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‘He’s not Joe Paterno; he’s just some loudmouth in a windbreaker. Why are people lining up to defend this guy when he’s accused of such pointless cruelty?’

SOS says: Nice phrase: Some loudmouth in a windbreaker.

Margaret Soltan, August 16, 2018 9:35AM
Posted in: Scathing Online Schoolmarm

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6 Responses to “‘He’s not Joe Paterno; he’s just some loudmouth in a windbreaker. Why are people lining up to defend this guy when he’s accused of such pointless cruelty?’”

  1. charlie Says:

    In 2014, University of Maryland spent $155 million for athletic facilities upgrades, Baylor’s football stadium cost nearly $270 million. Most of the money came from bonds, so injuries, academics, common sense, mean nothing when debt has to be serviced.

    Back in 1965, then 21 year old Mario Savio gave his famous “place our bodies on the gears of the machine” speech at UC Berkeley. He decried the transformation of the university into a corporate enterprise, in which the students become nothing more than raw material. Maryland football players are, in fact, raw material needed to maintain the corporate style governance evident at USAAmerican universities. Don’t expect anything to change…..

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    charlie: I’m afraid you’re right. We can expect things to change for a little while. That’s all.

    The only way they really change is the SMU way – death penalty, which even 30 years later seems to have kept them from being competitive enough to kill any of their players.

    Or UMD may decide to shut down its football program – temporarily.

  3. charlie Says:

    UD, a few years ago, Northwestern University football players attempted to form a union. The reason was to have some say in their lives, that they had no time to actually be students and fulfill the student athlete advertising copy. The full weight of media, NCAA, and uni admins and boosters fell on those athletes, and the proposal was defeated. If scholarship okayers were unionized, it’s highly unlikely this young man would be dead….

  4. charlie Says:

    Or, as you say, don’t allow football teams to be good enough to kill people. That would be hilarious if it weren’t so god damn tragic….

  5. dmf Says:

    that’s well said Charlie, the land grant (Ag, Tech, Mining,Forestry) schools were established to extract/exploit resources and we shouldn’t be surprised when crony-capitalists and their pet legislators continue down that path, all too predictable.

  6. charlie Says:

    dmf, the second uni I attended was Oregon State, a land grant. Try getting them to make a stand against any big timber policy or scheme. Ain’t never gonna happen….

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UD REVIEWED

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