← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

What a pleasure to have American university life dominated by an organization which inspires comparisons like this one:

International soccer’s governing body has always been a punchline for corruption in sports. They make the NCAA look like UNICEF.

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

Yes, my dear little brothers in sport, our retreat last week was all about this primary fact: We stink to high heaven.

What will we do about it?

Nothing.

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

I mean, look up there. Two posts up. Headline Among the Company’s Expenses…

Do you seriously expect us to fuck with that?

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

Sweetie, I hear you. But it’s too late to get rid of the scum. And our next President, Rick Perry, wouldn’t hear of it.

My best advice to you: Try to get a job at a school that’s not a sports factory. There are plenty of fine colleges and universities in this country.

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

Another comparison.

“[P]rotecting and enhancing the integrity of intercollegiate athletics” … is the equivalent …of upholding the gold standard of the government of Somalia.

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

And never forget who’s running the show.

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

“It’s a circus. And the NCAA is running behind the elephants with shovels.

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

College football and men’s basketball are multi-billion-dollar businesses being run as an illegal cartel. So don’t say Congress or the President shouldn’t be “wasting time” on sports.

If the President and Congress make it clear to the university presidents that the system is completely unacceptable and they will lose all the tax breaks they currently enjoy if they do not do a complete tear-down, that will force action.

It sounds impossible. So did going to the moon. Sometimes you need to attempt the impossible. Especially when the current situation is completely sickening to witness.

Margaret Soltan, August 15, 2011 11:20AM
Posted in: sport

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=31961

3 Responses to “What a pleasure to have American university life dominated by an organization which inspires comparisons like this one:”

  1. Michael McNabb, Attorney Says:

    Yet there is something that can be done. See the final paragraph of Expensive Icing at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2011/08/twin-city-federal-stadium-university-of.html#links.

  2. Daniel S. Goldberg Says:

    The crucial difference is that as execrable as FIFA unquestionably is, they are not charged with the mission of higher education.

    IMO, this difference makes the NCAA, who otherwise unquestionably pale in comparison to FIFA, comparable in their overall “transgressiveness.”

  3. Joe Fruscione Says:

    From Inside HigherEd, 8/16/11:

    http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/08/16/essay_calling_for_elimination_of_division_i_football_and_basketball

    “Here’s a suggestion that would put an end to the scandals: abolish Division I football and basketball altogether, because they are hopelessly and irreparably corrupted by billion dollar television contracts and multimillion-dollar endorsement deals.”

    It would never happen, but it’s pretty to think so.

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