… Southern Methodist University today, shall we? There are scads of colleges and universities in this country, but only a few – Florida A&M, Penn State, University of Miami, University of North Carolina – get to hog the spotlight. So profound is our ‘radically present’ orientation (to quote the theorists of postmodernity) that we tend to miss precisely those schools with the deepest histories of squalor.
In the case of SMU, which adds piquancy to its sordidness by including a religious denomination in its name, it’s been notably vile ever since its long-ago death penalty, a signal distinction within a national landscape of dirty sports programs. SMU has not let the fact that the program remains moribund stop it from accumulating – last year – a one hundred million dollar athletic deficit.
Nor has the fantastic campus culture of the sports factory faltered in the wake of SMU’s misfortune. Secrecy about the budget even as they soak the students for higher and higher athletics fees? Check. Sodden frat boys befouling all they touch? Check. Violent hazing? Check. I mean, that last one – hazing – hit the news today, but it got lost, since hazing and sexual assault and all that seem de rigueur, comme il faut and la chose normale at SMU. I just thought I’d draw your attention to it for a moment.
February 18th, 2013 at 6:34PM
isn’t that the home of the Bush center? how fitting…
February 18th, 2013 at 7:46PM
Why do they call it the “death penalty” when there is always a resurrection?
February 18th, 2013 at 7:57PM
Polish Peter: LOL.
February 18th, 2013 at 10:37PM
Polish Peter: They call it the death penalty precisely because there IS a resurrection. It is all ordained, of course.