William Singer: go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass "Go"

Who is William Singer? The organizer of the largest college entrance cheating conspiracy in Shiny-land history. His favorite door? College athletics departments, because college athletics are completely corrupt. ADs care nothing about academics, care nothing about integrity, they are all about money, because this is Shiny-land, and education takes a back seat to circuses to keep the mob diverted.

6 Likes

Google “Rocky and Bullwinkle at Wassamatta U.”

I still remember (although I didn’t understand it as a child – my photographic memory at work) the meeting of the Wassamatta U president, a chemistry professor and the athletic coach meeting in the office. The chemistry professor asks for more money for his department, but the president grabs a football and tosses it across the room. They need the money from athletics to keep the college open.

Wendy

3 Likes

I trust the corrupt perpetrators within the universities are being pursued as well… are they?

1 Like

Our former Governor, Charlie Baker has been tapped to be the next president of the NCAA. Lots of press here in the Boston area about how he will have his work cut out for him. I’m not a huge follower of College athletics, but I guess it’s pretty corrupt, and there’s big money on the line, so those elements of the NCAA will need someone with the guts and political experience to shape the future of the NCAA so that is it fair and successful. I wish Charlie the best of luck in his new endeavor.

'38Packard

1 Like

I have heard that excuse many times. The NFL was founded in 1920. Whatsamatta U, which I attended, was founded in 1903. The University of Michigan was founded in 1817. Michigan State was founded in 1855. How were schools funded before they acted as the NFL’s farm system?

Steve

3 Likes

I am against Football but I am for colleges making money.

They charged people money. I know, they still do and more than ever in fact. And to compensate we have more scholarships and things like loans and grants, as well as sports. But Corruption has distorted the bottom line. It’s not about education. At least not as much. It’'s a bout the money. The more efficient you are at bringing in money the less efficient you tend to be in everything else. It’s the “there’s more where that came from” mentality.

3 Likes

Two different ways to do it:

  1. Make playing sports a major–funded directly by the professional teams in each sport (NFL supports football teams in colleges/universities, and so on).

  2. Schools drop sports except for intra/extra-college amateur levels. Then have separate type of arrangement with the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc–with funding by the professional sports for the “farm club” system operated by the schools. Would the schools then be superfluous? Good question. Quite likely. But the schools are superfluous NOW. They just have not admitted that fact. THEY WANT THE $$$$ (and hopefully a bit of “pro-sports” prestige !!!

LOL!
So, which college did you attend?
Wendy

2 Likes

I went to Western Michigan University, aka Whatsa Matta U. Originally founded by the state as a teacher’s college, because the state decided having more teachers was a good thing. Comic actor Tim Allen went to Western, at the same time I did, graduating with a BS in communications in 76. B-movie icon Bruce Campbell also went to Western, at the same time, though only for a semester or two in 76-77.

Michigan State was founded as an agricultural college, as the state decided having better farmers was a good thing…hence Michigan State is known as “Moo U”.

I have vented before how the state has defunded the state colleges. So, now, the loot they make off of athletics is more important than ever, advancing the notion that athletics matters, not academics.

With the loss of focus on academics, Michigan universities are showing a drop in enrollment. The two best, including the best football and basketball teams, U of M and State, have managed to increase enrollment, but the rest, as a group, have seen enrollment fall. The local media was on it’s horse for a while about Central Michigan’s enrollment being down 40% over the last 10 years. Four other Michigan universities have seen enrollment declines of approximately 30%.

2 Likes

I wish him the best of luck, but reforming the NCAA is basically impossible. Way to much money involved. For example, the 2017 Men’s DI Basketball scandal. It was huge, and only uncovered because people got sloppy and greedy. Noted coach Rick Pitno was caught up in it, and was already in trouble because his assistants were hiring prostitutes for potential recruits. Although he claimed he didn’t know about it. Wink, wink.

The NCAA is in sort of this impossible situation where it is supposed to be in some way related to educational institutions–but it generates money on the order of professional sports leagues. So they create rules that sort of try to fulfil the mission of amateur athletics in an academic setting, but no one really follows the rules because there is too much money involved. I have no idea what the solution is.

