Will the rise of Trump — suddenly the most famous Penn alumnus on the planet — actually bring the school down?

Penn has apparently always felt inferior relative to other Ivies because its alumni are very underrepresented among American presidents.

But hey – Penn might be on the verge of hitting it big!

And that should be a source of pride. But the Penn alum in question —

“Who would mock a disability? I would never. I’m a smart person. I went to the Wharton School of Finance.”

—

is both an embarrassment and a serious threat to the brand. Some on campus propose that Penn somehow repudiate the person in question – rather in the way Temple repudiated Cosby…

Well, it doesn’t become a real problem unless he wins.

[Sing along.]

Free from the law — oh, happy condition!
Rapists have fled, and there is remission;
Cursed by the law but saved from the fall,
Starr hath redeemed us once for all.

Now we are free — there’s no condemnation;
Baylor provides a perfect salvation:
“Come unto Me,” oh, hear its sweet call,
Come, and it saves us once for all.

The men of Vandy football: The biggest bruisers out there.

Take that, Harvard soccer weenies!

La Kid and a friend support

Irish abortion rights.

Seen on our walk this afternoon

through Garrett Park, Maryland.

If it bleeds, it leads, and if it’s Harvard it leads too. If the Harvard men’s soccer team has been keeping fuckability “scouting reports” on members of the women’s team, the eyes of the nation must as one swivel to Cambridge, and everyone must feign astonishment that a country whose incoming president compulsively grabs pussy also contains high-SAT men who consider women animated vaggies.

Ecoute. I cover SEC players. I really can’t get it up for the Harvard story.

Just outside the Garrett Park Post Office
this afternoon, as I held the package of
Tangier tea that I’d just picked up there.

Longtime readers know that UD uses that term to designate the tendency of the local booster press to respond to violent university football players by focusing not on the scandal of American schools recruiting people who rape and/or beat up their students, but rather on the sainted martyred suffering university football coaches who only meant well when they pulled out all the stops to attract Richie Incognito and others like him to our campuses. Let’s not talk about the gross neglect demonstrated by admitting dangerous people precisely because they’re dangerous (you want to assemble groups of big nasty types for the team – results range from Baylor on down); let’s talk about the poignant disappointment of Father Coach as he watches his wonderful lads go astray…

So there’s a perfect current example of Coacha Inconsolata, written by a University of Oregon hack. Let’s scathe through it, starting with its headline.

Eddie Heard’s Arrest Another
Headache Mark Helfrich Doesn’t Need

Did he give himself the headache? Yes – he and his recruiting guys went after people they knew posed an off-field threat. The important thing now is for everyone in the community – led by the hack – to forget that and to express shock and despair on behalf of the coach who just knew this guy would make an exemplary gentleman scholar… a more than worthy addition to the Oregon campus community…

[Coach] Mark Helfrich might want to buy stock in Advil.

The 2016 Oregon football season has been one headache after another with a bad defense, changing quarterbacks and a five-game losing streak. His job security has been under fire and only let up some with last week’s win and will quickly heat back up if or when USC defeats the Ducks on Saturday.

God knows how he’ll weather a possible humongous buyout from his “a five-year, $17.5 million contract worth an average of $3.5 million per season.” If you have tears, prepare to shed them now...

Now news comes out that linebacker Eddie Heard has been arrested on Wednesday evening on misdemeanor charges of fourth-degree assault and harassment that was a result of an incident at an off-campus bar. Heard was immediately suspended for Oregon’s upcoming game, but more importantly, the incident is just another unwanted issue that Helfrich needs to explain to the media.

… To Helfrich’s credit, however, he seems to be on top of the situation. Chip Kelly didn’t have many weaknesses in his time at Oregon, but dealing with off-the-field problems wasn’t his strong suit. He was often slow to recognize those issues and tended to “get all of the information” before acting. Helfrich suspended Heard the very next day after Heard’s arrest.

This good and great man! Now comes news that one of the bruisers he recruited beat up a student! How much can one person bear? But listen – here’s the good news. Unlike the last coach, with all his bruiser arrests, this one dumps the guy right away.

While everything wasn’t rosy on campus, things were beginning to take a turn and a win over USC on the road might complete that turn with the thoughts of the Ducks might be contenders once again next season.

That still may be the narrative around 8 pm Saturday night. Oregon is a double-digit underdog and an upset would be huge.

Heard’s arrest, however, puts a temporary halt to the good feelings that were just starting to become apparent at Oregon.

This is straight out of the Monty Python restaurant sketch.

Manager: It gets me here. I can’t give you any excuses for it – there are no excuses. I’ve been meaning to spend more time in the restaurant recently, but I haven’t been too well. Things aren’t going very well back there. The poor cook’s son has been put away again, and poor old Mrs Dalrymple who does the washing up can hardly move her poor fingers, and then there’s Gilberto’s war wound – but they’re good people, and they’re kind people, and together we were beginning to get over this dark patch. There was light at the end of the tunnel… now this… now this!!

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

Hey ladies! Duck!

Details on the latest player assaults… against women.

Damn. What’s up with Georgia Tech? “Administrators” overruling coaches who want to keep players who beat the shit out of their fellow students on the field? That’s fucked up, man.

