University of Richmond luminary and all-around first-rate researcher, teacher, and human being Rick Mayes has proposed that the university end its football program.
What? What? Are you fucking kidding me?
Well, you know, this sort of thing will happen when you choose a reflective, principled person to be your faculty athletics representative. That and that alone is where UR went wrong. The faculty athletics representative is supposed to be an old jock desperate for free game tickets and occasional face time with the players. Rick Mayes is all wrong for faculty athletics representative.
Gory details, from his recent email to faculty:
I have come to the conclusion that it’s hard-to-impossible to consistently make DI-level sports conform and submit to the primary institutional focus on academics, because there’s just too much money and ambition involved… [A]fter three years of watching and studying sports up close, I believe UR’s long-term academic interests lie with D3-level sports and football being phased out over time due to legal, liability, and safety reasons. [Given the likelihood of concussion lawsuits,] this big-team sport and significant financial commitment could conceivably become extinct within the next two to three decades. Might it not be desirable to get out ahead of that potential outcome for the sake of our student athletes’ health and our institution’s financial long-term interests, not to mention our consciences?
Consciences the guy is talking about! And jeez – Watch his Last Lecture! He’s all about Dietrich Bonhoffer and shit! Who appointed this character??
Still – don’t sweat it. UR’s prez and athletic director and everybody else has come down on Mayes like a ton of offensive linemen. Of course we’re keepin’ football! Are you kidding me? Pay no attention to the man behind the conscience.
June 11th, 2013 at 2:41PM
I didn’t see a link to a story about the email. Is there one? Truth be told, I often find the hyperlinking here confusing and unpredictable — it’s often guesswork as to which of the highlighted text is linked to the story to which you’re responding. Just FYI.
June 11th, 2013 at 2:47PM
Whoops – I linked to everything but the main thing. Hold on. UD.
June 11th, 2013 at 7:52PM
The president and the AD are now scratching their heads and saying “How’d that happen? Who asked this guy to be the faculty athletic rep?” Actually, Mayes says something key, noting that it’s not just money but ambition that corrupts D-1 athletics. College athletics attracts a lot of people without good moral compasses who want to rise up the ladder of fame and glory, fast.
May 8th, 2015 at 9:21AM
[…] professors, a handful of heroes, who have been willing to stand up to the abuse. (Some of them are here, here, here, here, and […]