Scum city all around.

East Tennessee State football signee Shawn Prevo has been arrested on a charge of aggravated domestic assault.

… Prevo went into his 19-year-old brother’s room Friday and asked for a cigarette. According to police, when Prevo was told to leave, he grabbed his brother by the throat, slammed him on the bed and struck him in the chest and stomach with a closed fist.

Thrilling on and off the field.

And he hasn’t even taken the field yet.

Nice way of sayin’ it jest don’t get no dumber than the University of Tennessee.

She wonders why some people consider this a strange prediction.

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They’re a little slow down south. They’ll get with the program.

The whims and vagaries of the TV people trump the attendees. The multitude of TV timeouts give the home viewer an opportunity to re-beer, recycle past beers, walk the dog, etc… while we in the stands are baked, rained and/or snowed upon while subjected to 120 decibel commercials or the always entertaining Guess What Our Starting Left Tackle’s Favorite Pizza Topping Is!

[W]e the ticket holders are asked to pay full price and get our lazy butts in our seats by kickoff to watch Our Guys pummel a Div II or III team 75 -3. My friends have dubbed these generic patsies the “Tennessee School for the Dead.”

I live in a state where the football program [is] getting out of hand and having several sexual assault claims has tanked enrollment. They rely on football to help get the school name out but that can go another way also.

Maybe the sight of men, who have never been in a college classroom, trying to give each other head injuries has simply become less entertaining.

… blaring music played on the sound system …

Clocked time of actual play in every NFL game over two seasons and found it averaged eleven minutes of action in a three-plus hour game. NCAA games are probably similar. Slow and boring, especially without the distractions a TV broadcast can offer. And that’s before you get into the issue of the apparent inevitability of brain trauma from playing gridiron football, which makes attending a game seem more and more like sitting in an ancient Roman arena watching gladiators kill and die for our amusement.

The majority of time spent in the stands is wasted listening to commercials, having music blasted at you during every stoppage in play, watching kiss cams, and being bored along with the players as they stand around waiting while referees review yet another play.

[Arizona State shows] people with milk mustaches sponsored by a local dairy, fans with weird hair styles sponsored by Sport Clips, muscle-flexing and air guitar contests sponsored by ??? All can be seen on the new 8 million dollar jumbotron.

A sport that almost guarantees that those who play it for any length of time are going to sustain cognitive damage cannot prosper for long.

[V]ery few football-playing rapists are ever held accountable.

Well…obviously the problem is all those outmoded stadiums! College presidents ought to vigorously campaign for new stadiums…you know, so they can attract the cream of the crop student candidates. And then they can hire coaches they can pay millions and millions of dollars. And then complain because the public isn’t supporting higher education.

And – check it out – almost no comments in defense of university football.

Well, what else would he hang him from?

According to court paperwork, [East Tennessee State University defensive line coach Jeffrey] Brumett threatened to kill, beat, and hang a hotel clerk “from a noose” because his room key card didn’t work… He’s charged with disorderly conduct, assault, and public intoxication.

How much more explicitly, how much more eloquently, can you say football school?

And we do mean “bend” – as in, at the University of Tennessee, bend over and take it. If Peyton Manning wants to sit “on the face of a female athletic trainer, bare-assed, spread wide,” the job of the female trainer is to lean back and take it, and the job of the university is to destroy her reputation for failing to take it.

It’s simply not possible to overstate the scumminess of the University of Tennessee – an entire university which bends to it.

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UD to Tennessee: Enjoy your lawsuit.

… over many years, so how can we be surprised that not long ago “six football players were named as suspects in sexual assault cases”? The number actually charged was only two, and the trial of one of them starts today.

This trial is not to be confused with the Vanderbilt trials, which are ongoing.

Backing our football team
Faltering never …

[The University of Tennessee football team] had to hit a 930 score in the APR report that covered a rolling four-year period from 2009-10 through 2012-13. It was going to be difficult. They made a 932…

[The coach] described it as “the greatest win in the history of Tennessee football that nobody knows about.“

Yeah, nobody knows about it because no one cares. It’s only their education.

Hence the article writer’s need to remind us:

The university is, at its core, an educational institution, not a sports franchise.

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The University of Tennessee, one of the most farcical sports stalwarts of this blog (go ahead and type university tennessee in my search engine) is about to have far more to worry about than that silly APR thing.

… Two universities’ football programs…

There’s Florida International University, bleeding its students dry for a team no one watches. Here’s a recent lead from a local article about the team’s last game:

A near-empty FIU Stadium for Senior Day. The Panthers sloughing about as Middle Tennessee State built a second-quarter deficit almost as large as FIU’s average points per game…

After which the reporter goes on to … describe the game. Why not. It’s what he’s paid to do.

FIU students, however, pay a fortune not to attend football games.

