OT: Another Gordon Gee Facepalm Moment
Seems Mr. Gee is at it again with his talk. After the many ridiculous public comments he continues to make, as well as the email UMxWolverines shared with us back in December: (http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/email-my-uncles-friend-sent-gordon-gee-and-…),
it really seems like this guy is just out of touch with reality.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7451108/ohio-state-bucke…
January 12th, 2012 at 3:00 AM ^
This is awkward. One minute apart?
January 12th, 2012 at 3:12 AM ^
would be so proud.
January 12th, 2012 at 3:36 AM ^
I don't really even get this comment. Why is it offensive? Just seems like a weird analogy to me but maybe I need to brush up on my Polish history. I also just looked up Gee on Wikipedia and saw that this is his second nonconsecutive term as president?? Why would they bring this idiot back?
January 12th, 2012 at 3:50 AM ^
I don't understand where he was headed with the comment but I don't see the slur part of it all. Maybe there's lines we need to read between?
January 12th, 2012 at 4:41 AM ^
He basically referenced the failure of the Polish army during, I assume World War2, when the entire country was invaded by two powers, torn apart, victimized by, much of the country destroyed or used as a battleground, widespread famine, marched off to Siberia or Nazi work camps, etc etc.
There are better things to reference than an extremely tragic and painful memory to Polish people everywhere.
January 12th, 2012 at 5:29 AM ^
I'm pretty sure you just described Ukraine. Pardon my ignorance, though, if this series of events also occured in Poland.
January 12th, 2012 at 7:59 AM ^
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#World_War_II
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#Post.E2.80.93World_War_II
It was pretty horrific there, too.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:32 AM ^
Relevant quote: "When we had these 18 colleges all kind of floating around, they were kind of like PT Boats, they were shooting each other," Gee said. "It was kind of like the Polish army or something. I have no idea what it was."
I believe it's part of the stereotype regarding the intelligence of Polish people. It may not be a joke anymore, but it used to be about 20 years ago. Obviously, these types of stereotypes are ignorant, but I believe he was referencing that.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^
Have you heard of this little event called World War Two? it started when Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939. The Ukraine did not exist as a nation until, oh, 50 years later.
January 12th, 2012 at 6:07 AM ^
of any polish joke you've ever heard. I can understand the offense.
January 12th, 2012 at 6:35 AM ^
There is a sterotype that Poliosh people are stupid. Gee says that all of his divisions were like PT boats that were shooting at one other making it like controlling the Polish Army. Hence, his departments don't work together = they are firing at each other = stupid Polish.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:39 AM ^
Thank you for explaining, the good thing was that so many young people on this board didn't actually get his reference, I found to be a good thing.
He is a complete embarasment to OSU and to the B10. He should be fired.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:23 AM ^
but I didn't get it. I should state that I live in Canada though, so maybe the jokes about the Polish just never caught on here. We just make fun of our own....The Newfoundlanders.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:01 AM ^
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Danny Williams would be so disappointed in you.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:20 AM ^
You leave my dog outta this!
January 12th, 2012 at 12:23 PM ^
Maybe he should be fired... is someone going to give Tressel a call?
January 12th, 2012 at 4:16 AM ^
here's a hearty F-CK you to Mr Gee.
Then he goes off and tries to downplay the scandals. Those people down there are genuinely contemptible.
January 12th, 2012 at 5:00 AM ^
Be let go! The man is too far gone.
January 12th, 2012 at 5:57 AM ^
"When we had these 18 colleges all kind of floating around, they were kind of like PT Boats, they were shooting each other," Gee said. "It was kind of like the Polish army or something. I have no idea what it was."
Does this mean that some of these 18 colleges will escape to the West and fight with the Allies (such as Michigan), or will a few stay in Columbus and form a rather formidable resistance movement against Gee?
January 12th, 2012 at 7:57 AM ^
We will never flee or surrender. We will live in the sewers and fight until this terrible war is finally ended by General Hoke and his soldiers.
Seriously though, I'm not offended by Gee's comments or Polish jokes in general. I expect someone who has a superiority complex to perpetuate stereotypes about another group's perceived stupidity. My understanding of the ineptitude of the Polish Army during the Blitzkrieg was mostly due to the fact that their forces were in Spain helping fight the Fascists. I know that Poland has helped many other countries fight for freedom. Pulaski and Kosciuszko helped us train and fortify our forces during the Revolution.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:42 AM ^
The Polish == stupid meme also came from a time in American History when there was a large Polish imigrant population and as in the past the last group in is the one getting made fun of. In WWII Poland never stood a chance, they were between Russia and Germany and had no support from any other nation. They were doomed, they were doomed from the end of WWI since all the territory from which Poland was reconstituted was taken from Russia (mostly) and Germany and they both wanted it back.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:44 AM ^
this day. They did the heavy lifting on more than one operation in Iraq.
Mixing PT boats and a reference to the Polish Army seems a bit odd. I'd have stuck with the tried and true goat rodeo. Goats can't type.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:48 AM ^
Poland has supplied some very good troops to ops in Afghan and Iraq.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:23 AM ^
PT boats are mainly affiliated with the PTO, not the ETO. Gee is confusing the two theaters.
January 12th, 2012 at 6:32 AM ^
"To stop the blitzkrieg, the polish put thier army on PT boats and lined them up on the german boarder? Were they just laying there or were they on trailers?"
"Also,Mr. Gee to you agree with Billy Madisons view on American Industry and the puppy/dog theroy?"
January 12th, 2012 at 7:42 AM ^
Maybe he thought this was more PC than referencing a Chinese fire drill.
Seriously, though, people take "offense" way too easily these days. Suck it up.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:04 AM ^
Where's my participation trophy!?
