← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

I make twelve million dollars a year. You walk by my monument every day. I am your liege. And yet you fail to swear fealty to me.

It is because you are so entitled.

************

It’s an age-old problem, and it’s hitting, of all places, ‘bama. The smarter your students, the less likely they are to do something as stupid as go to a football game.

So, you know, you make the argument that football deserves all this revenue cuz it’s going to make the school so much better, and in ‘bama’s case it does. It does make the school better. Much smarter students have been enrolling.

However: The fewer your drunken dipshits, the emptier your seats; and ‘bama’s student section is emptying out, man. Big-time.

I believe the pertinent phrase is victim of your own success. Hoist by your own petard.

************

You know it’s getting really bad when the local press starts trying to educate ‘bama students in how to be fans.

[I]f Alabama fans really wanted to help create a home-field advantage inside Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday, then they wouldn’t drink (too much) alcohol before the game.

Most Alabama fans don’t know what it’s like to go four quarters in the heat, but it’s tough work. It’s a process, and that process starts long before game time. Look, it’s going to be dangerously hot on Saturday. Don’t be that fan passing out in the fourth quarter. Be safe. Drink something other than Pappy’s whiskey.

These instructions might be meaningful to the great-grandchildren of tenant farmers; I doubt out-of-state merit scholars looking for low tuition will make much sense of instructions about game attendance that involve fine-tuning your alcoholism so that you can withstand hours of torturous heat.

***************

Tsar Nicky’s anger with his subjects grows with each game. Eventually he will order a random group of non-ticket-holders lined up at the very top of the stadium and shot so as to fall ever so slowly all the way down to his statue. The rest of the students will get the message.

Margaret Soltan, October 6, 2018 9:06AM
Posted in: sport

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=59345

3 Responses to “I make twelve million dollars a year. You walk by my monument every day. I am your liege. And yet you fail to swear fealty to me.”

  1. dmf Says:

    better students might be part of the equation but more likely the growing number of entertainment alternatives (even on the kids’ phones) is really the killer just as church attendance dropped when other options opened on sundays

  2. charlie Says:

    What Little Nicky failed to mention is that students must pay for those football tickets. Gone are the days when Bama tuition coveted the cost of sports attendance, and all you had to do was flash your ID card to get in. Now, UA’s football payroll is among the highest in the nation, tuition has exploded in order to finance athletic buildouts, but none of that matters to The Crimson Clown. Buy those Bama vs Rajun Cajun ass kicking tickets, or Little Nicky will get mad…

  3. john Says:

    Tip No.3: Students should never leave.

    Why do students leave at halftime? Where do they go, the library?

    Wow…

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories