7/7/2011: I’ve been getting calls from reporters expecting me to give them a quote about how outraged the UO faculty are about the recent athletic scandals. As may be apparent to careful readers, I do have a bit of a beef about the jock box subsidy, the lies about the arena funding, parking, making us pay for their lawyers, etc. The crime wave is a bit much too. But for the life of me I can’t figure out what the big deal is with the latest. Some kid got a rental car, and maybe a small cut of Willie Lyles’s $25K?
I’ll be outraged if the NCAA finds that Pat Kilkenny, Chip Kelly, Rob Mullens, and Phil Knight aren’t slipping the football players a little something on the side. They damn sure earned it. And Kelly should pay Lyles the rest of his $50K too. Meanwhile, can anyone explain to me why the faculty should be on the NCAA’s side of this investigation?
Why support the NCAA? On a visceral level we love to see the athletics machine here humiliated. There’s a very real “us vs. them” mentality between academics and athletics, and it points to a larger issue that unfortunately Larivere doesn’t want to or can’t address.
But why should faculty want to see the “athletic machine” humiliated? Is it jealousy or is it because the machine brings unfavorable publicity upon the UO? This Old Man is of the belief that recruiting good faculty is more difficult when a university has established a reputation as a “football factory”, and nothing contributes to that reputation more than exposed violations of the rules that govern the operation of inter-mural sports. Our football program is upheld as bringing great publicity to the UO, and it may, indeed, help to recruit “students”. But the horrible publicity surrounding our program will deter both good students and good faculty from coming here.
We are becoming increasingly alienated by our employer’s transgressions. The Athletics situation feels personal. Not unlike Willie, we Faculty and Staff provide services and fulfill roles for only as long as it pleases. There are inevitable rough patches and so we row harder for those whom we serve – a bit like Willie being told a written report was needed for what he had previously conveyed verbally.
Unfortunately, Willies’ master’s CYA attempt only clouded the waters, but rather than taking responsibility for the culture that cultivated him, Athletics impugn the man’s character and froze him out. That schmuck actually thought he had a relationship, (he has cards and flowers to prove it). Sorry Willie – WBTYM.
There are a growing number of us who feel “Willied.” We have been on a decades long “one night stand’ with the UO. We have been, or are being used, and we will be, or have been thrown aside and our only consolation is our stack of green and yellow service pins.
Because you have ethics? Because you are ashamed of what your students are learning by example from the sleazebags in your athletic department?
College football is very popular and fans will pay a lot to see some very talented and very hardworking players.
But the NCAA has set up rules to prevent anyone but the coaches and ADs and insiders making any money from college football.
UO has an incentive to cheat on those rules and give a little money to the players so we can get good ones. It’s good for them, good for the coaches, and the winning team that resulted was good for UO.
I don’t see any ethical requirement that we obey rules that were set up to enrich the NCAA and its good-old-boy insiders. And I’ve got no problem teaching my students that rules like that are made to be broken – just don’t get caught!
Why should UO faculty be outraged over the athletic scandal? Because it helps deflect attention from the real outrage — big raises to favored administrators and faculty, paid for by the hefty tuition hike, in the middle of a horrid recession, when people really can’t afford it, and when said staff and faculty are already benefiting from big increases in PERS contributions, medical insurance, etc.
Dog to Old Man
Please define what you mean by “Good” Faculty –>
your implication is that since good faculty won’t come to the UO then only “Bad” Faculty would come here – well that at least explains why I am here.
Dog to rest:
Get real: ever since lucrative TV contracts started on a conference basis (this kicks in
in the early 90’s with various cable networks) and such a malaise morphed into the BCS, there is now significant (i.e. way too fucking much) money available for conferences and individual schools. All BIG programs cheat at some level for the same talent pool (look what happened to USC). While I personally think this is deplorable, there really is no way to change this, and its not really fair to even link college football to a specific University any more. Its linked much more to the conference and if everyone in your conference is competing for the same BCS bids, well, you get what got paid for.
To Dog: What’s deplorable about cheating on the NCAA cartel?
Dog to UO matters.
I am a purist. I think amateur athletics should be practiced in a sanctified manner so that the athlete can be truest to their sport. More Zen, less hype.
In the real world of economics, yeah, go ahead and cheat because everyone else does – that’s the market. As you say, just don’t get caught…
In NCAA versus athletic department, why do we have to pick a side? I’m with neither. Universities are institutions of learning, and the rules on amateurism were designed to keep the “student” part first in student-athlete. Once upon a time that was not such a big deal. Now there’s all this money sloshing around and some young men are getting exploited. That’s not fair to them. But why does the fix have to involve the academic side surrendering our principles by grafting a pro sports league onto universities where it doesn’t belong (and where it will probably suck even more resources after we start paying the athletes)? Here’s a radical idea: let’s stick up for the idea that you go to college to receive an education. Hold athletes and non-athletes to the same admissions standards, insist that all students have access to the same educational resources and privileges, and let the market sort out what to do with athletically talented high school graduates who can’t get in to college or don’t want to go and be amateurs.
And you wonder why Eugene is considered one of the birthplaces of the anarchist movement. NCAA, laws, policies, rules all not working for the UO and we need to go after those who try to impose on us. We are special and almost won a national championship regardless of the true price…our integrity and reputation but hey it’s 2011.