Last updated on 09/26/2020
Gosh, I wonder if this means Schill’s claims that big-time college football is about hope and fighting institutionalized racism also aren’t true? Shocking news from reporter Billy Witz in the Times sports pages today, who also seems unimpressed with the idea that Duck sports help UO’s national reputation, and gives a shout-out to the Jock Box:
“It was hard to remember as Michael Schill spoke on Thursday night that the school he runs as president, Nike U. (more formally known as the University of Oregon), has an athletic program that is all flash and sizzle: a glitzy basketball palace, slick mix-and-match football uniforms, and a glass study hall for athletes that is nicknamed the Jock Box.
If there is a school in the Pac-12 Conference — and really the nation — that best personifies the runaway commercial enterprise that college sports have become over the last quarter century, it would be an otherwise unremarkable university that, thanks to the munificence of Nike founder Phil Knight, has emerged from a remote, rainy college town to become a national brand.
But as Schill explained why the Pac-12 was making a hard pivot back toward football this fall, 45 days after saying in a 12-page document it was not safe to do so, he veered away from the science of the coronavirus pandemic to make an unprompted point.
“This has nothing to do with money,” Schill said, scolding anyone who would suggest otherwise. …”
In totally unrelated news, at their Sept 10 meeting President Schill and the UO Board of Trustees discussed the money:
Well, if it has nothing to do with money, why dont we take whatever Duck athletics makes this year and give half to the athletes and the other half to the academic side.
The worst thing about all this is USAAmerica’s journal of record describes the flagship as “unremarkable.” All those mix and match fluorescent unis, that’s the best you can get…
The Phildo’s many lights are all LED, not fluorescent. I don’t know why The Times omitted this, or why USNEWS doesn’t consider it in its rankings.
It’s that damn East Coast bias…
NCAA sports are too big to fail. These teams should all be private non-profit clubs in my opinion
The kind of publicity money can’t buy.