Maybe all cultures do. I don’t know. But I know my culture enshrines its most violent men as heroes even in universities. The hero at the University of Nebraska was and is Richie Incognito. They’re proud to say he chose them and they nurtured him before he went on to his celebrated professional career. Texas A&M, Johnny Manziel. The reigning hero at Florida State University is Jameis Winston.

Icky scary hyped-up babies – the highest-profile, most esteemed, representatives of America’s universities.

But here’s what I love about my country. (I love many things about my country. Here’s one in particular.) It knows it’s ridiculous, and if you push the deification-of-shits thing a little too far, the country will push back.

The idiots at FSU so worship their icks that they don’t understand this. They don’t understand that you need to keep the icky reality of the icks blurry so that America doesn’t have to look at them directly. If you decide to fashion a huge social media campaign around unmediated ick-deification… If you actually solicit questions the American people are panting to ask their baby buddhas about life…

A Florida State social media campaign turned ugly Sunday when the university’s athletic department opened its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback to nationwide mockery.

The department attempted to engage fans on Twitter by soliciting questions to be used for a video on the team website.

The hashtag “#AskJameis” became a trending topic on Twitter for a time Sunday — for all the wrong reasons.

… The tweets covered a wide range from witty to malicious. Most were aimed at Winston, but others questioned why the university would risk this type of response.

One post read: “Do you know that you have to Buy One to get One Free at Publix [Super Markets]?”

Another read: “Who gave you better protection last year — your offensive line or the TPD?”

TPD is shorthand for the Tallahassee Police Department.

Oh Jameis King of the Library Tell Us! Shed Upon Us Thy Everlasting Light!

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So here’s a helpful hint to the FSU public relations people for next time.

Remember Bagehot on the British royalty.

A secret prerogative is an anomaly — perhaps the greatest of anomalies. That secrecy is, however, essential to the utility of English royalty as it now is. Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it. When there is a select committee on the Queen, the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.

The secret to maintaining the American university’s royalty is this subtle work of obfuscation. Would you ask Queen Elizabeth to take part in a Twitter campaign? The more you poke Winston the less he will be reverenced. Do not let daylight in upon him.

(Remember: If our reporters had followed this no-poking policy, Americans would be free to continue worshipping Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods. Keep it blurry.)

Scathing Online Schoolmarm says: Now that the NCAA’s in deep shit, brace yourself for long strings of cliches. Even from the New York Times.

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UD thanks Dirk.

Colorado State, one of America’s more markedly delusional, testosterone-run universities, has just said goodbye to its slightly too-delusional athletic director, Jack Graham.

To be sure, everyone in charge there – trustees, high-level administrators – appears to share the whacked-out, Blanche DuBois personality I’ve isolated so often on this blog when talking about schools like University of Nevada Las Vegas (panting to build a $900 million stadium) and Colorado State. Like Blanche, they have much less money than they need to live the grand life they fantasize for themselves; but – again like Blanche – this in no way stops them from traipsing around telling everyone that they’re rich and grand.

CSU, for instance, insisted its rich gentleman callers (to allude to a different Tennessee Williams play) would give it mucho millions toward the big ol’ football stadium it was gonna build. Indeed, just the other day the soon-to-be-erstwhile CSU AD – Graham, that is – announced to a gathering that fund-raising was going swell, swell! But then right after that

CSU’s vice president for advancement Brett Anderson told the Coloradoan a day later that only $24.2 million had been raised as of June 30…

Bummer! Blanche DuCSU sits around in her gauzy duds waiting for gentleman callers to cough up $110 million… She has always depended on the kindness of strangers… And then… the pathos of no one showing up…

On the other hand, Graham is a university coach, so his exit will be a little more secure than Blanche’s:

[CSU] still [has] to pay his annual $260,000 salary in monthly installments through November 2016…

For, you know, doing nothing… Standard operating procedure, and one of many reasons why big-time sports are such a boon to the American university…

But anyway. When the Lord closes a Blanche window, he always opens a new Blanche door.

Tyler Shannon, who represents the pro-stadium group Be Bold group on the advisory committee … says donors have committed quite a bit more money to the stadium than the $24.2 million that’s already in the bank.

It’s all still hush-hush, mind you! We can’t let the information out yet! But there’s a LOT more money where that came from, believe me!!

