… that classic mode of American letters, the apologia for the depraved university football program.
Local Minnesota booster/journalist Chip Scoggins shows you how it’s done for that state’s benighted school. Let us do a close reading.
Tone-wise, the big sustained thing, the ground tone, is a variant of Coacha Inconsolata (put the phrase in my search engine if you’re not yet familiar with it), in which shock, heartbreak, and an indomitable will to be shocked and heartbroken again rule. Have at me! says the bankrupt befouled and humiliated campus…
Oh my men I love them so
They’ll never know
All my life is just despair
But I don’t care
When they take me in their arms
The world is bright – all right!
What’s the difference if I say
I’ll go away
When I know I’ll come back on my knees someday…
Texas Tech is the nation’s sluttiest pain slut, hands down. Penn State assumes the crown if for any reason the current titleholder cannot fulfill her reign. The University of Minnesota is one of the five semi-finalists.
Why, just four days ago, before UM’s Athletic Director, via text, volunteered his muffdiving services to some random woman, Chip was burbling about how the program had finally begun to regain its respectability (church groups were mentioned). Now it’s back to the post-oral-sex-offer, pre-alcohol-rehab-stint status quo, and Chip’s got some familiar heavy lifting to do.
Headline: Teague Scandal Rocks Gophers Athletics Amid Recent Gains
Always give them some shred to hold onto – allude to vaguely defined gains.
Opinion piece summary: The accumulation of disappointment over the years — NCAA violations, misdeeds, awful hires, heartbreaking defeats — has created this perception that the U can’t get out of its own way.
A couple of points here. Note how the random expected fact of lost games gets included in this list of self-inflicted misfortunes. All teams lose games, but at masochistic schools it’s always one heartbreaking loss after another, and what’s a girl to do?
Note further: The “U can’t get out of its own way.” What does this particular formulation mean? It means that the stupid stubborn fact of a university, of all things, having to run a football program is once again the stumbling block. Where the hell does a university get off running a football program? You want to run a football program, be like Alabama and Clemson and get rid of the university!
The Gophers athletic department suffered another black eye that brought the kind of negative, unwanted attention that has become all too familiar.
No one felt surprised. That’s the sad part.
Again, always keep it more in sorrow than in anger. Sad. Sad.
Oh, we’re all shocked by the lewd details, the fact that a person in Norwood Teague’s position would act like such a Neanderthal. But not shocked that something like this happened to the Gophers, another deep dive into a pile of dung.
… Within hours of Teague’s resignation as athletic director, three people sent me text messages. A former university employee, a die-hard fan and a booster. All shared a similar theme in their words.
Here we go again.
It’s fair to guess that employees inside the department shared that same deflation of morale, which is too bad because a lot of earnest, hardworking, passionate folks work in the Bierman complex. They deserve better.
Shocked? Really? But as SOS points out above, it’s crucial for schools like Minnesota to keep an ever-refreshed stock of shock alongside heartbreak. A man coming on like that to a woman? What a shockingly lewd Neanderthal! In Minnesota, stuff like this is just so unfunny and shocking…
University President Eric Kaler tried hard to create a clear divide between Teague’s conduct and his school’s image, saying one man’s deplorable actions shouldn’t define an entire operation.
Please. UM doesn’t belong to its president any more than Joe Paterno’s Penn State belonged to whoever that dude was who made the public service announcements.
Instability at key positions in college sports — AD, football and basketball coaches — stunts momentum and forces athletic departments to continually hit the reset button. The Gophers know that too well. They need normalcy for once.
But constant administrative turnover, hugely expensive buyouts and lawsuits, relentlessly criminalized teams, and of course indifferent students who fail to fill up the brand new hugely expensive stadium is normalcy at jockshops like Minnesota. There are no earnest prudes in Bierman; there are only suckers. Everybody else is studying or whatever.
Teague ultimately proved to be a bad hire by Kaler, and the president can’t swing and miss on such an important position again. The Gophers carry a $105 million athletic budget. This is not a mom-and-pop operation.