/s
January 12th, 2012 at 9:14 AM ^
Seriously, though, people take "offense" way too easily these days. Suck it up.
I don't think it's about anyone in particular being offended. I think it's about expecting more from a university president. If I'm talking to someone who uses racial slurs, it doesn't hurt my feelings. It just makes me think the person I'm talking to is beneath notice.
Yesterday, I happened to be reading some comments by UNC fans on their impending NCAA sentencing. They were waving their hands about and screaming hysterically about how the NCAA was like Stalinist-Russia (but not like Leninist Russia or Suslovist Russia) and Nazi Germany. Well...no, it's not. Those two regimes killed about 50 million of their own people and engaged in ethnic cleansing and brutal totalitarian tactics that stripped the humanity out of wide swaths of an entire continent. The NCAA, whatever its faults, is nothing like that. You're being a self-dramatizing child.
Likewise, running a University is NOTHING like organizing an underfed, underpaid, under-equipped Army that's about to get pulverized into dust leaving the country in such a state of ruin that it will be three or four generations before it's able to stand on its own.
Furthermore, Columbus State was not a victim in all of this. If you're punished for breaking the rules, that's YOUR fault. Poland didn't start the war with Germany (unless you want to be truly melodramatic and claim that, Yes they did...the end of WWI and the Armistice and blahblahblah...Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles). The NCAA didn't INVADE Columbus.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:19 AM ^
in the carving up of Czechslovakia. The Poles were also visciously anti-Semitic. The brutality exhibited towards Jews by Poles is well documented. Poland has much to be ashamed of in its own right in that war.
January 12th, 2012 at 1:12 PM ^
How did you go from UNC equating the NCAA to the Nazis to Ohio State?
January 12th, 2012 at 7:47 AM ^
At first I wrote off this stupidity to him just being a doddering old man who says things that might have been ok to say 50 years ago but not anymore. I think everyone has or has had an older relative somewhere that has said something like this, or referred to black people as "colored" or something. Then I read the article and realized that he is only 67. My parents are about this age (one older, one younger), and no way would they ever say anything this stupid. I remember jokes like this from when I was a kid, and that's where they belong: with 11-year-olds that don't know any better, not with supposedly-adult university presidents. What a jackass.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:00 AM ^
Not taking offense although I can see why people would, but the comment doesn't even make sense. What did he mean by it?? Has he got 18 different colleges fighting each other and trying to screw over the next guy for their own benefit? And how does that even apply to the Polish army, or any for that matter, in a time of war. Maybe he should have used Russian during the Bolshevik revolution as a better analogy (getting out of WWI then quickly falling into revolution), but that still doesn't fit.
I just hope this guy didn't start his career as a historian or anything close to it. One thing we do know, he certainly wasn't a public speaking coach because he is a billboard for what not to do.
January 12th, 2012 at 8:52 AM ^
a technocrat with Aspergers to run your university.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:22 AM ^
You're going to insult someone who made a racist comment by insulting people with Aspergers? I have Aspergers, and I assure you things like what Gee said don't pop into my head, and I have the mental filter to not say them if they did.
So much for enlightenment.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:26 AM ^
I live in Milwaukee where one side of town doesn't stop making Polish Jokes and the other doesn't stop making German ones. The problem here is that it wasn't really all that funny and sounded more like a straight up comparison
January 12th, 2012 at 12:48 PM ^
Neither side of town is the President of a major University.
January 12th, 2012 at 9:52 AM ^
To believe that Time magazine named this dufus the number one rated president of American universities in 2010.
Really? By what standards? I read the article, but it does not seem to track with the comedic public persona of the past year.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:07 AM ^
Ohio needed Gee's connec tion to Mark Emmert while the investigation was being completed . Now that they were able to take advantage of this connection and got away with about a fifth of the punishment they actually deserved, they really have no use for Gordon Gee or Gene Smith anymore. I am guessing that Gee "retires" at the end of the school year and the next president brings in his own guy at AD.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:27 AM ^
You mean Urban Meyer brings in HiS guys as President and AD?
January 12th, 2012 at 10:17 AM ^
Obviously, Gordon Gee is a brilliant military historian.
January 12th, 2012 at 12:06 PM ^
1/2 Polish as well. Have a "ski" at the end of my name, as well. I think Gee would have looked more intelligent if he would have just used the old "Did we give up when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor" shtick instead....
January 12th, 2012 at 10:18 AM ^
Just suggests, as so many of his remarks, that he's silly and out of touch. The fact that someone so unappealing is considered a marvelous administrator in 2012 is worrisome.
Glad he ain't ourn.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:18 AM ^
Either Gee is the best fundraiser on the planet or has something on every trustee/regent's wife/husband. Why else would he be retained?
Everytime I see Gee, who reminds me of a circus barker, I say thank God for Mary Sue Coleman.
January 12th, 2012 at 10:30 AM ^
January 12th, 2012 at 11:16 AM ^
Haters gonna Hate
January 12th, 2012 at 12:47 PM ^
Unfortunately, the wrong one.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:16 AM ^
If you gave President Obama a break on his Special Olympic bowler comment, you probably shouldn't be commenting on this. People say stupid things all the time. People say insensitive things all the time. I think the general population looking to pounce on any slip up someone makes (as long as you already have a inclination to dislike the person) is the problem more than anything.
January 12th, 2012 at 11:29 AM ^
dispariging remarks about Polands Army..Poland has been one of Americas staunchest
and most reliable allies during the the Iraq and Afghan conflicts..He should be thanking
them for their loyalty instead of making fun of them
January 12th, 2012 at 11:56 AM ^
My buddy brought up a good point in that Gee kind of looks like the old man from the Six Flags commercials, you be the judge. He probably danced like him when he found out their "sanctions".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze72uyZfY5Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player