2 Likes

Probably not. I just finished a fascinating book Bad City by Paul Pringle that STARTED as a story about ONE university dean who could have / should have been the impetus for #metoo+meth which morphed into a story of a 30-year nightmare of sexual abuse on the part of a campus gynecologist which THEN morphed into Varsity Blues. All with a bit of journalistic corruption mixed in for extra seasoning. The common denominator? USC and its do-nothing president and board.

Colleges and universities cannot be trusted to self-police or even clean house properly in light of actual criminal charges of individual faculty and staff. Especially when they are major economic / employment anchors in their community.

WTH

2 Likes

College football and basketball coaches seem to have a stunning attitude of self-entitlement. In most states, the highest paid government employee is not the Governor, or Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It is a football or basketball coach. I remember, during the 2008-2009 recession, the Gov of the state of Connecticut took a pay cut, to set an example of austerity. Someone asked the U Conn basketball coach if he would follow the Gov’s lead. The coach’s answer was a resounding NO, followed by an insistence he earned every penny and he was entitled to it.

Steve

2 Likes

Probably not.

Guess that might be the answer, other than for the odd fallperson:

If nothing else, the defense memorandum suggests the USC athletic department put Heinel in a difficult position, asking her to oversee both fundraising and admissions.

“Money and admissions should never be mixed at a university,” the filing stated, adding that Heinel’s “conduct is the unfortunate result of a woman trapped in an unworkable job description.”

2 Likes

you forgot the Ohio State wrestling program when Congressman Jim Jordan ( i know nothing i see nothing ) was an assistant coach there

1 Like

I don’t see the insane amount of hype over other sports, like wrestling, track and field, or even baseball. It’s just football and basketball. Every network, every fall Saturday, one college football game after another, then all the hype about the “bowl” games. Now, the networks are switching to college basketball, winding up to the deafening “March madness” hype. Hardly ever hear about college baseball or hockey.

Steve

1 Like

For whatever reason, college is the development league for the NBA and NFL. MLB and the NHL have big minor league systems that siphon off most of the best young players.

1 Like

I am not a full on expert in the rules gots to say that first. You may poke holes in what I am saying but the racist subtext to the rules is very real.

Actually there are subtly racist rules in Football and Basketball that are causing that.

In those two sports you can not turn pro right out of high school.

In baseball you can.

The pretext unwritten is that poor inner city black kids need guidance. Football and Basketball being dominated by black kids the rules are different than in other sports.

The next rules in the three major sports have to do with free agency in the pros. The idea there is to get cheap labor often from the best players. That has a racist element as well. The idea is rules that control another person’s income.

If it was all white young males non of this would be going on in the same fashion.

imo, it’s partly because baseball and hockey have stand alone minor league programs. These minor league teams would destroy the very best college baseball and hockey teams, the talent is identified and condensed, the minor league rosters are much more talented than college team rosters. College players definitely get drafted, and some of the very best talent does opt for college and not the minor league route, but the pro teams throw a lot of money at these top tier talent players, so it’s hard to turn down the pro money, even if they have to work their way thru the minors before they get to the bigs.

I got a chuckle out of the national championship game last night, I watched about 15 minutes of it ( real minutes, not football game minutes ), about the biggest mismatch of teams I can remember. Google hits show that the game had record low tv ratings, easy to understand why. Heck, I only watched the 2nd half of the M-TCU game, and I like M,lol. Sure is odd how M beat Ohio State, and Ohio State probably should have beat Georgia in the semi-final game ( didn’t see that 1, either ), but TCU beats M and then gets bum-rushed by Georgia.

On that meme that football is a fountain of money for the universities.

Oh joy. I found data. A Michigan news agency filed FOIA requests for the financial reports that state universities filed with the NCAA for 2015.

Of the 13 state universities in Michigan, only U of M and State football programs make enough to cover their own expenses, and, almost, cover the costs of the rest of their athletic programs.

Michigan universities, as a group, subsidize athletics to the tune of $140M/year.

The largest football money sink is my alma mater, Whatsa Matta U, with a $5.27M loss for the year. Their largest revenue source was $1.22M paid to Western to show up to play larger schools. Western’s largest football expense is $2.79M in financial aid for players. Imagine what could be accomplished if that $2.79M/year was spent helping students that were there to learn, rather than play football. Overall, athletics costs Western over $25M/year.

1 Like