And then there’s the University of Wisconsin, whose students also seem a bit miffed about the football program. The editors of the UW Madison newspaper complain about a thank you to our supporters video of athletes that ran on the Adzillatron during the last game and which “left the audience with an uncomfortable and annoyed feeling.” Apparently it featured the lads larking about, while a voiceover kept repeating that the university’s facilities were “world-class.”

A simpler, “Thank you for all the support,” without explicitly mentioning more than once the world-class, bordering exorbitant facilities would not cross fans in the same fashion.

Another cause for the discomfort stems from the funding in general.

While student-athletes have access to their world-class facilities, many students would be right to ask “What about me?” Between the crumbling infrastructure of the Natatorium, the SERF and the Shell, our options pale in comparison.

… [S]tudents will be footing 57 percent of the bill for the [most recent] facilities [upgrade] while the Athletic Department will contribute 3 percent. After seeing what the athletes have and seeing videos boasting their new, nearly $125 million facilities coupled with their newly approved $133 million budget, as students, it’s difficult to accept the lack of participation by the Athletic Department.

Chancellor Rebecca Blank, in an open email to Madison students, likened the Athletic Department increasing their financial contribution to “asking the physics department to pay for improvements in chemistry, just because they both study science.”

This oversimplification does a disservice to the students. What if the physics department uses the chemistry facilities on a regular basis and does not allow chemistry students to use them at that time?

Or, what if the chemistry students bailed the physics department out of a projected $1.5 million deficit like in 1989, when the Athletic Department was under financial duress and student segregated fees covered the deficits?

Oh pish-posh. A little bitter, aren’t we? If y’all weren’t losers who can’t throw a football, you’d be singing a different tune.

Tetched in the head University of Tennessee (follow its mad sports program here) is now, after years of medically unsupervised activity, in unbelievably deep shit.

… [F]our losing seasons in the last five years, and home attendance has steadily declined… Tennessee fired Derek Dooley following this past season and owes him $5 million. That’s after paying Phillip Fulmer a $6 million buyout (over 48 months) when he was forced out following the 2008 season.

… Tennessee’s reserves have been depleted by $21 million in transfers back to the university over the last three years and $11.4 million in buyouts to fired coaches in football, basketball and baseball, as well as administrators. Former Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton walked away in 2011 with a $1.335 million buyout.

That $11.4 million figure doesn’t count the $5 million owed to Dooley, nor an additional $2 million to his assistants.

It’s worse than that. The reeling drunks running the show have much more public cash than that dribbling out of their mouths. Plus we can anticipate plenty of player scandals and all that Chapel Hill stuff…

What to do?

Well, if you’re the University of Tennessee I tell you what. You do one thing and one thing only: RUN AWAY!!!! You’ve made your bed; now you have to …

RUN AWAY!!!!!!!

Don’t nobody get to watch us whiles we chew the fat ’bout our next move: A new stadium, fire the next coach and give him a ten million dollar buyout… We’re runnin’ the joint see and we do it our way and fuck you all.

A board that makes recommendations about the direction of the University of Tennessee’s athletic department reversed a longstanding policy last year, leading to closed-door meetings, little written documentation and questions from the press and transparency advocates… Transparency advocates counter that the university is a public institution, and its doings should be public record. The fact that two athletic board members are also on UT’s Board of Trustees caught the eye of the Tennessee Press Association’s Frank Gibson.

… a West Virginia newspaper.

It begins with a July 6 letter from good ol’ Wade Gilley, president of Marshall University (background on Marshall here) in the ‘nineties. Wade went on to head the University of Tennessee but had to leave onaccounta he did a few things that seem like they didn’t sit well with other people there. Yeah, ol’ Wade had to scoot.

Now Wade’s letter is a model of its type. What you got here is the good ol’ boy reminiscing bout the good ol’ days when men was men and Marshall was a beautiful paradise of football, football, and football.

I … remember being invited to a national meeting of 20 university presidents and 20 Fortune 500 corporate CEOS in the late 1990s and hearing many positive remarks about Marshall. In fact, Father Malloy, the president of Notre Dame at that time, approached me at a reception and said, “Wade, some of us were just talking about the success of your football program and we were wondering just how it happened.”

And that’s just one story about rich important people flocking around me wanting to know my secret of success!

After sharing more stories about how fantastic football is for universities, Wade concludes:

And there is no doubt that football, which is largely self-supporting, has been and will be a positive factor in promoting Marshall’s national image.

A little nay-saying (“Self-supporting? Hardly.”) does pop up among the commenters, but a July 13 opinion piece from a Marshall finance professor really puts the kibosh on the thing. Dallas Brozik is a hard-nosed guy and he ain’t having any of it.

