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Once you’ve made a hash of your school, a hashtag isn’t going to do any good.

Florida State University has a decade of cheating scandals, sports scandals, sports-related financial scandals, and football player assaults behind it. (For a reasonably full list, scroll down to the “Controversies” list on this page.) Its board of trustees is made up of a guy who used to be captain of the football team plus a bunch of football boosters. Its president is an inarticulate political hack who, like the notorious Gordon Gee, answers to the football coach. Its coach, like FSU coaches before him, seems able to get FSU to admit any person who plays superior football, regardless of criminal record. Many FSU fans consistently defend and demand the reinstatement of players who break the law in outrageous and frightening ways.

The ongoing pathetic hashtag campaign, initiated by an FSU professor who seems not to have been able to get off his ass before this to protest conditions at his school, will probably make matters worse for bottom-of-the-sports-schools-barrel FSU. The campaign notes the obvious and irrelevant fact that you can discover other activities going on at FSU besides football. Et alors?

They don’t call it the front porch of the university for nothing, babe.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t lecture UD about how you’ll never see ten thousand screaming fans in a John Milton seminar so shut up about our sports program, and then, when you’re cornered, say FSU has John Milton seminars so shut up about our sports program. It’s your fault that the only thing anyone notices about your school is sports, and that your best-known professor is Dale Olsen, who, you recall, served under football player/FSU President Wetherell.

UD doesn’t think you should feel bad about any of this, or seek to distort it via tweets. Become who you are! said Nietzsche. Own it.

Margaret Soltan, July 14, 2015 6:39AM
Posted in: sport

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4 Responses to “Once you’ve made a hash of your school, a hashtag isn’t going to do any good.”

  1. Van L. Hayhow Says:

    I had forgotten about good old Dale.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Van: Well, FSU’s counting on that.

  3. Van L. Hayhow Says:

    Good point.

  4. charlie Says:

    When speaking of FSU, how can anyone forget former coach Bobby Bowden, who owns this gem;

    “Coaches’ individual views may impact their decisions. Last year, the University of Miami banned players from carrying guns.

    Bobby Bowden said, after Parker’s arrest, that it would be hypocritical of him to ban guns at FSU since he owns a gun.

    Bowden feels, “”I hate to say this, but if you are in certain neighborhoods, you better have a gun. You have to protect yourself and your family. I really hate to say that, but it’s the way things have gotten.” ”

    bleacherreport.com/articles/25497-bobby-bowden-nick…

    If your life is so disordered that you need to have guns with you when you attend class, maybe college isn’t for you. I can’t remember the last time a firefight broke at any John Milton seminar. But you are talking about FSU…..

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