A USA Today reporter asks the author of Onward Christian Athletes about “college sports evangelism” post-Tressel.

[B]ig-time college sports are a mess and a poor platform for the promotion of religious virtue. The central idea of sports ministry — use sports and famous athletic figures to promote the faith — seems more problematic than ever in view of what’s happened with Coach Tressel. …With regard to the concept of using sports as a platform to promote faith … At a certain point, the platform no longer works as a vehicle to promote Christianity, because the platform is corroded and decayed.

West Virginia University’s English comp course rightly stresses the importance of argumentation in public discourse. You can’t just say boo. You can’t just say x. You have to say why boo. Why x.

WVU itself, however, seems not to have learned this. Its big-money new football coach is behaving badly in public, and the university is under attack. Here’s how WVU has responded:

After looking into its options, West Virginia University will take no action to refute allegations raised against the football program, athletic department and administration in separate columns published by two state newspapers over the weekend.

… WVU [is] assessing the validity of the claims it believes are false. University officials were also determining whether a response to the publications would be necessary.

A WVU source said Wednesday the university will not take any action, but “knows the Herald-Dispatch story had blatant inaccuracies.”

Uh huh. And what are the inaccuracies? If they’re blatant, they should be rather easy to refute.

Oh. WVU isn’t sure a response to blatant inaccuracies is necessary.

And it certainly doesn’t think reviewing the video footage of the coach’s most recent misbehavior is necessary. Why bother? Hell [spit]. Boys will be boys. And, you know, by and large, university football’s a nice clean business. You wanna argument? That’s my argument and I’m stickin’ to it. Hyuk.

… University of Colorado.

(UD thanks Bill for the link.)

Support structure withdrawn.

Ohio State’s ex-coach Jim Tressel
Has made of himself the Lord’s vessel.
He’s preached and he’s preached
And he’s preached and he’s preached.
But he overlooked 21 (Thessal.)

… is an expert in performance management. Under her authority for the last three years, MSU has become arguably the most mismanaged, most under-performing campus in the country.

A humongous sports fan, Bradbury successfully pushed for JQH Arena, MSU’s new money-hemorrhage machine. Reed Olsen, an MSU economics professor, tried to explain to Bradley and MSU’s president and everybody that the arena would be a disaster, but they were too dumb to listen. They all beat up on old Reed. Nobody at a university – least of all its leadership – wants to read damn fool reports with lots of statistics and shit in them.

Okay but now they’re like losing tons of money I mean like what the hell happened? and now it’s time to sell beer there and chisel more fees out of undergraduates and rent out the place to well jackshit anybody I guess and I dunno fuck with the numbers…

The task force recommends the accounting of the arena be combined with Hammons Student Center and Plaster Sports Complex to create a “true” financial picture of athletic venues.

Dunn said the three facilities currently share resources such as personnel.

Former State Auditor Susan Montee last year specifically warned against mixing the finances of JQH Arena with other university sports facilities.

“In that way, it would not be transparent and nobody would be able to tell,” she said then.

There is no God but Tressel, and he’s about to be pummeled by a schismatic.

… goal!

Why bother writing a new column every year? Go green. Recycle.

From a review of Big-Time Sports in American Universities, by Charles T. Clotfelter.

[Clotfelter investigates] the ways in which universities use their sports programs to court potential donors. He filed public-records requests with eight universities, asking for the names of invited guests who sat in the president’s box during home football games.

The University of Washington, to its credit, complied with this request. The University of Oregon, to its shame, demanded payment of $791.87. And the response from the University of California, Berkeley, was laugh-out-loud funny — a snooty version of: We’re not giving you the names, because we don’t want to.

It’s their sports programs, stupid!

… perhaps from an overdose, and instantly a sports writer starts talking on-field replacements.

His death coincides with the release of the book Basketball Junkie.

… to pay its bills.

But for you, zero.

UD can’t track all of these stories – the protracted litigation, the endless terrible publicity, the money that has to be found for lawyers and settlements. They’re constant, a constant feature of the modern American university.

Seattle-area basketball star Tony Wroten will be allowed to enter the University of Washington – but only if he passes his final semester Spanish class, the Seattle Times reported Thursday… The Seattle Times reported the Athletic Director at Garfield High School, Jim Valiere, gave Wroten and classmate Valentino Coleman ‘C’ grades in an independent study Spanish class. But the class never met, didn’t have a textbook and had no coursework...