Well, that little item about the college football coaches who got to wrestling with each other at the Opryland Hotel and fell out of a window [go here] has hit the bigtime.  Google News is on fire.

And you know why?  Because every now and then an event occurs that so distills the essence of a certain world as to give the event mythic stature.  What a local Nashville reporter calls the “tragic” defenestration of two big drunk semi-nude members of the Westminster College community has swiftly taken on the same important national resonance as Borat.

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Reminder: Here’s another recent university coach story. These guys really know how to get into the paper.

… from the Bellingham Herald:

… [W]e applaud Western president Bruce Shepard for being willing to make the tough decision to cut the football program. It took a brave leader to cut a program that some consider important to the school’s reputation. Some students, alumni and community members are very sad to see football go. But academics should always come before athletics – for students and for schools.

… The University of Washington could use the same kind of leadership. In Seattle, the university has agreed to pay nearly $3 million in total annual salaries to the new head coach and offensive and defensive coordinators. That seems an incredible waste of public funds…

• Remove the management of the academic counselors in the Academic Success Program from the Athletic Department, transferring it to the dean’s office in the College of LS&A. ASP counselors do “excellent” work and become athletes’ second families, said [a member of the committee reforming athletics]. But their advice has to be aligned with athletes’ post-graduation goals.

• Remove the task of hearing appeals of student athletes who wish to stay academically eligible to participate in sports from the Committee on Academic Performance. That faculty body has come under scrutiny on campus because its members are offered free trips to attend Michigan football bowl games, courtesy of the Athletic Department.

These are a couple of the recommendations a University of Michigan faculty committee has put forward in order to clean up various athletic scandals, or scandals in the making, there. For background on the ticket business, go here. UD figures the recommendation about this means to put pressure on the conflict of interest-challenged members of that committee so they’ll give up their precious freebie.

… applauds the school’s decision to shut down its football program.

Western, at least in my 14 years on its faculty, never had a football culture. Most students were apathetic, faculty rarely attended games, and Whatcom County evinced little interest despite a passion for high-school games. Aside from the rivalry with Central Washington University, a football game rarely drew more than 2,000 fans. When Shepard’s decision was announced in Thursday’s Bellingham Herald, not a single reader posted a comment.

The Saturday tailgate culture of big-school football had no grip on a campus with no fraternities or crowds of community backers available in larger cities. Western students prefer active snow sports and basketball; Title IX brought women’s sports into the limelight, and Western women in crew, volleyball, and basketball developed excellent records and lots of campus support…

A commenter disagrees:

It’s beyond question that there’s not much of a “football culture” at Western. To me, the fact that the university could field a team and avoid that very “culture” was one of the great things about the program. You can make a sound argument for dropping the program. But purely line-item budgeting isn’t a good one. By that measure, Western, which doesn’t have much of a Shakespeare culture, either, would be issuing pink slips to English professors…

The problem with this argument is that universities exist to encourage a culture of Shakespeare. They’re supposed to lead people toward things like Shakespeare, even if people don’t know shit about Shakespeare and don’t care that they don’t know. Educate — to lead forth. Universities are not about leading people to football.

… Even though [Rutgers athletic director Robert] Mulcahy was dismissed, the university will continue to pay his generous salary — and his over-the-top perks — for the next 18 months while getting nothing in return. If he deserved to be fired, he deserved to be prevented from continuing to feed at the public trough.

But Mulcahy will be fed, and fed well. A university spokesman told the Bergen Record this week the university is obliged to honor the remainder of Mulcahy’s contract. His salary alone will cost them another $511,875. He will continue to receive a car or annual automobile stipend of $12,000 and health benefits and insurance for the next 18 months.

Rutgers also must pay Mulcahy’s annual membership fees at the exclusive Baltusrol golf club, believed to be about $8,000. That’s outrageous. Why should taxpayers and struggling college students have to foot the bill for any already highly paid public employee — a fired employee, no less — to sharpen his golf game?…