Mothers, Don’t Let Your Boys Grow Up to Be Cowboys; Let Them be Football Coaches Instead

Ohio State University Gets Its Priorities Straight – Straight Out of Wall Street

The Ohio State University is much about football.  Ask any semi-informed citizen to take a word association test and mention The Ohio State University and the response will be “football”.  Ask any semi-informed citizen about what academic programs The Ohio State University is famous for, and expect the question back “Is football an academic program?”

The Ohio State University had to fire its last football coach because some players engaged in behavior that is not allowed under the NCAA rules which government college sports.  The former football coach was a little lax in reporting the violations, and may (or may not) have been involved in trying to cover them up.  So now the school needs a new football coach, and they have one. 

The new coach has a nice compensation package. 

The contract includes $4 million in base salary, bonuses — for everything from players’ graduation rates to playing in a national championship, up to $700,000 annually — and lump payments in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The deal is worth more than three times the $1.32 million that the university’s president, E. Gordon Gee, made in 2010, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Now first of all no one should feel sorry for the fact that the University President makes only $1.32 million a year (plus enough fringe benefits to fill several university provided SUV’s).  How many Big 10 titles did he win anyway.  And no one should bemoan the cost of the football program at The Ohio State University.  At a few schools, and The Ohio State University is probably one of them, football actually generates positive revenue.

No, the problem here is what the compensation package says about the priorities of American college and universities.  And what it says is this. 

The current generation of older, wealthy and well-to-do Americans have corrupted institutions of higher education so that they serve as sources of entertainment rather than as engines of education.

There, we said it.  Doesn’t feel so good though, does it?