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Local commentary sees the same DuBois pathos in play:

Please. Fort Collins is an affluent community. Just say it like it is. [CSU’s president] finally figured out that CSU completely botched selling the community on the project, and anti-stadium proponents effectively derailed the project. [CSU’s president] finally became uncomfortable, which was not unreasonable. Making music with Graham wasn’t working, and [the president] decided to save [his] reputation and let Jack go because Jack wasn’t giving up his dream.

Presumably CSU’s president has been peeing himself over the idea that the now-gone AD (a multimillionaire) was another Phil Knight (a billionaire). That Graham would, uh, ride in like a Knight in shining armor? … to put the few extra cents needed for the stadium into the piggy bank… ?

Sad, sad. Butterfly net time.

A former president of notorious Florida A&M gives a talk in which he mentions nothing about the academic mission of the university (at least the reporter reports nothing), and in which he simply commands people to be positive about the place.

“We can’t have naysayer[s]; people who doubt and let the doubt overcome them in terms of what they are willing to do. …This year, we need to all get behind Florida A&M and don’t accept negative viewpoints about the university.”

But, you know, why? Why shouldn’t people be free to act on their ethical judgement and do what they’ve been doing since the violently hazing marching band beat one of its members to death not long ago? Why shouldn’t people stop coming to football games where the band plays, and stop giving money to the university? The university conducted itself hideously through the hazing scandal, basically blaming his death on the student himself.

And this is the aspect of the school’s culture – athletics and the marching band – that the speaker wants to make the top priority.

Florida A&M could begin to put a dent into its nagging athletic budget deficit in a short time if the Marching 100 band and the football program are given top priority, Frederick Humphries said Friday at the 220 Quarterback Club’s luncheon…

“The best indicators for black colleges; two things give the greatest visibility that they have,” he said. “It’s the athletic program and the marching band.

“If you were to put it in priority where you should spend some money; you keep your athletic program strong and keep your marching band strong.”

Yes, athletics – that’s the ticket.

At the University of Oregon, presidents come and go (“for the third time since 2009, the state needs a new president for what University of Oregon supporters insistently refer to as the state’s flagship institution”) but Phil Knight goes on and on.

Forbes:

Athletics have been an ongoing point of contention at [the University of] Oregon. The Chronicle [of Higher Ed] notes that the faculty has long felt that the athletic spotlight has overshadowed the university’s academic mission… [Nike] money has allowed the athletic department to become financially independent from the university, which has led to questions of accountability. [Campus football] scandals only support the claim that there is none. Further, while athletics have had all the focus in the past few years, the academics have suffered.

Oregon has fallen in our ranking of America’s Top Colleges for the second time in a row (210th in 2012; 217th in 2013; and 236th in 2014).

… We wish Scott Coltrane, the university’s provost and now-interim president, the best of luck, and hope that he refocuses the school on academic success. What better time to do that than while the football team is on probation?

Your cartel days are numbered.

America’s dumbest state dumps the dome on its flagship university’s sooooooooper dooooooper fuuuuuuuuture stadium, and UD is disappointed. Où sont les $900 million 55,000 seats d’antan?

The University of Nevada Las Vegas is talking about shrinking the mofo too! This place was going to be huge, and its Adzillatron was going to extend the entire length of the stadium!

Remember this picture?

Well, forget it. Everything’s going to be smaller. Plus, to get a more accurate sense of the place, take all the people out of the shot.

At UNLV’s state of the athletic department address and free lunch held last week at Buca di Beppo near campus, the Rebels’ new sports marketing guy said football season-ticket sales were at 84 percent of last year’s total. Which at first sounded promising. Until somebody said UNLV sold only 3,890 season tickets last year... [W]hen it comes to revenue streams, which is what the UNLV football team must generate to become self-sufficient, just how much is 84 percent of 3,890 season tickets sold anyway?

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Meanwhile, there’s another tragedy in the making at Colorado State University. Their stadium was going to cost a pittance compared to UNLV’s – only $226.5 million – and they were real sure they could drum up a lot of that via all those football fans out there in Fort Collins, so…

Two years after CSU announced efforts to raise private money to build the stadium, fundraising totals do not look promising. Officials acknowledged in July that the university has raised just $24.2 million as of June 30 for the stadium, less than a quarter of the amount that CSU President Tony Frank has sought to raise by this October.

Wha’ happened?

30,000? In these fans-disappearing-from-university-stadiums days, there’s a lot of numbers massaging going on… Let’s check another source on how many San Diego State people show up to watch their football team play.

… SDSU’s official attendance isn’t what TV audiences see… SDSU counts total tickets issued instead of turnstiles turned. … 61,619 fewer fans attended in 2013, or an average of only 22,954 per game.

So SDSU desperately pours more and more public money into its football program in an effort to … what? It’s already a perfectly respectable team with an okay record of wins.

San Diego State football kicks this month, poised to push its bowl streak to five. USA Today ranks SDSU at No. 58, Lindy’s Sports picks the Aztecs as West Division champs in the Mountain West, and sophomore running back Donnel Pumphrey is a player to watch for the nation’s top running back award.

One popular idea is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a small on-campus stadium. Small enough so that 15,000 or so in attendance doesn’t make it look empty.

Yeah. Attendance at football games is tanking at almost all universities. Only FAMU suffers the additional audience-alienation effect that comes from having a marching band that collectively beats its musicians – sometimes to death. This seems to be a real fan turn-off.

But this article makes clear why within five years (UD predicts), at least ten American universities will have coaches as presidents.

Yes, yes, you’re right – as UD readers constantly point out, one day it’s the University of Georgia, another day Penn State, another day Southern Methodist, and yet another day Alabama State… So many of this country’s universities are in various high-profile aspects disgusting that no one university wears the crown for long.

But. But – If UD were asked which university, not only in its sports but in its academic component most consistently struck her as disgusting, I think she’d have to say, on balance, and on reflection, and on reading today’s story about Miami’s deeply loved and curiously successful baseball coach Lazaro Collazo (You can still find Miami heavily breathing upon its beloved here. Why take down the page? Taking down pages of disgraced UM people would threaten the sports budget.), that it’s Charles Nemeroff’s and Nevin Shapiro’s University of Miami.

“When you’re talking about PEDs in the black market, we’re talking about some clown in his basement, with a bucket and a burner, and a very dangerously limited knowledge of chemistry… And these chemicals were going in our children’s bodies.”

Yes, the University of Miami’s finest was for years allegedly peddling and administering performance enhancing drugs to the kiddies. Drugs made, as the DEA agent I just quoted notes, according to the highest standards.

See, that’s why UM gets scuzziest. It’s not just about money. It’s about hiring and sanctifying people like Collazo.

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Ugh. You want the underbelly? You really want the underbelly? Okay. You asked for it. Welcome to the University of Miami.

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Update: Ooh. They took down the page!

Tom Izzo, the $3.4 million a year Michigan State basketball coach, is hurt and angry and confused. Why don’t MSU professors work with him on his players’ academic performance?

— After being in constant contact with professors in his early years at Michigan State as an assistant, Izzo said he now can’t initiate conversations with professors about his players’ academic performance.

“If I see them on the street or at the grocery store, otherwise I’m afraid to,” Izzo said. “That sounds a little ridiculous and a little venom to it, but I’m telling you the truth. I do not like the way we’ve done it, personally.”

The reason for the separation between coaches and professors is that administrators fear coaches will apply pressure to make their players eligible. Izzo said that fear is unfounded.

“I just can’t see myself doing it, strong-arming a prof, number one, or a prof taking my strong-arm number two. I just don’t understand that,” Izzo said.

One of the reasons Izzo is confused is that there’s really no difference between him and any other MSU professor:

“I am an educator, my degree’s in education,” Izzo said. “And so that bothers me that we do not get the opportunity, because I’m a professor in my own right too, I’m a teacher in my own right too.”

Why then when an MSU professor sees Izzo does she skadizzo? Why won’t she, like the Air Force Academy professors we’ve been reading about lately, “hook up” with him?

[T]he Department of Management, which teaches management courses, would “hook-up” athletes – slang for giving athletes advantages in class.

Why won’t professors at MSU play ball?

Well, Tom, let’s consider.

I know it’s petty of her, but Professor I Don’t Brake for Izzo has trouble seeing you as another faculty member. It’s not about snobbery, Tom; it’s about the disparity between your salaries. Talk about income inequality! She can’t help wondering, while you’re bending her ear at the Kroger, why one of the teachers at her school earns fifteen trillion or so more than she does… Than anyone she knows or ever has known or ever will know does… It makes her nervous around him. He must be very important.

