Two great Gordon Gee columns
Came across two great Gordon Gee columns over the past couple of days. One from the local sports blog SportsTalk313 (a bit on the funnier side) and another from John Bacon (a bit heavier on Gee facts).
Similar vibe to both, but each one is worth reading. There's even a few great jabs about Woody, Tressel and Urban...
http://sportstalk313.com/2013/06/farewell-to-thee-gordon-gee-2/
http://johnubacon.com/2013/06/osu-president-gordon-gee-money-in-the-ban…
http://www.cbssports.com/
that is good. thanks for posting that.
Why does RCMB obsess over our school and always post disparaging things about us?
/hypocrisy
It is not exactly everyday that a university president gets canned because of inappropriate remarks. This is a pretty significant event and something that should be talked about for awhile.
Yes, but two of the top 4 posts on this board are OSU schadenfreude. Also on the front page is a topic on in-state rivalries ripe with MSU bashing. These are all topical, but so is "Cissoko robbed some dude" or "Justin Boren critical of UofM family values." If Gholston bought a twosie, it would be a running joke for years. (Not knocking the twosie, it's sweet) I'm willing to bet there are derogatory comments on MSU, OSU, or ND in any thread that has more than 50 posts.
I don't mind it, as long as people realize that we live in a glass house when we bitch about MSU and OSU talking about us all the time. That's stupid.
This is just how Fort Schembechler likes it though, the only news coming out of Michigan is Hoke's recruiting prowess while OSU continues to embarrass itself.
De'Shawn Hand's OSU reaction was front paged. There's the story about Steinbrenner stealing Henson on the first page, which devolved into speculation about "if we had only" beaten OSU in 2001, the 21st century would be different. Going back a few days was the thread about a kindergarten fight in Ohio. Only in Ohio. Dat bull fo life. Purple face. Cooler poopers. Chickens. I'm not saying that it isn't perfectly fine to joke about rivals, but are we really holding ourselves to a higher standard, as some on here think? We obsess just as much as OSU and MSU fans.
1484 is a cry baby. last i checked this is a sports blog. God help us people post about our rival teams.
Yup. Crybaby
I'm not saying that it isn't perfectly fine to joke about rivals, but are we really holding ourselves to a higher standard, as some on here think?
RCMB is a laughingstock not because they obsess over us, but because of the way they do it. Actually that board is a joke even if 100% of the UM references were removed. I have heard very few, if any, criticisms about 11 Warriors obsessing over Michigan. We have been poking fun at some of their recent content. As far as I can see it was well deserved.
ok maybe crybaby was the wrong term. how about douche?
Andy Staples provided an interesting take (HERE)
He begins in an interesting way - with a quote from Florida's Bernie Machen, "You have to take care of the docs and the jocks". Essentially, it's about how the mishandling of issues at high-visibility programs like, say, athletics can get a university President in trouble.
The basic message of it, and I see his point - Gee may be remembered at Ohio State and other schools where he worked as a capable administrator, but nationally, it will be largely overshadowed by choice to go with awkward humor at awkward moments and mishandling and poorly representing "the jocks", if you will.
The Team Speed one is great, because it takes issue both with Gee and with vacuous 11w eulogizing - pointing out that the contradicitons that are inherent when sympathetically defending someone who themselves isn't sympathetic to others:
And I feel very badly for Gee that he lost his wife, as Nasrallah touchingly documents, and I'm sure that Gee feels very strongly about Ohio State because of the sympathy he found there. But sympathy and institutional pride are not qualities that are unique to Gee or Ohio State -- and Gee seems to have very little concern about those qualities when it comes to his comments about other people.
and again
And Gee has chosen in recent years to point a too-high portion of his comments at demeaning those who weren't like him, whether supporters of Southern universities or Polish infantrymen or Catholics. When you do something like that over and over, it's not an endearing quirk; it's a character flaw and a failure of the basic responsibility of a public servant to empathize with those he's serving, a lack of the very sympathy that made Gee regard Ohio State so warmly.