See SOS‘s point above. You hire some goddamn academic to run a football program and this is the kind of dumbass hiring decision that gets made. Lose the president. Get Jim Tressel on the phone!
Those who cling to the idyllic perception of college athletics probably resent the fact that football and basketball are placed on a pedestal above every other sport, but that’s the reality now.
Sing it sister. But take it a teeny step further and tell the whole truth.
Those who cling to the idyllic perception of college athletics probably resent the fact that football and basketball are placed on a pedestal above every other activity on the UM campus, but that’s the reality now.
See? That was easy. That didn’t hurt.
The Gophers AD, Norwood Teague,
Got caught up in a bit of intrigue.
His request to go down
Drew an unfriendly frown
And now he is out of his league.
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UD thanks Roy.
… denied entry to the University of Minnesota! Google News is all lit up! Who knew that school gave a shit about whether incoming freshmen could speak the language??
I mean, he “passed the NCAA Clearinghouse,” and if you’re looking for academic rigor, go no further than the NCAA… So what’s Minnesota’s problem? Getting all pissy and selective lately, are we? Oh we’re very posh… terribly upper crust …
The best minds at our universities continue to study the question that hangs in the air like an augury of doom over higher education in America: Why aren’t students coming to football games?
Universities took on tens of millions in debt to build new stadiums; they fucked up their admissions standards but good and have as a result weathered countless academic fraud scandals; they pay the coach five million dollars a year. The starting assistant conditioning coach makes one hundred times more than the resident Nobel Prize winner. And what’s the profit? What, goddammit, is the point?
In desperation, most of these schools have become purveyors of alcohol, rushing about from row to row scraping and bowing to booze hounds because this… this, if nothing else, will guarantee attendance…
But if you concentrate all your alcoholics, you’ve got to spend money on more security people, which cuts into any alcohol profits… And actually – the unkindest cut of all – a lot of students (see the guy quoted in this post’s headline) are kind of grossed out by the spectacle in the stadium — a phalanx of armed guards to keep the drunks in order… It doesn’t really feel all game-day festive … Ah the sweet collegiate glory of amateur sports… Fond memories of obscene lolling drunks glared at by goons…
The best minds can kick it around all they want, but the reason is quite clear. AGS: Accumulated Gross-Out Syndrome. At some point, your venture is so disgusting that most people want no part of it. (There are too many disgusting elements to list here, but consider just these two. There’s what an article about Virginia Tech’s no-shows delicately calls an “overly commercialized… video board presentation,” and – speaking of commercialized – the total domination of the stadium experience by the television channel that’s broadcasting the game.) That’s where big-time university athletics is today. And I’m sorry, but there are no recorded instances of AGS-reversal. In your desperation, you just keep making it worse. Look for universities to offer heroin shooting galleries next.
Oh, plus there are lots of regular, non-student, empty seats.
Yes, TCF Stadium, when the University of Minnesota made its case to hit up state taxpayers and students for it, was going to be such a big deal, such a big success…
Since the 50,800-seat stadium opened in 2009, the number of student season-ticket holders has dropped from 10,248 to 4,953 last year.
Oh and we’ve been treated, since the opening of this pathetic hole, to the entire panoply of excuses – no alcohol (they fixed that), the team loses sometimes, heavy traffic, it’s really a commuter school (but TCF Stadium was going to strengthen the campus community!), bad WiFi, competition from tv…
Hey. Did anybody mention all of that while people were discussing whether they wanted to spend everyone’s money on a huge new stadium?
Did anybody talk to any students?
