… this is one shitty letter to the editor.

I mean, yes.  Do damage control.  Do damage control until the cows come home.  SOS has no trouble with damage control.

But don’t do damage control so badly you end up doing more damage.

Here’s the problem:  The University of Toledo currently has the most corrupt sports program in the country, with all the national news coverage that implies.

A faculty member seeks to control damage.  Let us see how she does it.

Let us first notice the very end of her letter, when she provides some identification for herself:

Alice Skeens

Associate professor
University of Toledo

Fine, a concerned Associate professor…

And now let’s look at an editorial note below her name, provided by the newspaper that published her letter:

Editor’s note: The writer is UT faculty athletic representative to the NCAA.

Oh whoops yeah forgot to mention I’m faculty athletic representative to the NCAA!  (It’s possible the writer provided this information to the paper, which chose to present things this way.  If so, a mistake.)

*******************************************

March 29, 2007, was a difficult day for the University of Toledo. That was the day federal investigators filed a criminal complaint against a former football player alleging that he had been a part of a point-shaving scheme.

This dark cloud follows UT athletics to this day, yet the investigation has always focused on the past.  [Dark cloud ushers us into a world of clichés.  It’s hard to get a whole world of clichés into a letter to the editor, but this writer has done it.]  [The investigation focuses on the past because the crime, like all past crimes now under investigation, occurred in the past.  If you catch my drift.  There are two reasons its darkness insists on pursuing UT:  One, it involved organized crime and betting on university games, which is REALLY REALLY dirty stuff, even by the dirty standards of bigtime university sports.  Two, the president of UT refuses to deal with it in an honest and forthright way.   Like this writer, he’s trying to, er, sweep this event under the scrapheap of history.]
Indictments filed last week appear to be the beginning of the end, focusing on a 13-month period from Nov. 19, 2005, to Dec. 19, 2006.  [The past, the beginning of the end… Like UT’s president, to whom this writer toadies, the idea is to convince you that something profoundly, lastingly, corrupt is ancient history.]

I have spent a majority of [Pompous, wordy.  Say most.] my 47-year career working with UT’s student athletes and I couldn’t agree more with [President Lloyd] Jacobs’ assessment that this period is truly behind us.  [Toady.] [And a very nice example of what SOS has said many times on this blog about the desperate use of intensifiers to make what you want to be true the truth.  It’s truly truly behind us, I tell you…]

In a June, 2007, editorial, The Blade described intercollegiate athletics as “a monster – like the mythical multiheaded serpent Hydra – that is nearly impossible to subdue.” It then went on to applaud President Jacobs for being “determined to try.” Accolades were earned by “implementing aggressive new procedures to tighten up athletics administration.”  [Passive voice — were earned by.]

Shakespeare aptly observed, “What’s past is prologue,” as history sets the stage for future actions.  [Well done, Bill! Shakespeare certainly gets an A in this professor’s class… To quote Shakespeare at all in this tawdry context is laughable, and to use the tight-ass aptly observed is … oh well.  I suppose the writer attempts to lend some tragic gravitas to this unfortunate, long-forgotten incident.  She accomplishes exactly the opposite.]  Responding to the events two years ago, the university implemented its new procedures, including “a comprehensive educational program for all student-athletes in areas such as gambling …” as reported in the Blade on June 14, 2007.

One can argue that the success of these programs is evidenced by the continued retrospective nature of the probe.  [Deadly writing:  One can argue.  Is evidenced by.  As SOS noted above, the retrospective nature of the probe — again, note the pomposity — has to do with the retrospective nature of the events.  To be more precise, they already happened.]

On May 10, The Blade called upon the administration to successfully address the situation, noting, “To countenance cheating creates a culture of corruption that not only hurts [the athletes] as players, teammates, and representatives of the university but also damages UT’s reputation and that of its sports programs.”

I could not agree more.  [Repeats this phrase; she said it a few paragraphs above.  A stiff inhuman writing style coupled with robotic repetitions of phrases – it just ain’t gonna get you there, honey.  Now, what you should have done is start like this:  I’m the faculty athletics representative, and I’ve always… And then whatever.  Say whatever the hell you want to say.  Tell a story.  Tell it from the heart.  But make it honest and human.  Don’t make it a press release from the president’s office.] That is why swift actions were taken two years ago and the university can say it has truly turned the page.   [The intensifier truly again.  Writing by machine.]  Our best years are yet to come.  [Ends with a flourish — her biggest cliché  yet.]

SOS thanks a reader for sending her this.