… must be current Job One for the trustees and boosters at Indiana University. Jock school presidents are supposed to keep their mouths shut about rule-breaking and cheating and crime on their teams. They’re supposed to leave the We’re waiting for all the facts to come out announcement to the Athletic Director.
Can you think of anything the president of the University of Alabama has ever said?
Page One in the jock school workbook quotes Gordon Gee, veteran jock school president.
Asked whether he had considered firing [Coach Jim] Tressel, Gee said: “No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear: I’m just hopeful the coach doesn’t dismiss me.”
****************
There’s something both inappropriate and pathetic about a jock school president who thinks what he says matters, and who actually lets himself get all puffed up about an athletic program that has absolutely nothing to do with him.
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie issued a blistering warning Tuesday to members of his athletic department staff, telling them player misbehavior had to stop.
McRobbie’s stern admonishment came during remarks at the department’s annual all-staff meeting, at which the president often shares his thoughts on the academic year ahead. Departing from his usual position as supportive but passive when it comes to athletics, McRobbie didn’t mince words when discussing the recent spate of off-the-field incidents that have made unwanted headlines in Bloomington.
… “What I do not want to see is any more stories of repeated student misbehavior. They embarrass the university, they embarrass all of you in Athletics, and they are a complete distraction from our primary role as an educational institution,” McRobbie said. “This misbehavior simply has to stop.”
Supportive but passive: The ideal jock school president is the iconic ‘fifties housewife, with a twist of Kay Adams-Corleone. McRobbie will soon be out on his ass.
September 9th, 2015 at 6:44PM
I teach at Indiana University, and I don’t think of it as a jock school. The basketball team, one year aside, has been mediocre since the odious Bobby Knight was belatedly fired. The football team has been atrocious forever and a day. If the football team were a humanities department, McRobbie would consider shutting it down. The only team that has won anything since I’ve been here is the soccer team, and soccer–football to the cognoscenti–is the most un-American of sports. A draw? What on earth is that? McRobbie did take a swipe at a couple of the sports teams, but I don’t think there’s a chance on earth that will get him fired.
McRobbie won’t be fired because he’s as neo-liberal as they get. The Business School is booming, and the new School of Global and International Studies just got up and off the ground. If Indiana had the equivalent of the Wisconsin Idea, I fear McRobbie would abolish it. The university still has an excellent music school, and McRobbie lived up to his promise of opening a new, top of the line cinema on campus. That aside, however, the university is becoming as soullessly vocational as any Republican trustee might wish. McRobbie is no Herman B. Wells, but if doesn’t get poached by somewhere else, he’s in for a long run as President.
September 9th, 2015 at 7:43PM
Strether: Many thanks for those details from one who knows. I will defer to you on the future of McRobbie. If athletics is less powerful than I’ve assumed, then his job is safe.