[Vision2020] Salaries at UI

[Joan Opyr]

Tom advises:

>So, before you make any lame allegations, I suggest that you check into 
>these programs.


I've never been one to shy away from any allegation, limping, lame, or just 
lying there bleeding from blunt force trauma.  If, as seems to be the case, 
every academic program, college, and department at the University of Idaho 
is under scrutiny, then why, of all things, should we not also look at 
athletics?  No university ever risked a department's accreditation by axing 
an assistant football coach, but this is just what the UI has done to Art by 
axing the Art Historian.

I enjoy college sports, particularly basketball.  (Remember where I come 
from: North Carolina is to basketball as water is to fish.)  I like to watch 
a good game and cheer the home team.  It's important to remember, however, 
that the U of I does not exist simply to serve as a home for the Vandals.  
It is first and foremost a university, and, theoretically at least, it's the 
state's flagship institution.  Well, the ship is going down.  It's time to 
stop bailing water and start humming Nearer My God to Thee.  The question 
is, when the University of Idaho is finally broken in half and resting on 
the silt, will any of us look up at the waves crashing over our heads and 
say, "At least football, basketball, and golf were saved.  Boy, if they'd 
sunk, too, that *would* have been a disaster."

Sure, there are schools aplenty with great teams and no academic reputation, 
but do we want to be one of them?  Do we want our degrees to be worthless 
though our jerseys are great?  Where would you rather get your bachelor's, 
The University of Virginia or The University of Nevada at Reno?  Harvard or 
Clemson?  Of course, this might be a false choice.  We're not doing well on 
either front.

As for UI coaches and players past going on to better things, well, as the 
Boss once sang, "Glory days, they'll pass you by."

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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