UD‘s been attempting to follow that university since 2009, and has gradually discovered that it’s so bad it’s virtually impossible to understand.

She means that in any given newspaper article about this school, you cannot really make sense of what is being reported. (Here are some earlier attempts.)

So now there’s

Alabama A&M Chief
Operating Officer Arrested,
Charged with Theft

And with “possession of a forged instrument.”

Kevin Rolle, also the school’s executive vice president, last year sued a bunch of other people at the school who said something bad about him. The case was thrown out of court. Now he’s been arrested (okay, read the following slowly…):

The allegation against Rolle appears to center around a dispute over more than $6,000 he received as a reimbursement for moving expenses after he moved to Huntsville in 2009 to work for the university.

State auditors claimed earlier this year Rolle had been paid $6,534 to cover moving expenses, but they could find no moving company records to related to the move.

Alabama A&M initially said Rolle should not have been reimbursed. [This is where things start to get woozy. No records because no moving costs ….?] The university told auditors Rolle had repaid the money in January. [Okay.] But the university later changed its position. [Position is maybe an odd way to put it. Changed its story?] In a response to the state audit the university included an invoice from a moving company for the amount in question. [Ah! Here it is after all!]

Alabama A&M also included statements from two people claiming they were present when the moving truck arrived from Spartanburg, S.C. [Wow. Witnesses. Looks as though after decades of malfeasance Alabama A&M is anticipating that the state might not believe them.]

The statements were from the assistant to Alabama A&M President Andrew Hugine and and an executive with Aramark, a company that has a number of service contracts with the university. [They both happened to be standing around when… ? ]

I’m not the only one confused. The governor’s confused.

Gov. Robert Bentley questioned the university about moving expenses among other issues in a June letter. The Governor asked the university to provide the “front and back” of the check to pay the movers or the reimbursement check to Rolle. The Governor also asked for a copy of the check Rolle gave the university for his repayment. [So the succession of events is this: Rolle understands the university will reimburse him. He sends in his payment check, and gets reimbursed. Years pass. An audit happens. It turns out he should not have been reimbursed for the move. He repays the university. At first there is no paperwork to back up anything claimed here other than the payment of six thousand plus by the university to Rolle. In response to the audit, however, the university now hands over an invoice from the moving company.]

Bentley also questioned why an Aramark representative was at Rolle’s house on the day of the mover’s arrival. [Something smells fishy to the governor.]

Remember: This arrest is about forgery – or possession of forged docs – as well as theft.

And of course more details will emerge as the trial proceeds. This story is exactly one hour old.

But let’s speculate. Don’t you think it likely that the school has been trying to get rid of this guy ever since he initiated the lawsuit? Isn’t it likely that the theme of retaliation will play an important role in his courtroom defense? And isn’t it also possible that the governor has for whatever reason decided to do something about the larger corruption of Alabama A&M?

If so, this trial will mark the beginning of a lot of revelations.

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

So as the story builds, I’ll provide updates. Here’s one:

Rolle produced an invoice to examiners that the moving company could not verify, the report said. Examiners also said the moving company did not have Rolle’s name in their database.

You would think the financial mess the state is in would be enough to fill the time of any lawmaker but that’s apparently not the case. Amid today’s budget wrangling, Sen. Tom Whatley of Auburn proposed a resolution urging Auburn University to claim nine football national championships…

Hyuk. Yeah, y’all guessed it. This was written by a girl. Hyuk.

And it’s only May.

This sort of team record doesn’t come cheap. Nick Saban’s currently at seven million a year.

A football coach whose salary is the talk of the town.

A team whose arrest record is also the talk of the town.

Bama!! Life of the mind, Bama!!!

Yes, yes, you’re right – as UD readers constantly point out, one day it’s the University of Georgia, another day Penn State, another day Southern Methodist, and yet another day Alabama State… So many of this country’s universities are in various high-profile aspects disgusting that no one university wears the crown for long.

But. But – If UD were asked which university, not only in its sports but in its academic component most consistently struck her as disgusting, I think she’d have to say, on balance, and on reflection, and on reading today’s story about Miami’s deeply loved and curiously successful baseball coach Lazaro Collazo (You can still find Miami heavily breathing upon its beloved here. Why take down the page? Taking down pages of disgraced UM people would threaten the sports budget.), that it’s Charles Nemeroff’s and Nevin Shapiro’s University of Miami.

“When you’re talking about PEDs in the black market, we’re talking about some clown in his basement, with a bucket and a burner, and a very dangerously limited knowledge of chemistry… And these chemicals were going in our children’s bodies.”

Yes, the University of Miami’s finest was for years allegedly peddling and administering performance enhancing drugs to the kiddies. Drugs made, as the DEA agent I just quoted notes, according to the highest standards.

See, that’s why UM gets scuzziest. It’s not just about money. It’s about hiring and sanctifying people like Collazo.

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

Ugh. You want the underbelly? You really want the underbelly? Okay. You asked for it. Welcome to the University of Miami.

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

Update: Ooh. They took down the page!

And, you know, if sports factories can’t “connect with students when they’re on campus — when they’re a walk away from going to one of the best football games in the country every Saturday, for free — how are they going to be able to do that when these kids are in their 30s and 40s and 50s and they become the next generation of donors and boosters …?”

Yeah, bummer, and it keeps the AD and the coach up at night so you’re going to have to increase their salaries by a million dollars a year because this is like a whole new thing they didn’t sign up for. Who knew that teams mainly composed of fake students and thugs playing in an enormous half empty stadium whose shrieking Adzillatron cannot be escaped might fail to attract fans? Don’t university students enjoy sitting around endlessly while waiting for the ads on the television stations airing the game to finish? Oh, but while they wait they can watch their very own endless ads on the inescapable Adzillatron, featuring some local fuckhead selling mattresses! Where do I sign up?