Eh . . . these two columns pretty much just rehash what's been said here about the guy. The SI one was a little better.
The fact that Gee had to step down because of those comments seems insane to me. As someone who comes from an Irish-Catholic family (on my father's side, anyway), I feel well-positioned enough to say that anti-Catholic bigotry is no longer a threat to anyone in the U.S., and Gee was obviously joking. And ND is a pain in the ass. And the SEC and Bret Bielema don't need to be on anyone's list of folks who need protecting...This is the height (or depth) of fake offense.
I don't think it was just one comment. Gee consistently made an ass of himself every few months. I don't think he should be fired for that. However, his firing wasn't just for one comment.
If it's OK to make anti-Catholic comments, then it becomes, by "logic," OK to make anti-Sematic comments, racist comments, etc. Maybe there is no "threat" to Catholicism, but the mechanics of bigotry dictate that it is not wise for any religion or race to be stereotyped, even in jokes.
No bigotry allowed. Period. It's pretty standard in the expectations of someone in any job being paid by public funds.
All jokes are not the same because all groups are not identically situated. Are you really threatened if you hear a joke about white people or men? (I'm assuming you're a white man - maybe I'm wrong.) I am a white guy, and I am totally and utterly unthreatened by such jokes because I stand in my white-man shoes at the top of the racial-sexual pyramid...Also, Gee said that you can't trust Catholics (or was it just the ND Catholics?). Being untrustworthy isn't even a stereotype of Catholics.
I actually admire Gordon Gee and think that it is unfortunate for him that he had such a wretched sense of what actually constituted humor to others. The stuff he said is the kind of thing that i would love my boss to say, un-PC though it was.
Compare what he did with what he said, and the "what he did" wins overwhelmingly. That won't be the perception, though, and I can understand it. I also mourn it. He got it, but not in time to save his job. The money quote (after the PT-boat and Polish Army quote - how did the PT-boat veterans miss this opportunity? - was from the Hinnen article,
Gee said, "Oh, never mind, who did I embarrass now?" A moment later he said: "I'll have to raise money for Poland now."
I'll miss you, Gordon. Not because I was laughing at you, but because I was laughing with you. Appreciation of eccentricity is a lost art these days.
I should popint out that i absolutely agree that he should have stepped down. College presidents cannot afford to be as eccentric as he allowed himself to be ove the last half-decade.
As a historian, I know the soldiers of Poland have to acknowledge none as their superiors as soldiers. Polish troops were considered elite by every nation under whom they fought for at least 500 years , and their 1939 defeat was due to their exposure as the first to experience the Blitzkrieg, which was beyond their wildest dream of what war was to be.
Poland's experience in WW2 should not shake, however, Gee's correct notation that Poland was not ready, an any way, shape, or form, for what happened to the Polish army in 1939. They expected WW1 and got the Blitzkrieg.
Gee saw a parallel, and talked about it. Shame on him. /s (as though that was necessary)
Both WWI and WWII seem to have had moments when armies were totally unprepared for the technological advances in warfare that had been made since the prior major war. I knew that about WWI, not so much about WWII.
This is a Michigan blog.
We still don't need a plethora of threads about MSU and Ohio. I'm so fucking sick of seeing them on this board.
That having been said, a small sliver of me appreciates his lack of having to be politically correct all the time. Hearing all the typical coach speak "they're a great team, take it one game at a time" just gets really dull and senseless after hearing it all the time.
I am happy to see him step down, becuase now maybe Ohio won't get the Gordon Gee Exemption rubber-stamped by Mark Emmert anymore. I would love to see Ohio fully punished for ten years of cheating under Jim Tressel. It is more likely to happen when there is no friend/mentor/protege relationship between Ohio's prez and the NCAA prez.
In these articles, we've been treated to the "jokes" that haven't set well that have been made public. Does anybody really believe there weren't also a lot of emails and phone calls to board members about similar gaffes from various constituents that have never been made public?
If OSU wants to position itself as a quality academic institution, then as president a buffoon in a bow tie, no matter how much money he raises, is not the right man for the job.