Full disclosure: I am not a native Kansan, but I have lived in Kansas for more than thirty years, and for much of that time I have followed and cheered for area sports teams.

 

Some time ago, I had occasion to be in the home improvement section of the local Walmart.  As I shopped, I glanced up and saw a sign that told me I was approaching the “toliet seat” section.  I was amused and walked on.  But a few months later, I was visiting family in Oregon and went to Walmart for a needed item.  As I passed home improvement products, I glanced up and was astonished to see that there were “toliet seats” nearby.  This discovery caused a philosophical crisis of sorts in my mind.  Apparently, the directory information for Walmart stores is national in scope.  At some point, these signs were created and distributed to every single Walmart store.

 

I tried to comprehend the number of employees, some of them highly paid, who would have examined, approved, double-checked, and produced these signs.  Graphic designers, regional and store managers, printers, building maintenance staff.  And yet, there it hangs, proclaiming that toliet seats are available.

 

I was reminded of this puzzling disconnect over the weekend, when the Kansas University basketball program brought Snoop Dogg to their annual “Late Night in the Phog” event to kick off the basketball season.  Perhaps no one should have been surprised that the rapper entertained the crowd with pole dancing strippers and a “money gun” directed at the players’ bench.

 

I’m surrounded by Jayhawk fans every day of my life, so I’ve already begun hearing the rationalizations.  It was all in fun.  They weren’t really strippers.  And after all, the school and the coaching staff have apologized.  What more do I want?

 

I want to understand how so many layers of administration and highly paid managers can do such a stupid thing.  Someone in the tech department had to have the lights and sound system programmed for the event.  Surely at some point there was a rehearsal to make sure everything was ready to go.  Did no one on the facilities staff ask why poles would be used during the program?

 

I’m left with the realization that Kansas University has become a misspelled toilet seat sign.  Each person in a position of responsibility has become so careless or so blind that they don’t even notice the glaring impropriety as it passes over their desk to be signed and routed to the next office.  They hang up the “toliet seats” sign and wonder why people are pointing and laughing.  And this, too, is how a once-respected program, whose coaching history includes James Naismith, finds itself under investigation for (among other things) lack of institutional control.  Let Kansas fans protest all they want, and let the university file all the appeals possible; they've handed the NCAA the most damning evidence.  This single event is "Lack of Institutional Control, Exhibit A".

 

As a Michigan fan, I thank God for John Beilein, and I hope I never take for granted the gift of a program that polices itself, roots out problems when they arise, and strives for integrity, whether this culture results in wins or not.