Colorado State, one of America’s more markedly delusional, testosterone-run universities, has just said goodbye to its slightly too-delusional athletic director, Jack Graham.

To be sure, everyone in charge there – trustees, high-level administrators – appears to share the whacked-out, Blanche DuBois personality I’ve isolated so often on this blog when talking about schools like University of Nevada Las Vegas (panting to build a $900 million stadium) and Colorado State. Like Blanche, they have much less money than they need to live the grand life they fantasize for themselves; but – again like Blanche – this in no way stops them from traipsing around telling everyone that they’re rich and grand.

CSU, for instance, insisted its rich gentleman callers (to allude to a different Tennessee Williams play) would give it mucho millions toward the big ol’ football stadium it was gonna build. Indeed, just the other day the soon-to-be-erstwhile CSU AD – Graham, that is – announced to a gathering that fund-raising was going swell, swell! But then right after that

CSU’s vice president for advancement Brett Anderson told the Coloradoan a day later that only $24.2 million had been raised as of June 30…

Bummer! Blanche DuCSU sits around in her gauzy duds waiting for gentleman callers to cough up $110 million… She has always depended on the kindness of strangers… And then… the pathos of no one showing up…

On the other hand, Graham is a university coach, so his exit will be a little more secure than Blanche’s:

[CSU] still [has] to pay his annual $260,000 salary in monthly installments through November 2016…

For, you know, doing nothing… Standard operating procedure, and one of many reasons why big-time sports are such a boon to the American university…

But anyway. When the Lord closes a Blanche window, he always opens a new Blanche door.

Tyler Shannon, who represents the pro-stadium group Be Bold group on the advisory committee … says donors have committed quite a bit more money to the stadium than the $24.2 million that’s already in the bank.

It’s all still hush-hush, mind you! We can’t let the information out yet! But there’s a LOT more money where that came from, believe me!!

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Local commentary sees the same DuBois pathos in play:

Please. Fort Collins is an affluent community. Just say it like it is. [CSU’s president] finally figured out that CSU completely botched selling the community on the project, and anti-stadium proponents effectively derailed the project. [CSU’s president] finally became uncomfortable, which was not unreasonable. Making music with Graham wasn’t working, and [the president] decided to save [his] reputation and let Jack go because Jack wasn’t giving up his dream.

Presumably CSU’s president has been peeing himself over the idea that the now-gone AD (a multimillionaire) was another Phil Knight (a billionaire). That Graham would, uh, ride in like a Knight in shining armor? … to put the few extra cents needed for the stadium into the piggy bank… ?

Sad, sad. Butterfly net time.