← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

“Disgusting.”

Occasionally, as in the recent University of Virginia trustees rebellion, you get a glimpse of what matters most to some of the people entrusted with the integrity of an intellectual institution.

For the chair of the University of South Florida trustees, the win/loss record of the football team is paramount. Minutes after the team’s latest loss, he fired off an email to the president’s chief of staff.

Disgusting and unacceptable.

Imagine the roiling emotions that set going the email now heard ’round the world. Imagine the Boone Pickens-like intensity of this man’s desire. Imagine what he’ll write to Judy Genshaft when the team finally wins one.

Oh Judy Judy Judy! I can hardly catch my breath! We’ll be topping the Shanghai Ranking this year!

Margaret Soltan, October 15, 2012 9:44AM
Posted in: sport

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=37666

3 Responses to ““Disgusting.””

  1. JND Says:

    You have to like this paragraph.

    “Ramil said he likes Holtz as a coach, was ‘totally impressed’ with him in his personal interactions, and he fully supports Woolard’s decision in June to give Holtz an extension through the 2017 season despite a 1-6 record in the Big East in 2011, citing interest from other top programs in hiring the coach away.”

    1-6 last year, and they gave him an extension. God forbid that some other school should hire away our losing coach!

  2. Contingent Cassandra Says:

    Does this man understand that, when you participate in win/loss endeavors such as sports (as opposed to say, research, or teaching, or even service, where any number of people can succeed at the same time, regardless of how well others are doing), there’s going to be a loser at least 50% of the time? Sure, one can throw money at trying to be a winner, and that will sometimes work, but is it really a good investment?

  3. Contingent Cassandra Says:

    Actually, correction — there will be *a* loser almost 100% of the time (unless there’s a tie, in which case there’s no winner, either). I wonder if they thought of themselves as trying to avoid losing rather than as trying to win it would adjust their perspective?

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