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The complex and delicate synergy…

… of America’s multiple university football scandals is touched on in this letter to the editor:

The juxtaposition of a cartoon about the Penn State scandal and Steve Ford’s column July 15 on the [University of North Carolina] athletics/academic mess caused me to think that, in a perverse way, UNC-Chapel Hill should thank Penn State. If the national media were not caught up in Penn State’s football-related criminality, they might be focused on UNC’s mendacity instead.

It’s like – how far back does your football scandal memory go? Isn’t the University of Miami already gone? Everybody was mega-fretting over that one so recently… And the letter writer’s right – Chapel Hill’s beyond-grotesque academic scandal (and unlike Penn State and U Miami, Chapel Hill has until recently been seen as a serious university) has evaporated in the Penn State shower-mist.

It’s an American thing. UD’s married to a Pole who comes from an old accomplished family. He remembers everything and everyone from the fourteenth century on. UD’s a typical American. Comes from nuthin and can’t remember – doesn’t know – anything from more than a couple of generations back.

In the case of football scandals, Americans can’t remember anything from more than a month back.

Margaret Soltan, July 22, 2012 11:33AM
Posted in: sport

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3 Responses to “The complex and delicate synergy…”

  1. francofou Says:

    Oh, come on! You must remember Dr. Dentons, Father Coughlin, Lamont Cranston, and Lydia Pinkham (not to mention WW I and the winning of the West).

  2. Anonymous Says:

    What?! The University of Miami’s scandal is already gone? Must be time for a new one:

    http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/21/2904868/report-university-of-miami-coach.html#moreb

    We’re #1!!!!! In scandals.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    francofou: I meant I can’t remember any family stuff more than two generations back. I have a vague grip on American history…

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