Uh-huh. And also
…
Student [game] attendance would likely drop off [without a new stadium] and the tailgating experience would be compromised.
Now the school’s in darkest deficit doodoo, game attendance is tanking, and the UW trustees, whose job it is to be trustees, are sniping at the ex-athletic director onaccounta he didn’t tell them how he was spending the students’ money.
UW trustees want to know: Who’s the steward of student and state money around here anyway?
Well, let’s just go down that list, shall we? Horrible hideous shit can happen anywhere, especially in a country where everyone has at least two guns. We’re getting the list now because of the latest entry on it – the nation’s premier Baptist university, and that university’s local police department, spent years ignoring rampantly raping football players. That’s Waco’s latest claim to fame.
Okay, so four things on the list are about Baylor, basketball, and football: The murder, the cover-up, the NCAA sanctions, and now the rapes. If you ask ol’ UD, who’s been covering big-time sports mayhem at America’s universities since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, there’s nothing reigniting or even igniting about that list — homicidal raping covering up and heavily sanctioned university sports programs are not uncommon in the United States.
Admittedly most of the murders take place shortly after the player has dropped out of the school.
Since 2007, [Aaron Hernandez has] been charged with, or linked to, the shootings of six people in four incidents. Three of the victims were gruesomely murdered. One survivor, a former friend named Alexander Bradley, has had multiple operations and lost his right eye. The other two survivors were shot in their car outside a Gainesville, Florida, bar after an altercation involving Hernandez and two of his teammates his freshman year at the University of Florida. While in Gainesville, he sucker-punched a guy and shattered the fellow’s eardrum, and reportedly failed multiple drug tests, though he was suspended only once for those offenses.
But who’s counting? It’s your beloved suspension-averse alma mater we’re describing here, and right this minute you’re loading up the Bud Light in anticipation of tailgate season for you and the young’uns.
So is Waco problematically special? Only stuff special on the list is the two cults – the Davidians and the Pagans.
I’m sure Texas gets more than its share of violent cults, just as Utah and Oregon do, because these states get all goose-bumpy over guns plus they hate laws and shit cuz that’s the state and fuck the state.
No, by prevailing big-time university athletics standards and prevailing state standards, there’s nothing special about Waco.
**********************
UPDATE: UD thanks Derek for pointing out
that this is about basketball as much as football.
… The Olympian, via the AP. UD reproduces it in its entirety:
A Wisconsin regent questioned Friday whether it’s worth continuing athletics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the face of a massive deficit.
Regent Tim Higgins challenged UW-Milwaukee Athletic Director Amanda Braun after a presentation of a report on Panther sports that she gave to regents on the school’s campus. Higgins pointed out to her that the athletic department finished the year that ended on June 30, 2015, nearly $11 million in the red. According to the report, the deficit began building around 2000 due to the rising overall costs of Division 1 athletics.
UW-Milwaukee athletics are heavily subsidized by student fees; they made up more than two-thirds of the department’s revenue in fiscal year 2015 and are projected to make up a little less than two-thirds of revenue in the upcoming fiscal year.
Higgins asked Braun how she can justify continuing sports at the school. Braun seemed taken aback by the question, initially responding that she believes student-athletes make a positive impact on the university.
At Regent Gerald Whitburn’s prodding, she added that her department faces no serious NCAA sanctions and the deficit is no longer growing. According to the report, the athletic department finished fiscal year 2015 with a net balance of $604,400 and should finish 2016 about $107,284 to the good.
She also said that the department has a plan to eliminate the deficit. According to the report, the plan calls for balancing the budget on an annual basis for multiple years.
The regents took no action and moved on to other agenda items.
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With its fierce concision and unemotional address, this masterpiece of the postmodern surreal owes much to Beckett and Stoppard — as is obvious when you transpose it into Waiting for Godot.
____________________________________
Vlad.: WHY GO ON? THERE’S A MASSIVE DEFICIT AND WE’LL NEVER GET OUT FROM UNDER IT. IT WILL JUST GET WORSE.
Est.: WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU TODAY? IT’S ONLY A BLOODY ELEVEN MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT. SAME DEFICIT WE’VE HAD SEEN WE STARTED WAITING FOR A BALANCED BUDGET.
Vlad: YOU’RE KILLING OUR STUDENTS! IT’S UNJUSTIFIABLE.
Est.: [Taken aback.] Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard
Vlad.: I REALLY FIND THIS MOST INTERESTING.
Est.: WE HAVE A PLAN. ALL WILL BE WELL… GODOT…
[The regents take no action and move on to other agenda items.]
The voice of the people, from the comment thread of an article about poor lil University of Kansas, one of America’s most comprehensively disgusting sports factories. All KU wanted to do was recruit a person who can win football games! So what if he also likes to rape everyone in sight? Penn State put up with Jerry Sandusky doing that for decades. But nooooo… KU’s too lah dee dah for that. You’ve got all these raped women filing lawsuits. What’s the matter with Kansas?
They’re not just big and bad.
If coaches, they may be the highest paid people in the state.
If players, they’re sports heroes. They get huge scholarships plus under the table payments. Bogus professors and bogus disciplines are invented just for them. All of the best buildings on campus are off limits to everyone but these students, with some interesting results.
The big and bad people – and of course not everyone on your big-time college team is a bad person – may bring a new kind of violence to campus, often working as the team that they are to beat the shit out of male students and sexually assault/film themselves sexually assaulting female.
