department at an average salary of $73,382.64 in 2010-2011, per state records. Just seven years later, in 2017-18, there are 368 employees (up 31.3 percent) at an average salary of $99,310.58 (up 26.1 percent).
Simply by maintaining 2011 levels of staffing—sure you can have that raise, AD employees—Michigan would have 11.4 million dollars left over annually, or 116,000 dollars per scholarship revenue sport athlete. They’d have 12k per athlete, period, including walk-ons.
I’m shocked, shocked that there’s bullshit going on here.
Filed under It's All Just Made Up And Flagellant
