ex-CIA Robert Gates to fix NCAA (OT b/c same old, same old?)
New York Times article by Alan Blinder about ex-CIA and ex-Pentagon chief Robert Gates heading commission to fix CIA.
Things that caught my eye:
• puff piece enthralled by Gates, with "rebel's bent and bluntness," AND because as Texas A & M prez, he was frustrated by the NCAA (wow! Astute, right?)
• writer also impressed that Gates & wife invited championship teams to dinner
• many (Power 5) skeptical because little changed by earlier NCAA committees (examples given)
• writer (Gates?) thinks that penalizing obvious violations (Baylor sexual assault, North Carolina academic fraud) "might be the easy fixes"
• writer, taking a firm stand, identifies the January deadline as a bad thing (too much to fix too quick) OR a good thing (because efficiency)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/sports/ncaafootball/ncaa-robert-gates.html
September 17th, 2021 at 8:50 AM ^
Same old, same old from The Gray Lady.
September 17th, 2021 at 8:56 AM ^
Or as norm would say, the gray “battle axe!”
September 17th, 2021 at 9:52 AM ^
The Gray Lady never met a spook she didn't love, no matter how manifestly incompetent they proved to be.
September 17th, 2021 at 8:59 AM ^
WTF??? The OP here... This is one of the worst OP's I've seen - and it tries to provide information! I mean, the attempt is commendable because the NY Times doesn't let you read anything. But it fails in execution...
September 17th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
New York Times article by Alan Blinder about ex-CIA and ex-Pentagon chief Robert Gates heading commission to fix CIA.
What could be more clear!?
September 17th, 2021 at 12:42 PM ^
VABlue, I’m hoping you can help me here. I identified the subject, related to a topic routinely discussed here, gave a summary, and provided the link.
Other than alerting people that the NY Times is subscription, how could I have presented it better?
September 17th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
So, just for clarification because the NYT is subscription-based and some of us really don't want to pay for that just to read this even though we are intrigued, what issues are Gates and this commission setting out to fix precisely? A summary is fine. Also, it is OK to mention the reporter's name and properly attribute these items at least.
September 17th, 2021 at 9:07 AM ^
He will end up overthrowing the NCAA’s leadership, who will all “disappear,” and install a dictatorial puppet commissioner. Then, 20 years from now, the NCAA will commit war crimes and the CIA will wonder how that happened.
September 17th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
If he needs help from someone REALLY good at overthrowing things, I hear Joe Milton is available.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:02 PM ^
All the upvotes to this.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:08 PM ^
Pure gold. If I wasn't neck deep in accounting shit I would create new accounts all day to upvote this more.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
Yeah but would he Volunteer for the job?
Oh wait. . .
September 19th, 2021 at 9:41 PM ^
Haha! You could make it as a troubadour, a screenwriter, an SNL writer. Some shit like that.
September 17th, 2021 at 9:15 AM ^
The NCAA is the Death Star. And the only way to fix the Death star is....
September 17th, 2021 at 9:24 AM ^
He should recruit the Ohio State Accounting dept.
Those clever fucks really know how to scrub the books. Perfect for clandestine operations
September 17th, 2021 at 9:33 AM ^
So somebody in the ncaa is getting assassinated?
September 17th, 2021 at 9:53 AM ^
NCAA gonna start selling drugs, obviously
September 17th, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
Honestly there is nobody better
September 17th, 2021 at 9:39 AM ^
writer also impressed that Gates & wife invited championship teams to dinner
impermissible benefit
September 17th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
I assume he meant 'heading commission to fix NCAA' and not 'CIA'.
September 17th, 2021 at 11:45 AM ^
OK I will ask, how do you unblock a New York Times article?
September 17th, 2021 at 12:15 PM ^
As a subscriber I can share 10 articles/month.
September 17th, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
I'm not sure there's a person alive that could fix the NCAA. There's just too much money sloshing around for it to ever be what it claims.
That said, my time at A&M overlapped with Dr. Gates and his tenure stands out in a sea of terrible leadership and weird politics. Outside of GHW Bush, I don't know of anyone as universally respected in College Station, which is really saying something given the clash of cultures that occurs there.
I sincerely hope he achieves something here, but I'm not holding my breath.
September 17th, 2021 at 11:15 AM ^
That said, my time at A&M overlapped with Dr. Gates and his tenure stands out in a sea of terrible leadership and weird politics.
Same here. Needless to say, many in my department were concerned (to put it lightly) about an ex-CIA director leading an academic institution. Most of these people completely changed their minds by the end of his tenure as president.
I'll also add that, in a time of hyper partisanship, he is one person that is highly respected by across the aisle. It truly speaks to his character.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:45 PM ^
Thanks, Blue Aggie and Blue LSU, for your thoughts from inside A & M. An insider’s view always adds to the overall perspective.
September 17th, 2021 at 10:08 AM ^
The NCAA is gonna have so much opium, everyone is gonna be very chilled out.
September 17th, 2021 at 10:36 AM ^
Who knew the NCAA had a US Embassy?
September 17th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
Worth noting that the Times has been a mouthpiece for CIA propaganda for half a century. But if the NCAA can fix the CIA, I'm all for it.
September 17th, 2021 at 11:42 AM ^
If I were trying to fix a corrupt and failing model of an organization, I would also bring in former employees of another corrupt organization.
If the NCAA is trying to oust democratically elected officials in universities and replace them with NCAA puppets, then sure, this guy is probably the man for the job.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:31 PM ^
The NCAA and the CIA are a perfect marriage. Corrupt, opaque, unaccountable, filled with utter contempt for commoners and democracy.
September 17th, 2021 at 3:05 PM ^
The difference is that the CIA, for all its faults, is actually pretty good at what it does. I can't think of a single thing the NCAA is actually good at.
September 17th, 2021 at 7:42 PM ^
Dunno, I kinda like college football, basketball, and hockey. I'd miss those if the universities running them decided not to compete with each other.
Because the NCAA is the schools, and the schools are the NCAA. People tend to talk like the NCAA was some outside organization imposed on Earth by the Martians.
September 17th, 2021 at 12:06 PM ^
I'm looking forward to false flags at the shoe. That's not the 20 yard line, that's a chemtrail!
September 17th, 2021 at 3:03 PM ^
“You know, God figured out how to give the rules to all mankind in 10 declarative sentences,” Gates said this week. “You’d think that the N.C.A.A. could figure out how to do intercollegiate sports in something short of several hundred pages.”
September 17th, 2021 at 7:44 PM ^
I'm voting "zero sense." God didn't figure out anything. Some dudes just claimed that he did. Probably the same ones that created God in man's image.
September 17th, 2021 at 9:12 PM ^
Yeah….I mean, if you want to take that position then it’s probably worth at least being knowledgeable enough to know that they don’t appear as a list of ten declarative sentences (hence they occupy 17 verses in Exodus and again in Deuteronomy) and that how they get split up into 10 declarative sentences is controversial.