Despite the fact that one of his students, on Rate My Professors, says Dallas doesn’t like English majors, Dallas writes really well. Let’s see how he does it, step by step. Scathing Online Schoolmarm will interrupt his piece with comments in parenthesis.

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Wade Gilley’s recent letter concerning the ongoing discussion about the Marshall University budget was quite interesting. [Now usually SOS complains about the profoundly uninteresting word interesting. But Dallas here’s going to use it slyly, in the manner of Oscar Wilde…] Just as a magician uses sleight of hand to mislead the audience, those who wish to keep the university budget a black hole keep spreading misinformation.

I have no doubt [Brozik will repeat the formulation I have no doubt throughout his piece.]   that Dr. Gilley met with folks at all levels who commented on our football team, which at the time had a winning record. Sports always makes good small talk. I have no doubt that we had the best athletes and coaches despite the legal and criminal records of some of these individuals.  [Note how slyly Brozik has already gotten two points across:  Gilley’s a maundering fool; and the teams he’s teary-eyed about were pretty smelly.]

I have no doubt that Dr. Gilley met a person whose daughter had chosen to go to law school at a certain university, supposedly because of the school’s athletic program. I also have no doubt that I would not want this person to represent me in a court of law unless it is about sports law.  [Brozik’s calm, reiterated I have no doubt is wonderful.  It signals a kind of elaborate emotional self-control, a determination to be gentlemanly and long-suffering about Gilley.]

Dr. Gilley has no doubt that the football program has been an important factor in the increase in enrollment at Marshall. Dr. Stephen Kopp became president on July 1, 2005. For the academic year 2005-2006, the official enrollment of the university was 13,920. The official enrollment for 2012-2013 was 13,708. This implies that the football program, or whatever, created negative enrollment growth.  [Oh, don’t confuse me with numbers!  And that or whatever is wonderful too  – another sly polite little suggestion that Wade is somewhat whacked out.]

Dr. Gilley has no doubt that the football program has been a very positive economic growth factor for Huntington. Since Dr. Gilley’s time, the population of Huntington has decreased and many businesses have closed. The 2012 State of Well-Being Report from Gallup-Healthways ranks Huntington as 188 out of 189. Check the want ads section of today’s paper to see how many job openings exist and at what levels. There has been no economic miracle in Huntington over the last several decades, football or not. [You can see ol’ Wade putting a hand over each ear at this point and saying LALALALALA I can’t hear you I can’t hear you…]

Wade Gilley left Marshall under his own cloud [We won’t even go into his University of Tennessee cloud.]; why he wants to get involved in this discussion is strange. He has no dog in this fight. He is old news. He admits he has little insight into the current budget situation, but he has no doubt that a football program which is not self-supporting promotes Marshall’s national image. Dr. Gilley is entitled to his opinion, but opinions are like bellybuttons; everybody has one but very few should be aired in public.  [SOS would drop the way down-home belly button thing.  Brozik doesn’t need it; and it breaks his terrific tone of restrained contempt.]

Dr. Kopp promised “transparency” in April.  [Only in his last paragraph does Brozik turn to Marshall’s current football-concussed president.  Nice move.  It puts MU’s latest loser squarely in the company of Gilley.]  He still has not opened the books for review, even though state law requires him to do so. The current problem is one of accountability for state funds and the tuition and fees paid by students. Those who try to frame this as an anti-sports question are either misled or trying to be misleading. The budget for Marshall University is important to the entire community, and that budget should be examined. The time for opinions is over. It is time for action. It is time for Dr. Kopp to live up to his promise of transparency and open the books.

La vie en football factory.

True, and a new study suggests that changing coaches constantly does no good in terms of your win/loss record.

But that’s the thing about university sports. Decisions aren’t made with deliberation. They’re made according to the Baying Hounds Principle. When the hounds start baying so loudly it scares you, get another coach.

… university athletics program in the United States, does it again. Scan some of these posts to remind yourself — no, to convince yourself, because it’s actually unbelievable — that the citizens of an American state have for decades allowed their money to subsidize criminal players; overpaid, rule-breaking coaches whose immense buyouts go on forever; endlessly litigious athletics staff employees; and an athletics department currently running – amid declining ticket sales – a four million dollar deficit. Wouldn’t you expect, at this point, at least a modest grassroots protest somewhere? We’d like to be paying for a real university that doesn’t embarrass us kind of thing? I mean… butt-chugging, anyone?

But with every new squalid story — this one about the recruitment of a thief (other schools didn’t want him; Tennessee was thrilled to take him) who has now apparently begun stealing on campus — the people of Tennessee sit there, as if they think the reason they pay tens of millions to university coaches is so that these people can make brilliant decisions like these…

Don’t Tennesseans ever wonder whether the University of Tennessee has a president? Don’t they ever wonder why this person never appears, never makes statements?

Or how ’bout those trustees?