The president and trustees of places like the University of Nebraska seem to consider what people like Richie Incognito do to their students acceptable collateral damage, and students seem to agree it’s worth it because you need people big and bad enough to beat the shit out of opposing players, and you might not be able to confine to the field or the court the generally violent disposition of big and bad people. Here’s a Rutgers scholar (Rutgers has distinguished itself for coach and player violence) showing his stuff.
I mean, lots of people drink and carouse and get into trouble in college. C’est entendu. But these guys are built like brick shithouses and they work as a team. You do the math.
Lozano said she was slapped, kicked, slammed against a wall and against a car by Chafin in 2014.
Life of the mind, Mississippi State University.
Manducare Stercore Subridens
**********************
[W]hile many Mississippi State fans might call for second chances, or try to say he was just defending his family to make ourselves feel better for taking Jeffery Simmons without any real repercussions, I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’ll just know we decided to take a really bad hit to the image of our school all in the name of winning football games.
Brian Hadad of Bulldog Sports Radio has often called taking Simmons similar to eating a turd sandwich. It tastes terrible going down and you just have to find a way to choke it down. He was completely right, but I’m not even sure I could anticipate how difficult this would be to swallow once we got here.
**********************
But smiling while trying to get your shit down is nothing.
Football is so popular that people (myself included) have private conversations about how many people would have to die on the field before we’d seriously consider giving it up.
If you want to know the answer to that, consider the long history of drivers dying on the race car track. People in the stands dying at race car events. I think if we’re being honest about this, public deaths in the course of violent sports events are – fanwise – a plus.
Indeed, let’s continue with Chuck Klosterman’s argument:
There’s an embedded assumption within all arguments regarding the doomed nature of football. The assumption is that the game is even more violent and damaging than it superficially appears, and that as more people realize this (and/or refuse to deny the medical evidence verifying that damage), the game’s fan support will disappear. The mistake made by those advocating this position is their certitude that this perspective is self-evident… The contemporary stance on football’s risk feels unilateral, because nobody goes around saying, “Modern life is not violent enough.” Yet this sentiment quietly exists… Football could become a dead game to the casual sports fan without losing a fraction of its cultural influence. It could become the only way for a certain kind of person to safely access the kind of controlled violence he sees as a critical part of life… [Football will not become extinct; rather it will become] a mildly perverse masculine novelty.
But the more violence faction ain’t such a novelty, is it? It’s about to elect our next president.
********************
“Look, our nature, we like competitive violence. We do. As much as we talk about the quarterbacks, and where the game of football has gone the last 25 years, we still like when you show a big hit or a big tackle. We like that. You can throw five touchdown passes and that’s great. But one big hit, that’s what you’re here for.”
The elect are getting Raptured Up; the unfortunate will be Left Behind.
The state is a perennial Number One on Most Corrupt States lists; the university, which is ALL about football, issues presidential directives on cowbells. And no one would notice or be in any way surprised that Mississippi State has just welcomed with open arms a guy currently facing charges for beating the shit out of a woman – a beating you can watch on YouTube (take your pick) – if it weren’t for the current unpleasantness at Baylor… I mean, you know, it’s the SEC… Who really gives a rat’s ass? Be it ever so decadent, there’s no place like that y’all and shut ma mouth land… Don’t think y’all gonna find one person, male or female persuasion, who ain’t prepared to forgive Jeffery Simmons if he do get a bit out of hand… Small price to pay for one hell of a defensive end.
And here’s a sign of the times! Mississippi State is currently issuing protective helmets to all its women students. Distribution is mandatory but you can choose to wear yours or not.
Rape, unreported, robs me of my rest:
Rape, silly rape, our ardent team encumbers:
Rape, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!
[University of Louisville President James] Ramsey has been in hot water with the university as faculty and staff have polled for a no-confidence vote due to negative publicity and claims of mismanagement. U of L and the Foundation have also been in an ongoing state audit, which was stalled by late submissions from the university three weeks ago…
… Ramsey was paid $2.8 million by the University of Louisville Foundation in 2014, $1 million more than he was paid in 2013.
Thus sayeth UD: He who goes after a President for going down will himself go down.
*********************
And suddenly there appeared The President of the Baylor Men, praising football, and saying:
The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest my rapists to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With shame, disgrace, and getting fired.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a chancellor and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.
So pathetic, what’s happened to the American university. One prominent lawyer consults another about how to run a university and this is what he’s told.
UD was amused, later in the Inside Higher Ed account of The Passion of Ken Starr and (according to reports) The Impending Martyrdom Of The Athletic Department, to read that Baylor’s orgiastic adoration of football “has concerned some on campus, who worry that a university so focused on football could lose sight of its Baptist mission.” Don’t they understand what everyone else understands? That there’s no light between Football and Faith?
Oh beautiful Starr the hope of light
Guiding the players through their indict
All through the courts ’till break of dawn
Into the land of Next Game Day
He does give out a lovely ray
Oh beautiful Starr of Baylor shine on
When Baylor was winning football games and no one in a position of authority had yet been booted out because of arrant indifference to sexual assault, one of the trustees described life on campus as “like an early rapture.” What will the people of Baylor do now that other teams are lifted up and they remain behind in Tribulation?
UD‘s advice: Win some football games.