… [W]hen I arrived at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2005, I didn’t identify myself as a Gopher. I came to study and get my degree, not to frolic in the flamboyance of our college sports teams and most certainly not to fund a $288.5 million TCF Bank Stadium. Yet this was an identity that was forced upon me. It was built into my tuition. It was assumed, because I lived within the University community, that of course I was a Gophers football fan and that I would have no qualms about chipping in for the sake of sport. It is a ridiculous and insulting assumption … We should be fighting for the separation of university life from collegiate sports. … Yes, TCF Bank Stadium has already been built, but we still have time to rethink the future of university sports. The recession affords us the opportunity to look critically at the institutions we have designed, modify them and maybe even start over…
OTOH, that separation she’s talking about is definitely happening. Professional coach, professional players, professional stadium, almost exclusively non-students in the stands… It’s happening!
It takes a lot of tax revenue to bail out the University of Minnesota’s football and basketball programs.
That the Gophers were in better shape than before [just-fired football coach Tubby] Smith arrived left some people wondering whether the [firing] made sense, especially financially. The university has been under scrutiny for its administrative costs, described as out of control by a January Wall Street Journal report.
The university had already paid more than $4 million since 2006 to former coaches Monson (basketball), Glen Mason (football) and Tim Brewster (football).
Smith’s three-year extension signed last July raised his buyout after this season from $1.5 million to $2.5 million.
Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, said she would not enter a debate on whether the firing was justified.
“But it is my responsibility to provide oversight to financial management,” she said. “And I was concerned that his contract was extended with an increased buyout if there were concerns about his performance.”
Yes, that was strikingly stupid wasn’t it, doubling his buyout months before firing him.
There’s no indication that the citizens of Minnesota care that big stretches of their university are run by stupid people.
University basketball: The excitement never stops!
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The trend will deepen.
Sporting-event attendance to drop in 2013: “The confluence of high ticket prices, better at-home media viewing and the desire to share athletic experiences with others via social media will result in more tickets being discounted and more seats being empty,” said Andrew Billings, the Ronald Reagan Endowed Chair in Broadcasting in UA’s College of Communication and Information Sciences’ telecommunication and film department.
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The schools that not long ago dropped immense sums on immense stadiums are the most farcical losers.
The State of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota collaborated to bring us a new stadium that the market could not bear. Now it’s empty.
Google Map UD‘s house and you don’t see a house. All you see are trees. Zoom in as much as you like. No house. Trees. Somewhere under that canopy is a little brown house, but the trees swallowed it up.
There are a couple of reasons why UD‘s house is over-forested, why it’s more like a country than a city house, even though it’s in the city.
Yes, UD‘s part of Maryland is urban, and getting more so by the minute. Development around the green island of Garrett Park – the town where UD lives – is rampant.
Which makes it all the more surreal to UD that her life in the little brown house is powerfully dominated by the natural world. Have all the animal and plant species displaced by development moved to Rokeby Avenue?
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Garrett Park itself has long been an arboretum, with immense trees everywhere. And the town’s always planting more.
UD‘s neighbors and old friends the Pratts own a strip of woods next to UD‘s house. From these woods each August UD harvests giant puffball mushrooms. The same woods hold the graciously rotting branches of immense trees that have, over many years, fallen during wind storms.
Farther up the slope of UD‘s half-acre, the Pratt woods hold large families of deer. One of the families just produced two fawns whose spotted bounciness UD grudgingly admits (she hates deer) is adorable.
Continuing along to the edge of these woods at the top of UD‘s property, we come to another reason her house has disappeared under trees: the railroad. CSX owns the land immediately adjacent to its tracks, which means yet more forest.
One summer we came back from a stay at our little house near Cooperstown and found a dead deer at the foot of our back deck. The smell was outrageous. The guy who took it away said it was probably hit by a train and then staggered down to our house.
Hang a left back toward UD‘s property and we find, under centuries of wild grape, a fox den. The fox feast on the rabbits all over UD‘s lawns. From a tree back there, at night, horned owls swoop down on baby squirrels.
This year, for the first time, I’m seeing gophers.
The most exotic thing I’ve ever seen on my land is a mink.
You say mink need water sources? Another reason UD lives with so much wildlife is that her house lies near Rock Creek.
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UD is under surveillance by a number of these animals, in particular the fox and deer. They are always watching from the edges of the woods.
