← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

A matter of fairness.

[Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell] should tell the whole world what an absolute shame it would be if [Coach] Bobby [Bowden’s]’s iconic career is tainted because of the malfeasance of others. He should point out how unfair it would be for Bobby’s reputation to be disgraced because some nameless, faceless tutors helped FSU football players cheat in an online music course.

This kind of statement, from Mike Bianchi in the Boston Herald, upsets UD.

There’s an elemental unfairness in dismissing FSU’s tutors as nameless and faceless. They have names; they have faces. They’re human beings, and they deserve to be recognized for their part in the nation’s largest cheating scandal.

But what Bianchi also overlooks is that they were only little cogs in the big cheating machine that is Florida State University.

Why make it appear they acted alone? No one group of people can create an entire university devoted to academic violations on behalf of sport. There’s the music course’s professor, a notoriously negligent instructor whose course had served FSU athletes well for decades until something went tragically awry. There’s the university’s board of trustees, willing to do their part to keep everyone stupid and unethical. There’s the university’s coaching staff who recruited the players. And of course there’s Wetherell himself, who continues to preside over a massive joke at the expense of Florida’s taxpayers.

Give credit where it’s due, says University Diaries.

Margaret Soltan, September 11, 2009 7:25AM
Posted in: sport

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=17393

5 Responses to “A matter of fairness.”

  1. david foster Says:

    A couple of years ago, there was a fire on an aircraft carrier that did substantial amounts of damage and injured several sailors. The fire was caused by a sailor smoking in a paint locker, totally against regulations and common sense.

    The captain of the ship wasn’t the one doing the smoking, and he certainly never told anybody that it was OK to do so. But he lost his job.

    Maybe university sports programs could use some Navy-style accountability.

  2. francofou Says:

    Same story at the University of Illinois. After the admissions scandal, a new board of trustees has approved a new admissions policy, as if the fault lay with the admissions officers, when in fact they tried to resist the meddling and corruption from above.
    The faculty, courageous as usual, has said nothing, except for 48 highly paid people who wrote a letter defending the party guilty of short-changing hundreds of applicants.
    The faculty senate has delayed a vote on the matter until Monday. I wonder how they will vote: make a strong recommendation that the guilty parties be fired? decide that they want to give the new trustees a chance to make a determination?

  3. Mr Punch Says:

    The defense is all the more misguided because, as I understand it, Bowden hasn’t really done hands-on coaching for years. He oversees the program in which the problems have arisen; that’s his job, and the failures are his responsibility. He’s been hanging on to set the record for coaching wins, and he’s stayed too long — a common human failing, and human tragedy.

    On the other hand, his rival, Joe Paterno, has run his program so as to contribute to the long-term improvement of Penn State; whereas FSU, once considered the best university in Florida, has lost ground during Bowden’s tenure.

    He’s not winning this one.

  4. University Diaries » One of UD’s All-Time Favorite University Stories… Says:

    […] retire and all and they wanna protect his win record and all… Journos are pissed too — Mike Bianchi says it’s not fair to hurt the coach just because “some nameless, faceless tutors […]

  5. University Diaries » Once you’ve made a hash of your school, a hashtag isn’t going to do any good. Says:

    […] State University has a decade of cheating scandals, sports scandals, sports-related financial scandals, and football player assaults behind […]

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories