Baylor Reportedly Fires University President Kenneth Starr [UPDATE: Hold the phone...]
EDIT: Looks like the reports may not have been totally accurate, though the regents weren't all that emphatic in refuting them: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/05/24/kenneth-starr-ousted-as-baylor-prez.html
The news is probably just premature. I doubt Starr survives this, since Baylor doesn't consider him integral to their goal of winning the Big 12, no matter what the cost. But I'm sure they have a perfectly good explanation for why Briles doesn't deserve any of the blame. /s
...for whom I feel no compassion whatsoever.
Ken Starr taken down by an "independent investigation???" I think I just had an irony-gasm...
Good stuff. I didn't know he was involved in college athletics. Karma?
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Well, technically, I guess, all University Presidents are involved with athletics to some degree, though I wouldn't suppose that was the main part of his job description. He wasn't AD.
Kenny
I guess something will actually be done about this
While at Tennesse it is business as usual.
Not only is it "business as usual" at UT, it's still "business as usual" in EL. I know I should "let go" of this, but I am every bit as pisssed about the Wonders Hall coverup and the two players involved being allowed to play a total of eight years for "Tom Izzo as I was when I first heard about it.
Crooked prosecutors office + crooked Lansing pols protecting Izzo at all costs. Why is there no follow-up investigation??!
Ah yes, I was wondering where this Starr dude might ever find another job.
But not the football coach.
THEY FIRED KENNY!!!
YOU BASTARDS!!
Sorry Archer
The episodes when he was Pirate King nearly killed me
Without the Simpsons we would not have SP. Remember your roots.
qwestlove
It is also true that without Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", we would not have Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower". Sometimes the pupil destroys the teacher!
A perfect post to celebrate Bob Dylan's 75th birthday!
"Sometimes the pupil destroys the teacher!"
There was no pupil/teacher relationship here. In addition, Hendrix didn't "destroy" Dylan. Dylan and Hendrix wern't competing for anything; they showed a lot of mutal self-respect.
That is like saying 'Trane "destroyed Rodgers and Hammerstein" with his mind-boggling version of "My Favorite Things."
Just that Hendrix's version is to Dylan's version what South Park is to the Simpsons. And for the record, I love me some Bob Dylan.
and I still can't stand to hear him sing, but once I found out that he didn't believe a word of the songs he was singing I laughed my ass off. He fleeced the hippies by making them think he was the voice of their generation, meanwhile he was voting for Nixon.
Yep, Bob Dylan, the greatest American songwriter to ever live. Didn't believe a word of what he wrote. Got it.
I'm guessing Hemingway fleeced the Lost Generation as well.
Charles Ives, the Gershwin brothers, Stephen Foster, and William Bolcom say hi.
He admitted it in an interview. Dude's a conservative, always has been. Did it all for the money.
Prove it.
I've read just about every Dylan biography there is. I read the interviews. Seen him live over a dozen times. Have thousands of hours of bootlegs.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
A number of his songs were written when he was stoned, so he doesn't remember what he was thinking. There are some very obvious examples where he does in fact "believe" what he was writing, and in Chronicles I remember a point at which he was surrouned by old books in New Orleans and that inspired him to write a song. So while some of his songs (Highway 61, I believe, is an example) were infact so much non-sense, that is only true for some of his work.
For the record, "Shelter from the Storm" and "Tangled Up in Blue" are his best songs. And I actually like Dylan's version of "Along the Watchtower" better than Hendrix-- it sounds more desperate to me. Of course, I also really like Nashville Skyline which a few Dylan fans I know despise.
Thank you, Musicology.
In Texas, when they fire you, they really fire you.
Double, My bad.
is coming to a camp with you aaaaaand he's gone.
He pissed off Art Briles and got what he deserved
The Board of Regents knows (they've previewed it) --- not sure if Starr previewed it or not?
This could be interesting. Starr's a political creature, I can see him trying to take others down with him.
So... he's aware but not totally aware?
Not sure this is the guy they should be firing. Guys way up on the ladder like this usually don't know what's going on beneth them. Briles is the one who should be fired.
If he didn't know what was going on, that's almost as good of a reason to fire him as knowing and actually covering up what was happening
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Not really. This just gives the appearance that Baylor is doing something without actually doing anything. Briles is the one who covered this stuff up. It's like a local manager of a Burger King spitting in the food and then the company goes and fires the CEO. The manager is the one who needs to be fired.
...mutually exclusive. Starr was in charge of governance and compliance for the entire university, so the buck stops with him and it seems he was implicated by the university's independent investigation - there's no way he doesn't get fired out of this. That said, Baylor will ultimately be measured by who else is punished for what was obviously at best a systemic failure and at worst a cynical conspiracy. I had some dealings with Starr when he was at Pepperdine - dude can be a nasty MF and if there are others to blame you can be sure they are all going to go down with him.
reading between the lines: Starr appears to be implicated in the report (to some degree).
Now the questions are: (1) who else is implicated?, (2) do all of us get to see the report?, and (3) does Starr go scorched Earth?
I struggle to see a scenario where Baylor can keep Briles, while answering "no" to question 2. Because in that scenario, question (1) remains an open quesiton (as regards Briles).
As you said, Baylor's "ultimate measuring stick" is still to come here.
...that report will be leaked before all is said and done. There are too many individuals with access, with too many varied agendas to keep it under wraps. There is also some likelihood that the State will force disclosure.
It's not like that at all (your bk analogy).
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IMO they also need to fire Briles and the athletic director who were also enablers. Otherwise, the regents lose credibility and it looks like they're still protecting the football program. They certainly don't want to look like Penn State.
Exactly. I know the President is culpible, but did the players even miss a game? If the President gets fired for covering up football player transgressions, it should only come after the Head Coach gets fired first, then the Athletic Director. The regents know full well, though, that winning football games means $$$ so nothing else matters.
and his priorities should have been different than the coach and AD. Also, you want a new president in place before you hire their replacements. Briles has a much bigger contract than the others. If they want to fire him, they'll negotiate the terms of his departure. It will be much less messy to let him resign, probably cheaper too.
It has to be done from the top down. Interim president hires interim athletic director, who handles Briles's departure and hires a new coach.
Otherwise you've got the current president and AD, who are implicated along with Briles, handling the negotations over Briles's firing/resignation/buyout. That can't happen.
I agree with most of this, except maybe the Briles contract issues. Obviously we still need more information, but isn't it plausible that there's enough smoke here to terminate him for cause, which makes the size of his contract less of an issue?
Substitute young boys for young women and you basically have the same culture. Protect the football team at all costs, allow players and coaches to do whatever they want to whoever they want and blame somebody else when the shit hits the fan.
We Are - Penn State
We Are - Bay-lor