Why don’t students enjoy being associated with prisons? Doesn’t that add to the wonderful energy of game day? What is wrong with these people?

Roger Noll, a retired Stanford economist, touches on one of the most notorious aspects of university sports during his testimony at the O’Bannon trial. Noll calls it inefficient substitution.

UD calls it Hail Saban Prince of Darkness.

Everything’s for sale at the University of Alabama, including the opportunity to have your name appear in the chancel itself, Nick Saban’s most sacred private place.

Typical dullard editorial in the local booster press complaining about one of the few signs of social progress coming out of the south: People are refusing to go to football games. The Gainesville Sun editorial board, puzzling over growing indifference at the University of Florida, has it figured out:

Noon and 12:21 p.m. kickoffs certainly don’t help in attracting late-to-rise college students.

Yeah, I mean, you’ve got, what, eight home games a season?

The rector of Kosovo’s state university Ibrahim Gashi resigned on Saturday following protests by students over reports [that Gashi and other] professors had forged academic works.

This is how it works; this is how hugely corrupt countries and their institutions slowly become less corrupt. Those students hit the streets every day and got tear gassed for one reason: They were disgusted to live in a country where mindless political hacks get jobs running universities, where the position of head of a university is nothing but a political perk.

I mean, they might as well be living in Alabama.

So — under immense pressure from outraged students the hack has fled. Bravo.

Eco-friendly University of Alabama:

“[The Quad] gets torn up every year… It’s almost to the point that we need to replace the whole system.”

[One groundskeeper], who oversees all of the grounds on the University of Alabama campus, said though tailgating is a lot of fun, it does take a toll on the grass. Each year the University pays anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 to rehabilitate the Quad.

“Before football season starts, the Quad is nice and pretty grass on both sides,” [he said.] “There’s grass on the east and west sides, but if you go on the west side now [to see the damage] it’s because tailgating just chews it up. We know that [it happens] every year. We over-seed and hydro-seed it in November, so that way it will be nice and pretty again in the spring.”

… “From corner to corner there’s beer tops… In the years past we’ve had to go in there and comb the Quad from east to west because there were so many that it had gotten really noticeable…”

Beer tops are just the small stuff.

Of all the items left on the Quad after home games, the most notable are not money or food. … [T]ents, living room furniture and televisions are left behind and never claimed.

Groundskeepers are impressed:

… “[Our] fans and visitor fans have been really good… ”

“You can’t put that many people in one area and expect it to be spotless… We’re realists. They do well for the most part until the beers get to flowing.”

… tradition; the university itself is clearly proud of it, since after decades of totally pissed vileness it continues to respond with soft words… Continues to set things up on campus to achieve optimal pillaging. They riot when they’ve been sleeping; they riot when they’re awake; they riot when they’ve been bad or good — so let them RIOT for goodness’ sake!

U Mass Amherst is one of those schools which (let’s be honest) knows it would have to shut down if it didn’t admit its cohort, and the U Mass cohort happens to be gangs of alcoholic bullies from the eastern seaboard. Similarly, if Ole Miss systematically shunned Confederacy loyalists with a big thirst, they’d lose a significant chunk of their incoming class. Most universities are dominated by a representative slice of the American pie; U Mass Amherst, Ole Miss, LSU, Clemson, Auburn, Alabama, Cal State Chico … these schools are not. They play the role of the freaks of this blog, the frenzied teetering muttering mad uncles of the American university family. When you give their students guns, as at Oklahoma State, you witness all manner of amazing things.

… Alabama State University.

Yes, I know the state in general is stupid and corrupt; but ASU’s a whole other category, and especially states like Alabama can’t afford to keep running – with taxpayer money – any institution this corrupt and destructive. The agencies that continue to accredit ASU are simply whores.

That ASU is a deadhead is known and documented; that it’s run by thieves is equally notorious.

Americans seem to have trouble with the idea that universities, like businesses and states, can fail. Failed states; shuttered businesses; closed universities. Bad enough ASU educates no one; it also steals everyone’s money. Time for Alabama to show some guts.

In the age of technology and mass media, HD televisions are closer to the “real thing” than ever, and more games are available on television than ever before. Some universities, such as Michigan State, Georgia and even Alabama have noticed a disturbing trend of fans leaving games early to renew their “buzz” and watch from the comfort of their own home. The sale of alcohol could be a preventative course of action for this problem.

When the name of the game in big-time American university football is thug-management, it’s all about comparisons. Who recruits the most criminals? How bad – man to man offense speaking – are they? Do they steal laptops, or do they, like national champ Alabama’s crew, beat people senseless and pack heat?

Then there’s all the chatter about consequences. Ignore it? Suspend them for awhile? Suspend them indefinitely? Dismiss them?

These guys – these Alabama guys – are second stringers, so we’re being spared long articles ignoring what they’ve done and agonizing instead about how their being in jail is going to hurt the defensive line…

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UD thanks several readers for linking her to this story.

… are set to start. On Monday, George Huguely goes on trial for the murder of Yeardley Love; and next month Amy Bishop will be tried for killing three, and injuring another three, of her colleagues at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

UD suspects the Huguely trial will be straightforward, and that he will be convicted on the charge. Amy Bishop appears to be a madwoman, and that makes her sentence harder to anticipate (she will certainly be found guilty).

UD will follow both trials.