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“The financial adviser for a longtime University of New Hampshire library employee says the man would have been pleased with the university’s decision to spend one fourth of his $4 million gift to the school on a video scoreboard for the football stadium.”

From the moment UD got a load of the now-notorious story of the UNH librarian and his gift to the school (the story has gone all the way up to the governor), she’s been calling bullshit on it. She hasn’t posted on it because she thinks it’s not only a non-story, it’s a kitsch story.

It’s about people projecting onto a photograph of a pale solitary thready bookish recently deceased man a big fat volume of values (scholarship over football, quiet reflection over rahrahrah, etc.) which seems not fully to have represented the guy. Yeah, he was a librarian and he liked books; he also spent years failing to complain to anyone, far as I know, about what a squalid party/football school UNH happens to be. In fact, “Morin got really into football in the year before he died: ‘In the last 15 months of his life, Morin lived in an assisted living center where he started watching football games on television, mastering the rules and names of the players and teams.'” (UD thanks Wendy for that link.)

That’s why UD wasn’t surprised when someone who knew him well said – well, look at my headline. The school decided to use much of his unrestricted gift to buy a scoreboard. He would have been “pleased” with it. You might not like it; you might think he wouldn’t have liked it. You’re entitled to your opinion, but not to any outrage on his behalf.

What? You think that in absolute terms, as it were, it was a lousy thing to do with his money? Now you’re guilty of betraying this guy’s wishes.

Margaret Soltan, September 19, 2016 11:43AM
Posted in: sport

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