Tuesday, May 31, 2011

E.G.G. On His Face

I really don't have anything substantive to say at this time about the Jim Tressel resignation or The Ohio State University (for something legitimately thoughtful, see Stanimal's post below).  In thinking, however, about the way Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee handled this situation from the beginning, it occurred to me that someone smarter than me could write a fitting article using the above headline.  If he/she does, I want credit for thinking of it first.

Dr. Gee was chancellor of Vanderbilt during my college years and I was a fan of him back then.  Even today, despite some quibbles with a few comments made when he decided to leave Nashville, I don't harbor any super-strong hostility toward to the man who grabbed headlines by dissolving Vandy's athletic department.  Nevertheless, I confess to being highly amused at his sometimes-comical forays into the world of college sports, a realm in which you could be forgiven for thinking that the E.G.G. fancies himself something of a savior.  Alas, for better or worse, I'm armed with a blog where I can shamelessly post a smart-alecky headline that I thought was clever, while backing it up with nothing of redeeming value.  Sorry for wasting your time.

10 comments:

VandyImport said...

He sure as hell hasn't done tOSU any favors when the time comes to bandy about terms like "lack of institutional control." I doubt he will escape getting something on him if this turns out to be a USC-type penalty unless he can throw the AD to the wolves with a quickness...then again, he might be jonesing to dissolve ANOTHER athletic department, who knows...

Stanimal said...

Ironically enough, his reputation is marred by the very morals he tauted when he was at Vanderbilt.

Home Inspector Training said...

I just hope that Ohio State Football team can find another coach as soon as possible. Even though they lost a long time coach they have, they should move on and focus on the teams goal.

Anonymous said...

Dang, those spambots are getting creepily good. That's easily more literate and on-topic than half the comments on ESPN.com.

Anonymous said...

What moral that he touted at Vandy is getting him in trouble now? Please don't say loyalty - bailing on Brown and Vandy make that a hard sell...

Personal Home Inspector said...

He obviously didn’t frown upon players breaking the rules. Whether the rules are right or not is another matter. But OSU should definitely get a more severe punishment than USC, the NCAA needs to show these schools that they aren’t messing around.

The Godfather said...

The natural assumption is that the same, or even worse, was going on under his watch at Vanderbilt. His dissolution of the athletic department was likely a ploy to throw the NCAA enforcement off the scent.

Stanimal said...

I chose the wrong word to describe what I was talking about. I probably should have said "principle" rather than "moral". My point was that while at Vandy he was all gung-ho about trying to show you could still have competitive athletic teams without such a focus on an independent athletic department. He preached about how athletic departments and universities have to have integrity and how other schools were out of control. Ironically, these same messages were lost when he went to Ohio State. That was my whole point about how he now looks bad for the very reasons he used to take a stand against.

As for the assumption that the same was going on at Vanderbilt under his watch: that's an apples to oranges comparison. We, simply put, have nothing in common with Ohio State other than the fact that we are both division 1 programs. Any kind of allegation that he dissolved the athletic department to hide impropriety is totally unfounded.

Stanimal said...

And I'm sorry for not picking up on the sarcasm. Darn blogs.

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