There is no breaking news in the John Junker-Fiesta Bowl scandal, but the news twelve days ago in Columbus from the NCAA on The Ohio State's Tattoogate has bowl overtones. A similar theme over-rides both storylines: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Apparently, there are many individuals who can speak well of Jim Tressel's and John Junker's characters early in their careers. We know how powerful and successful they became; we know how much honor and integrity they have in 2011. Does E. Gordon "Bowtie" Gee, president of The Ohio State, have any early character witness supporters as well?
Dr. Gee followed his own wildly successful career arc. We don't know what kind of person he was in the beginning, but the sports world is getting a good picture of the type of man he is today. One must read between the lines to understand what Dr. Gee is all about.
Of course, being president of the biggest of the big-time universities based on dollars spent and generated in its athletic department, Dr. Gee is all about power, arrogance, selfishness, and ridicule. He ridicules programs he believes are athletically beneath his school. He's not afraid to wield his power with NCAA and BCS committees. He's selfish in the sense that he will do anything to preserve the lop-sided, inequitable BCS bowl system which rewards schools like Ohio State and USC and penalizes deserving-of-better mid-majors like TCU and Boise State.
One must recall Dr. Gee's interview with the AP around November 24, 2010, when he said in reference to Boise State and TCU, "I do know having been both a Southeastern Conference president and a Big Ten president, that it's like murderer's row every week for these schools. We do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor. We play very fine schools on any given day. So I think until a university runs through that gauntlet that there's some reason to believe that they not be the best team to [be] in the big [title] ballgame." He seemed to overlook the fact that his own Buckeyes had played such non-powerhouse creampuffs as Marshall, Eastern Michigan, and Ohio U.
Dr. Gee continued to explain his position: "If you put a gun to my head and said, 'What are you going to do about a playoff system [if] this BCS system as it now exists goes away?' I would vote immediately to go back to the [original] bowl system." Has Dr. Gee been greased by any bowl non-profit, or is his stance only the result of cash-cow revenues heavily weighted in favor of the Buckeyes through the existing BCS system?
During the same interview, Dr. Gee was capable of being contradictory. In dismissing a playoff, he said, "It's not about this incessant drive to have a national championship because I think that's a slippery slope to professionalism. I'm a fan of the bowl system, and I think that by and large it's worked very, very well. " Certainly it has worked very well for his Buckeyes. Should we assume that all other major college sports are too professional because they have a postseason playoff system in place? Isn't it possible that the bowl system itself, with kickbacks, payoffs, alleged wire fraud, alleged tax evasion, and meet-and-greet golf and vacation junkets, is further along in developing its own brand of professionalism than any playoff system could ever possibly be?
Dr. Gee's arrogance goes beyond endorsing the renaming of Ohio State as The Ohio State University. His false modesty when discussing Jim Tressel ("I just hope he doesn't fire me") belies his over-weening power-brokering of the NCAA. His lieutenants, such as Buckeye athletic director Gene Smith and Big 10 commissioner Jim Delaney, oversee or are members of every important committee that the NCAA and BCA field. The Big 10 has its own television network and lucrative deals with ABC/ESPN. The Big 10 also has its very sweet bowl deals, from the Rose Bowl to the non-BCS bowls.
This is another source of confluence: the John Junker Fiesta Bowl scandal has unveiled several layers of misconduct and general climate of corruption within Arizona's BCS nonprofit bowl organizations. It came out that the Orange Bowl runs similar vacation junkets under the pretext of meetings between bowl reps, sponsors, media reps, athletic conference reps, NCAA reps, and school reps. Since the Fiesta Bowl and Orange Bowl have such junkets on public file, is it a stretch to believe that fellow BCS sibling Sugar Bowl also does its share of greasing, or should I say entertaining?
When Tattoogate broke last December, the Sugar Bowl organization was insistent that the Ohio State stars involved be eligible for its game. Commissioner Delaney, President Gee, and athletic director Smith did their part to influence the NCAA and BCS committees to hold off on suspensions until the 2011 regular season. The Sugar Bowl got its wish, ratings were good, and ad revenues will remain high for the 2012 edition. While ratings were good, was the ruling for the good of the game?
No comments:
Post a Comment