UD used to see a lot of racoons and opossums, but she doesn’t anymore. I’m sure they’re out there.
Box turtles sunbathe in the vinca.
Elphaba, a toad, took up residence on UD‘s front stoop one season, and that was wonderful. Magical. You’d flip on the light at night and she’d be gulping down bugs.
Last May I stepped on a big garter snake. Now when I enter thickets to cut trailing whatevers, I scan the ground.
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Even as I blog, Adam from The Beekeepers is shoveling up a huge yellow jacket nest next to my house. I’ve been aware of it for years, but everyone left everyone alone until yesterday, when I moved the lawnmower over the mound. Out they came, stinging my ankles pretty badly.
I unplugged the mower, shook off the yellow jackets (luckily I was wearing gloves), ran into the house, bathed my ankles in soap and hot water, placed ice cubes wrapped in cloth around my ankles, took a Benadryl and a Tylenol, and tried to calm down.
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Wow. I didn’t even get to the birds. Last week I found two dead, not-out-of-the-nest babies – one at the end of my driveway, the other on the front lawn.
What we’ve mainly got are robins, cardinals, mourning doves, cat birds, grackles, wrens, and blue jays. I don’t see them often, but I hear wood thrushes every night and every morning – a gorgeous sound.
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Adam and I chat at my front door. The afternoon is sunny, with mild wind and low humidity.
He couldn’t find the nest. He put down a white powder which will kill most of the wasps, and he’s coming back on Friday to see how things are. Maybe he’ll find the nest by then. Even if he doesn’t, he guarantees that they won’t come back.
But for the next few days “you have quite a few angry wasps out there, flying around wondering where their home went. They’re going to be looking for someone to blame. I’d stay away from that area, or use caution.”
… has been found dead. His roommate “found him about 7:40 a.m. on the floor of their room in Roy Wilkins Hall.” It’s not yet known how he died.
From the Minnesota Star-Tribune:
“It’s a disaster over there,” said Phil Ebner, once a captain of Minnesota’s golf team and a former board member of the “M” Club of former Gophers athletes. “The leadership just isn’t there, and it boggles the mind that they allow this guy to make mistake after mistake. It costs a lot of money.”
Specifically, [University of Minnesota Athletic Director Joel] Maturi’s critics say he has looked the other way while the men’s hockey and women’s basketball programs wither into irrelevance. The Gophers don’t sell out their new football stadium, costing the school critical revenue.
… Minnesota’s Legislature might consider reducing higher-education funding, which would force the 25-sport athletic department to sustain itself without the $2.3 million subsidy the university provides, a 3 percent contribution toward the $78 million athletic budget.
… A lawsuit brought by Jimmy Williams, a basketball assistant whom Smith tried to hire and Maturi rejected, cost the university a $1 million judgment last May. Katie Brenny, an associate golf coach, filed suit last week alleging she was marginalized because she is a lesbian, an allegation that risks another large payout. And speaking of payouts, firing basketball coach Dan Monson and two football coaches, Brewster and Glen Mason, meant paying buyouts totaling roughly $6 million.
#1:
… [W]hen I arrived at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 2005, I didn’t identify myself as a Gopher. I came to study and get my degree, not to frolic in the flamboyance of our college sports teams and most certainly not to fund a $288.5 million TCF Bank Stadium. Yet this was an identity that was forced upon me. It was built into my tuition. It was assumed, because I lived within the University community, that of course I was a Gophers football fan and that I would have no qualms about chipping in for the sake of sport. It is a ridiculous and insulting assumption … We should be fighting for the separation of university life from collegiate sports. … Yes, TCF Bank Stadium has already been built, but we still have time to rethink the future of university sports. The recession affords us the opportunity to look critically at the institutions we have designed, modify them and maybe even start over…
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#2
Look up Ashley Nord, the latest Rhodes Scholar from the University, one of only 32 such individuals selected from the United States and a former Gophers track athlete.
