Now that the intoxicating frenzy of the Michigan State basketball season has subsided, perhaps a sober reminder of the intent in establishing the university is in order. [Classic Guy Style opening: There’s the world of sloppy drunks and there’s the world of coldly observing Guys. Who would you rather read?]
The main objectives were set forth in Section 11 of Article 13 of the state constitution: “The promotion of intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement, and stressed “instruction in agriculture and natural sciences.” [He’s missing a quotation mark in there, so we’re not clear where the excerpt from the constitution ends. Not the end of the world, though. Clever move to go back to scripture.]
No mention was made of funding any sport program, much less spending money to scout the world for basketball players.
Is Tom Izzo’s position as coach of the men’s basketball team as important as that of MSU President Lou Anna Simon, MSU’s provost, 12 of MSU’s top professors, or that of President Obama’s?
If one were to equate importance with salaries received, Izzo’s position would top all the others – combined. [I don’t claim Guy Style sizzles on the level of word choice; rather, I claim that GS goes to the heart of things quickly, and gets them said efficiently. This argument already has power, and the guy’s only a few lines in.]
One might ask how such an aberration from MSU’s core functions came about. [Certainly by this point you see Clint’s sneer… You see the sneer that hides just behind the elaborate courtesy and restraint…]
Taxpayers were obliged to pay, in one form or another, $45 million for the construction of the Jack Breslin Center in 1989, with men’s basketball games intended as the main attraction. Major funding was obtained through the sale of bonds, toward which a liability of $22,722,000 remained on June 30, 2008. [The highly emotionally controlled language skirts bureaucratic dullness. But it’s kept from that fate by carefully selected details and a hint of Clint.]
Any attempt to compute the net monetary profit engendered by the team would be an exercise in futility. [Sure, engendered is too formal. Exercise in futility is a cliché. Again, I’m not claiming verbal originality for Guy Style. I’m merely claiming that, despite its weaknesses, it succeeds. We’re paying attention; we’re getting the point.]
A Freedom of Information Act inquiry of the bonds’ interest rate and payment schedule drew the response of “No records exist on the data you seek because the debt you describe is contained within the university’s overall general fund commingled debt.” [Drop of. And don’t I always tell you to avoid the passive voice — a form of writing all over this piece? I do. Yet Guy Style may be the one place where the approach can be deployed – sparingly – to some effect. The emotional content of that passivity does have to do with futility; it’s as if this guy’s style implicitly conveys the almost Beckettian absurdity of the university athletic system.]
No IRS-respecting private business would ever think of commingling funds from unrelated sources requiring separate accountability. [Excellent point, strongly expressed. For elaboration, read anything written by Andrew Zimbalist.]
Should the university take another look at its $796,000 bill to give 3,089 students choice season tickets at discounted prices to pay homage to gladiators on the court while dressed in “Izzone” T-shirts?
And why does MSU pay 13 talented basketball players the equivalent of $1,372,000 in tuition, room, board and books over a four-year period, and not pay anything to the thousands of astute students who are academically talented and may be our future Einsteins and Marie Curies? [The Einstein/Curie thing’s pretty hokey, but the rest of the sentence has power.]
Should taxpayer-funded universities with coaches on multimillion-dollar contracts be placed under salary caps, such as President Obama has ordered for executives of corporations that request bailouts with taxpayer money?
Some may offer that Izzo might seek a position elsewhere if his salary is reduced. [Again, an awkward, bass-ackward sort of sentence, but, as with Clint, there’s something in the combination here of strong emotion strongly withheld — a tension that comes out as oddly formal speech — that’s riveting.]
There are those who thought MSU’s women’s basketball program would collapse after the departure of Coach Joanne P. McCallie.
Its success under Suzy Merchant has proven otherwise, and delighted many when it sent “Coach P” back to North Carolina on a blue note after beating the devil out of her highly touted team in March. [When a Guy Style writer does allow himself a little emotion — beating the devil out of — it has a strong impact, given the background of emotional restraint.]
This is not meant to belittle Izzo’s coaching ability, but to question whether a well-meaning administration has been led astray from its fiduciary responsibility to help as many prospective students get a college education as possible – and not discriminate in favor of a small number of special interest students. [End of argument. Note that Guy Style writers get right to it, say it, and then stop. They’re not about sculpting shapely polemics, so they’re not going to give you a texte de jouissance. You want heavy breathing, read the post just below this one — The Problem With Rants.]