Their absolutely massive and growing athletics debt is attracting a lot of press attention, especially after an audit which disclosed just the sort of greed, lies, stupidity, and desperation you’d expect from a humongous sports program humongously tanking.

But it’s not just about numbers: WSU crowned the… troubled Mike Leach king of the school (Mike absconded clutching most of the school’s money and trailing lawsuits); their football players typically rack up more arrests than any other team; and their professors? Don’t ask.

And of course there’s a brand new management team in place! Life will soon be beautiful all the time.

Somewhere in the distant inaccessible reaches of Washington State University lies the crashed alien spaceship from which the school will extract the $67 million they need to pay their athletics deficit.

Details here.

[A] violent hooligan culture [is] prevalent in Turkish football.

… Since we glorify … violent, macho and toxic hooligan culture, it will be prevalent in Turkish football and lead to many more matches like this.

The UNC Chapel Hill student newspaper’s editor says farewell.

Ever since the response UNC gave to the NCAA regarding our academic scandal, I feel like I attend a school trying to seem rather than to be.

I’ve read the documents pertaining to the case. I understand why UNC did what it did to protect the institution, but I can’t help feeling empty inside because of it.

Our moves make us seem like we did nothing wrong, when in reality we robbed hundreds of the education they were promised. There is no way you will spin it to change my mind. It was a bureaucratic technicality made to preserve the “Southern Part of Heaven” aesthetic of Chapel Hill, not a moral defense that righted the wrong done to the students in the fraudulent classes.

We’re going to let you pay him off.

Several [University of Cinncinnati] students were surprised to learn UC officials have been quietly forcing them to pay thousands of dollars each to subsidize the athletic department…

David Ridpath, associate professor of sports administration at Ohio University, said students at most schools are unaware that their pockets are being emptied by the athletic department.

… UC’s athletic department spent $2.1 million in severance payments in 2017. Approximately 90 percent of payments went toward one person — former UC head football coach Tommy Tuberville.

In October 2016, Tuberville signed a two-year contract extension with a $2.4 million buyout — more than double the buyout under his original contract, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Less than two months later, Tuberville and UC parted ways.

In the end, the university paid Tuberville $1.9 million — over $900,000 more than payments owed in his original contract.

“It’s ridiculous,” fourth-year construction management student Ryan Burch said. “After the position Tuberville left the program in, he shouldn’t have gotten much of a buyout at all.”

Cincinnati finished 4-8 in Tuberville’s final season as head coach.

FAMU is a really interesting case right now. Like a lot of universities, it has for decades acted on the belief that a big noisy sports program is the front porch of the university. What do you do when the sports program at your school turns out to be the university’s front funeral parlor?

There’s no question that a program that beats people to death puts a damper on things. Fewer students apply. Very few students go to games. You’re losing so much sports revenue that you increase tuition big time, which turns off yet more applicants.

You remember. Its marching band beat a band member to death in a hazing ritual.

In 2015, there was no postseason play, because both football and basketball were under academic sanction.

Also at that time:

There have been four athletic directors and three head football coaches in the past 12 months.

For an approximately two-week overlapping period, the university had two entire football coaching staffs; this resulted in an additional $55,000.

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How are things now?

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Well, the marching band hasn’t killed anyone else. That’s the good news.

Otherwise, personnel turnover remains amazing, with a brand new prez and brand new athletic director and TONS of other departures.

And of course the perennial tendency of this jockshop as well as many other jockshops to use the athletic budget for … whatever… remains firmly in place. Let’s see…

[T]he university’s athletics department is facing $1 million in “unbudgeted expenses” for this fiscal year …

[These include:]

FAMU paying out $400,000 in annual leave money due to [its former AD], fired Head Football coach Alex Wood, eight assistant coaches, the budget coordinator/facility manager, compliance coordinator and others who left last year in athletics.

$300,000 in unexpected expenses incurred during last September’s FAMU Tampa Classic against Tennessee State.

$300,000 in added “miscellaneous” expenses.

… The department has de-activated purchasing cards, but it is not clear if that is effective across the board.

Read the whole article. You kinda have to piece things together, don’t you?

Bottom line: FAMU, a scandalously bad university, hands out purchasing cards to any random person they’ve just hired for an athletics department that’s tanking the school’s budget, and ignores whatever “miscellaneous” things they buy with it.

“The NFL has murderers that play for them. Men who beat their wives. Drug addicts. But a man who knelt in protest…”

D.L. Hughley, on NFL owners and Colin Kaepernick.

But it didn’t. It doesn’t. All over the world, the highest-level soccer matches – remarkable numbers of them – are big blood baths.

Isn’t it strange? Don’t you find it strange? I mean, that the whole affair – overseen by one of the world’s most corrupt governing bodies – just grinds on? How much slaughter will international football tolerate before it decides the body count’s too high?

Here’s what old UD thinks.

Murder and mayhem pay. Extremely well. Many fans attend games in order to enjoy these things. War by other means; and I reckon Hobbes is right.

Since everyone knows how significant numbers of international soccer gatherings are likely to turn out, audiences for them are increasingly composed of people already inclined toward mass violence. But given the sport’s popularity, and the money it generates, the situation will be allowed to deteriorate infinitely.

… heroes, now a professional football player, dealt with a recent defeat of his team by taking out his gun and shooting it in the vicinity of players on the winning team.

Leon Mackey’s explanation – “It was an accident.” – is a real poser. UD looks forward to his attorney making the case that taking your gun out and shooting it in the direction of people with whom you’re fighting is an accident.

Or does he mean it’s an accident that he didn’t kill anybody?

Lo! The People turn aside and do not attend, while the High Priests hide their ledgers and take money from slaves.

Yea though the Lord sees and is full of wrath, we can do no other for we see as through a glass darkly.

U Conn basketball is constantly in trouble – mainly recruiting violation trouble, but throw in failure to meet academic standards – with the NCAA.

Its last coach – fired under the pressure of the most recent, ongoing, NCAA investigation – is suing the school for ten million dollars because his predecessor as coach, the sainted Jim Calhoun, was really a far sleazier figure, but was treated far better by the university.

Which is correct. Calhoun was significantly more disgusting (though, in fairness, Calhoun coached U Conn for many more years than Kevin Ollie, so had much more time to collect violations) than Ollie, so why should Ollie not get the ten million left on his contract?

Lawsuits, NCAA investigations – and probably, eventually, investigations from a US Attorney or two. Life of the mind, USA.

… back on track!

[A] majority of the NFL’s consumer base simply doesn’t care about the character of players off the field. I’m not doubting the sincerity of people when they say they care, but when the rubber meets the road, a rash of domestic violence cases around the league won’t stop the masses from tuning in.

[Pennsylvania State University’s former president’s defamation case against Louis Freeh] could be overturned if [the president] were to successfully appeal his March 2017 conviction of one misdemeanor count of child endangerment.

And should [Graham] Spanier win that appeal, [he] will continue to pursue his case against Freeh.

[Former vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley] were both also convicted on the same misdemeanor count, and were sentenced in July to a mix of prison time, house arrest and probation.

Spanier, whose sentence has been delayed pending his appeal, was seen playing the washboard at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts the same week the other two former administrators began their jail time.

An astute evocation of university life as the utter death of independent thought.