And that’s Point Two, Tom. To you, it’s a simple neighborly chat at the grocery; to her, it’s a command performance with the actual president of the university. The actual governor of the state! She knows your salary mops the floor with the titular president’s salary, and with the governor’s salary. She knows that’s because few people on campus – and certainly in the state – give a shit about anything but sports. It’s all there in the numbers. Why should she risk everything in talking to someone of your stature and power? She’d feel compelled to do anything you asked her with a student – pretty much anything at all – because of your state-wide, not just university-wide, influence. (Do you have the highest public salary in the state? She’s sure you’re way up there…)

Okay, and here’s another reason you’re unpopular with faculty, Tom. Every morning professors at your school get up and read about really sickening and endless and humiliating athletics scandals at Penn State and Chapel Hill and the Air Force Academy and all. It’s not so much that your faculty is immediately afraid of the same thing happening at MSU; rather there’s a basic continuous disgust that’s been generated by all of the stories. You are closely associated with the world (university and professional) generating the disgust, and I’m sorry but that makes you kind of gross to be around. It’s not your fault! UD understands. But it’s your world. UD recommends you send a scout out before you enter public spaces – someone to issue trigger warnings so that people liable to experience the disgust/evasion response can exit the area.

… would I guess be the word for what we seem to be dealing with in American culture for the last few years. As in — everybody seems to be plagiarizing to some extent… Including, it appears, Mary Willingham, the University of North Carolina tutor who blew the whistle on that school’s fake courses for athletes. Her online UNC Greensboro master’s thesis seems to include quite a number of lifted sentences…

This is too bad, since Willingham has been one of the strongest, most trustworthy voices protesting the corruption of entire academic departments by sports.

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UPDATE: The best commentary so far:

Whatever Willingham’s graduate work does to her own reputation is no doubt gratifying to UNC fans of a certain type, but the questions about Tar Heel integrity?

… [R]uining Willingham, fun though it may be, is just another side show beside the smoldering wreck of UNC athletics. It’s a small, mean victory, like cutting boots and rings off of the dead at El Alamein.

The battle has moved on. Bigger things are afoot.

Well all UD can say is that if your outfit’s always throwing around words like honor – and hey phrases like sacred honor – you deserve everything you get when you recruit shits to win football games.

UD has often said on this blog that she has no serious problem with honestly scummy schools like Clemson and Auburn which like monks who throughout their day repeat All for Jesus are forthcoming about being All For Sports. She’ll cover them on this blog because they’re good for a laugh, but she won’t give them a hard time. They’re not like Chapel Hill or Penn State. They don’t insist that they are real universities. They’re good ol’ boys. They’re trying to be bad. Their drunken tailgates are charming.

Nor do they, like the Air Force Academy – for which, in pretty much its entirety, you and I pay – natter on about their crispy ironed integrity and insist that we view their rows of bright behatted faces with unmitigated admiration. UD dislikes hypocrisy, and recent reports (UD thanks John, a reader, for alerting her to the story) confirm that the Air Force Academy has been very naughty along those lines.

Let’s start with academic honor, academic integrity, sacred academic honor and integrity, shall we?

[A]thletes cheated on tests, and in one instance, an economics professor created a special course for two basketball players – and taught it around their game and practice schedules.

Athletes cheating en masse is nothing – totally routine – but look at that thing about the special course. Julius Nyang’oro fans are going to want to keep an eye on that as details emerge. Read the article in the Gazette for damning enough details; but wait, because there will be more.

And yeah the rapes and the drugs, the whole shebang, at our most sacred honorable tax funded university…

The new superintendent “pulled coaches aside for a recent meeting and told them continued ethical lapses would send the school down the path to ‘Penn State,'” but she’s just a girl. Her All for Football jock predecessor, Mike Gould

ran the academy for three years before passing command to [Michelle] Johnson in 2013. The former academy football star required his staff to provide weekly updates on efforts to instill what he called “fanatical institutional pride” in cadets.

He ended most emails with “Go Falcons!” Johnson ends her emails with “Respectfully.”

See what I mean? Just a girl. No Falcon fanaticism at all. She needs to watch this.

Gould had everybody on campus cheering for the sports teams, including professors.

Former academy economics professor David Mullin remembered one meeting of the academic staff. “They had half the auditorium shout ‘Knowledge!'” he said. “The other half of the room shouted ‘Power!'”

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The new girl superintendent needs to watch this: POWER.

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UD figures that, professorial self-respect-wise, right behind mandated spot checks of Chapel Hill faculty to make sure they’re meeting their classes (a gift from fake-classes Nyang’oro that keeps on giving) would be academic meetings in which university-provided cheerleaders make you shout out KNOWLEDGE and POWER.