“Shame and Eternal Shame, Nothing but Shame!”

Henry V.  Act IV, Scene v, Line 12.

So, this is what SBC, Michigan and Ohio State were really up to back in October.

The logo on windbreakers, on the schools’ websites, on the coaches’ TV talk shows, on headsets.  The logo everywhere in Ohio State’s stadium.  "But oh!" the Athletic Director exclaims, "Never on Michigan Stadium!  That place is sacred!"

"But the school’s name?  Go ahead and shit on it.  What’s more, pay us more to use the headsets with SBC’s logo on it than for the use of the school’s name."

Grrr.  Urge to kill rising.  Rising.

With this quote and this quote only, AD Martin demonstrates to me how truly out of touch he is with the alumni (like me) who care not a whit for football or an Athletics Department who can’t be bothered to fundraise:

"With Michigan football and Michigan Stadium, it’s truly a societal
icon that’s held to a different standard," Martin said. "They don’t
want to see it change. In a perfect world you would not necessarily
have to go solicit corporate sponsorship."  (Emphasis mine.)

. . .

I don’t care about Michigan football!  I don’t care about the goddamn Big House!  I care that the Athletics Department was perfectly willing to sell out my school’s good academic name in the quest to secure more money for the football team.  They can claim that this money would’ve gone to other athletic programs, but the bulk of it has to go to football – it’s the department’s cash cow.  I care about the fact that they agreed with SBC that the school’s name was worth less than headsets with SBC’s logo on them.  I care that Martin can’t even acknowledge that, for some of us, this has to do with the tradition of academics at Michigan, which will always be infinitely more important than fucking football, no matter how strapped for cash the school gets.  Guess what guys?  If the Big House burns down, the school will continue to attract top minds and funding.  But if the library burns down?  We’re fucked!  There goes Michigan as a leading institution in research and learning.  Sure, they’ll bring in money with their stellar football program, but every student and professor and researcher worth his or her salt will be sending out applications to more prestigious places.

This isn’t a perfect world, but if the Athletics Department had gotten off of its fat, spoiled ass and started fundraising for their cause, they wouldn’t have to solicit corporate sponsorship.  Get the damn football players out selling poinsettias for Christmas or selling cookies that the special South Quad kitchen makes, but don’t ask the nerdy, deserving side to sacrifice the school’s name so some overbloated SBC executive can flip a coin at center field.

And the logo on the schools’ websites!?  Please tell me that this means that MGoBlue would’ve had the image, not the University of Michigan proper.  Because if I would’ve surfed to that site and seen the logo taking up the headlines that occasionally lead to interesting articles on the research done by the U-M . . . . argh.

I am so pissed off at Athletics.  I know now that I will forever be proud that I never made it to a football game during undergrad.  Not one cent of my hard-earned money went to those spoiled bastards.  Thank.  God.