The Eagle: The ultimate American symbol.

Football: The ultimate American game.

The lineup!

… Philadelphia Eagles’ … wide receiver Josh Huff was arrested on the Walt Whitman Bridge on Tuesday and charged with speeding and possession of marijuana…

… Huff was in possession of [an unregistered] gun.

… Linebacker Nigel Bradham faces charges after he was caught with a loaded gun in his backpack in a Miami airport last month.

He also has been charged with assault in connection with a July incident during which he allegedly hit a hotel employee in Florida.

Wide receiver Nelson Agholor was investigated when a stripper alleged sexual assault during a visit to a Philly strip joint in July. No charges were filed.

Offensive lineman Lane Johnson is serving a 10-game suspension for use of performance enhancing drugs.

UD‘s friend Courtney, applying to law school, received this.

Waiving application fees is now apparently pretty standard; the Amazon gift card is, I think, something new.

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

Update: Also on offer: Starbucks cards and hundreds of dollars worth of travel expenses. (See this post’s comment thread.)

… but meanwhile there’s a blog about universities to maintain, and I just happen to have some stuff here that I think you might like…

Close to home, there’s the fun story of one of the fraternities at UD‘s place of business, George Washington University. We’ve had to pay a lot of attention to fraternities on this blog, given the hilarious disconnect between what many of these cults broadcast about themselves and what they actually are/do. The American university frat story is a subset of the American university big-time sports story, in which these closely allied units grab our elbow and direct their alcoholic breath to our face in order to bray about their charity car washes and team work and brotherly love and inspirational school spirit. And we buy it, which is pretty remarkable…

So yet another GW frat has been shut down or suspended or whatever (happens constantly), but this time it’s not about the routine gruesome party or trashed hotel.

The chapter was under investigation after DC Leaks hacked the personal email account of a White House staffer and alumnus, which included messages from Pi Kappa Phi’s Listserv from February 2015 to June 2016. GW’s Greek life official said in a message sent to students that the chapter was shut down after officials found information that showed the group had violated University standards.

No, it’s not Clinton/Weiner-level; but you gotta admit in its own small way it’s kind of impressive. A just-graduated GW person, fraternity prez, moves too quickly to the White House, still “being dead in his sins and the uncircumcision of his flesh,” (Colossians 2:13), and his frat-prez correspondence gets a high-level hack, which if you’re GWU you’re likely to find a mite embarrassing.

Pi Kappa Phi was [already] under disciplinary and social probation until Dec. 31, 2015 for hosting a registered off-campus event with alcohol where several attendees – some of whom were underage – had to be treated at a hospital for overconsumption of alcohol. The chapter had been on social restriction until June 30.

But that’s a trifle here. That’s like… Aren’t all fraternities under social restriction? Let’s get to the good stuff.

The email hack included Listserv messages instructing members to watch out for puking pledges, [and to] contribute to a slush fund; [the messages also included] anti-semitic remarks calling members “Jewish” for not donating to philanthropic events.

“This is such a bad violation of recruitment policies [responded our man] and nationals could royally fuck us if they wanted to… I’m not being a narc but you gotta at least keep a clean paper,” he wrote.

An April 2016 email reprimanded two fraternity members for yelling “fuck you you fucking faggot” at their gay neighbor for 20 minutes during a party, which allegedly led the neighbor to consider pressing criminal charges.

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

And here’s something from the big-time sports part of the frat/sports industrial complex.

The University of Memphis. Put university memphis in this blog’s search engine and feast your eyes on one of America’s most lurid locations of any kind, much less a university location. Memphis, like Auburn and Clemson and Baylor, is one of those schools that UD grudgingly admires for their determination to be faithful to what they truly are: totally amoral football-game-makers. Scummy cheating coaches flying high on zillion dollar salaries; broad-shouldered who-gives-a-shit trustees; recruits who spend so much time on the field, or playing video games, or shooting guns, that UD worries they might not have enough time to get their schoolwork done…

University of Memphis football players Jae’Lon Oglesby and Kam Prewitt fought Tuesday night over video games and Prewitt was later taken to a local hospital because of injuries to his mouth, according to a university incident report obtained Thursday morning.

Oglesby told university police that the fight took place between 9 and 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Carpenter Complex, a residential building on campus. Oglesby said he then left the complex and returned to his apartment, which is located off campus on Patterson Street. Officers subsequently visited Prewitt’s apartment to check on him and determined that he needed medical attention, according to the university incident report.

Gunshots were fired at a car belonging to Oglesby after 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to a police report. Oglesby told officers that he did not see who fired the shot but that he had been in an altercation with Prewitt earlier in the day.

And that was Tuesday night! Homework night! Imagine what they’re up to on Saturday.

… dawns chilly and cold. Autumn again,
after the strange brief summer at the beach.

A woman in a white bikini stands on the edge of the Atlantic at the very end of October in Delaware. Take that, Miami.

Smell of booze among the observers profound. Everyone – except for Les UDs, natch – clutches a cup with ice.

Conversation next to me.

“Sit down, bud. I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, what?”

“About your bein’ investigated.”

“Later, man.”

“No. What happened. Why are they after you.”

“Later.”

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

Marijuana Dog.

… my beach chair.