Sunday, January 31, 2010

Bobby Takes Another Shot at Gordon Gee

For the (very) few of you who follow us on Twitter, you've already briefly seen my take on Jere Logman's New York Times piece about the ripple effect Big Ten (err Meek 11) expansion would have on other conferences.

Surprise, surprise, publicity hound and Vanderbilt deserter Gordon Gee, now President of an Ohio State University (the highest paid public university president in America...so much for that "pay cut" he said he was taking), weighs in. Talking about the "standards" he'd like to see whatever school (or schools) join the conference have, Gee said: "It’s significant that we have institutions that meet the academic standing and reputation of institutions now in the Big Ten . . . we are sort of the public equivalent of the Ivy League in our quality.” All kidding aside, the Big Ten is a very good academic conference (maybe the best top to bottom, although the ACC and Pac-10 have some pretty exceptional academic institutions as well). With that said, I cringe every time I hear the Gee wax poetic about the virtue of public education when he spent several years heading up Brown and Vanderbilt, both private schools. I notice he had no problem cashing their checks (that is, before he ran out on his contractual obligations at both). This is not meant to be "public" versus "private" rant. Rather, this is about my continuing amazement at the sanctimony and ego of Gee. If Gee sees the Big Ten as the Public Ivy, what about Northwestern? Perhaps Gordon thinks the Meek 11 would be better off without this private school. Maybe the natural marriage between Notre Dame and the Big Ten shouldn't be considered because it would disrupt Gee's messianic desire for domination of college athletics.

Here's the best from Gee: “I do think the Big Ten holds a key, maybe the key, in terms of what is going to be the next phase of college athletics . . . We need to explore this carefully. The law of unintended consequences applies most specifically to college athletics.” How lucky we all are to have Gordon looking out for us al...I know I feel better.

I'm curious to your take VSLNation. Am I wrong? Bitter? Reading too much into this article?

6 comments:

Aaron said...

Gee should keep his mouth shut and his nose out of college athletics.

Good post.

VandyGold28 said...

Gee..... Hate that guy.

You're not wrong.

Arkansas beats Ole Miss in Oxford. Wow.

Chuck Heston said...

I'm going to steal your thunder and announce that Gary Parrish has ranked Vandy #16 in his 25 and 1 Sun. night poll. To be honest, that's a fair and accurate ranking of the team (TN ranked #17 is a bit of a stretch in spite of the win over FL).

I'll say this, Vandy, and particularly AJ, better be ready to play hard come Wed. Some of the recent wins have come even though Vandy wasn't at the top of its game. We need to step it up and get to 20 wins as quickly as possible.

Can we please use a Top 25 ranking as motivation?

Anonymous said...
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Stanimal said...

Yep, completely agree. Jeff Goodman also has us at 16 in his Top 25.

We need to come out and take care of business at home against Mississippi State. Pretty much all of our home games are of extreme importance.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, Gee must be smoking something...or was that Constance?