While you are at it, you could talk to Hassan Mead, a five-time All-American in only four seasons of competition. He has a fascinating story of coming to America knowing no English and is now thriving as an athlete and a student. Talk to the director of student-athlete welfare to see the multitude of community service programs Gophers athletes engage in.
The unavoidable truth — perhaps an inconvenient one for many writers — is that the majority of University student-athletes pursue their athletics with passion while simultaneously outperforming their non-athlete peers in the classroom. Please, writers, the next time you write about the University imposing crushing financial burdens to pay for the stadium, remember to give credit where credit is due.
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From a comment on #2:
Did you mean for this letter to be published on the same day as articles about basketball player and football player thuggery?
Hassan Mead is absolutely a great runner. How does that contribute to the academic success of this university? … This is a research university, and I’ve seen 15 articles about Eric Decker but can’t remember the last article about research. I know they have some, but it’s obviously not a priority of the administration or the MN Daily.
Athletics do nothing but take away from this university, financially and otherwise.
Very pretty example of irony from Tom Powers, a Minnesota Pioneer Press sportswriter.
… [A]thletic departments go about the business of molding young men and women. They teach hard lessons. For example, Brandon Spikes, Florida’s star linebacker, has been suspended for 30 minutes because he attempted to gouge out the eyes of an opponent Saturday.
He must sit out the first half of Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt. Spikes was not successful in removing the eyes of Georgia’s Washaun Ealey, probably because he was wearing a glove and couldn’t get a good grip when he shoved his hand inside the helmet. That’s fortunate for Spikes, who might have been suspended for three full quarters had he succeeded.
[The] University of Minnesota probably appears equally culpable from afar. What is going on over there? The Gophers have had more trouble in one week than some schools have had in a decade.
Well, probably not, actually. Most Division I athletic programs have so many skeletons in their closets that there is little room for shirts and shoes. But the Gophers have had their share of messes to clean up recently.
As Forrest Gump said, “stupid is as stupid does,” which means that the sparkling entrance exam scores of certain Golden Gopher student-athletes may be misleading…
Sure, it’s a little heavy-handed. Whaddyaexpect?
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UD thanks Michael for the link.
UD will let the citizens of Minnesota do the talking on the subject of their big beautiful new university football stadium and its money problems.
They express themselves on the comment thread of a recent Pioneer Press article. That’s one of the citizens up there, in my headline.
First you need to know the latest on the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium, the cost-overrun, unnecessary stadium that was going to bring in all sorts of revenue for the university.
For those who don’t click to the article, the deal is that because they can’t serve booze, the university’s not selling its luxury boxes.
You will need a few drinks after a couple seasons of watching the Gophers play football. Heck who am I kidding? You need to be smashed right now just to stand em.
[The team it’s all for, the Gophers, suck.]
Does it hurt not to drink for a couple of hours? Poor little football jocks can’t have a beer whaaaa whaaaa whaaaa.
[This guy doesn’t understand that the luxury boxes are bought by corporations plying potential clients with alcohol. No ply, no play.]
So … seats aren’t selling, the place is hemorrhaging taxpayer money and bleeding whatever educational mission might be left at the university.
It’s not so much that drunks must have their football. If it’s going to pay for itself, football must have its drunks.
Excerpts from a Minnesota Public Radio conversation about this:
Murray Sperber: The breathalyzer’s a good idea…. [The stadium will have mandatory breathalyzer tests at the gate for students who have been drunk at games before… What? Why the tests and security cameras everywhere etc. etc. if the stadium will be alcohol free? Are you really asking that question??? LOL.] I’ve been appalled by the behavior of young drunk male students… It’s dangerous… I’ve never understood why universities don’t control tailgating… It’s on their land… Part of the reason is they don’t want to piss off alumni… Many of these people tailgating and drinking are not in fact alumni; they’re local fans of the team… The schools can’t unburden themselves from bigtime university sports and the various myths that say they’re helping the university.
Toben Nelson: Division I football games are drinking events… Alumni are a major barrier to making any serious changes to alcohol policy on campus…