Roy Exum
Our friends at ESPN announced over the weekend that the 2015 Missouri football team will be honored at the Sports Humanitarian of the Year awards banquet in Los Angeles on July 15. It is almost needless to say less than maybe 100 people in all of America are happy about that and each may be clinically deranged. To a still-incensed Mizzou alumni crowd and obviously staggered university, the ESPN honor amounts to the biggest “insult after injury” decision in the history of sports.
ESPN said the “team” will receive this year’s ENSPIRE Award, which bears the name of broadcaster Stuart Scott who died of cancer last year. ESPN lauded the bravery of the 30 black players who announced the boycott that lasted less than 48 hours, stating “they took a huge risk.” Puh-leeze!
The better truth is the football team proper had little to do with the boycott that demanded the university president resign or the players would refuse to practice or play that weekend. A number of Tiger players later claimed they were embarrassed about it and and, far worse, the pandemonium that followed. Public scorn is still so horrible it will take years for Missouri’s “out of control” leadership to right such wrongs.
No, it was only about 30 black football players that very unwisely seized a misguided opportunity to join some flake who was on a hunger strike over “black oppression” at the Columbus, Mo., school. The fact of the matter is the impromptu action of the 30 hotheads has since cost the university literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Student enrollment has plummeted (four dormitories have been closed,) a hiring freeze has affected the whole campus and drastic decline in revenue projections has become a staggering reality.
The reason? The world-wide consensus is the inmates are running the insane asylum. Head Coach Gary Pinkel was quick to say he supported the black players but reportedly caught such a backlash from outraged boosters he resigned immediately within a week, hiding behind the bush that his cancer had worsened.
The University president resigned. So did the school provost. Reports are that donations to the athletic department are down over 70 percent. Droves of students have transferred. Freshmen applications were down 25 percent. The enormity of the public relations nightmare was worse than selling a stateroom berth on the Titanic. See for yourself – 30 black players at Missouri cost the university hundreds of millions in losses. And ESPN is going to give them a trophy!
The protest, if you’ll recall, sent seismic shock waves to colleges all across the country. Assistant coaches, trainers and managers infiltrated other college teams everywhere, leaving no doubt such foolishness would result in instant expulsion, loss of scholarship and the very real possibility any punks that joined a revolution would be black-listed by other colleges and the pros alike. “You will never play again anywhere.”
Just this April – a good six months after the fiasco -- UM athletic director Mack Rhodes asked candidly, “How do we move forward? How do we create an environment in our athletic program where this will never, ever, happen again?” (Do not expect Rhodes in LA for the courage show.)
You won’t hear this on ESPN but the entire UM campus is dealing with a five percent budget cut across the board for next year. For example, in the College of Arts & Sciences, the cut comes to $4.2 million, which slices away 57 faculty and staff positions. Projections are the player boycott will result in a decline in enrollment this fall of 2,600 students. That’s seven percent of the student body. In-state tuition is about $20,000. What’s that ESPN trophy worth?
Parents across the Midwest are steadfastly refusing their children to apply at UM and college football recruiters are having a field day, asking tomorrow’s stars, “You are joking, right? You want to go to Missouri? I gotta’ a video tape from CNN I can’t wait to show you?”
The state of Missouri sliced a $3.8 million chunk out of what they allocated the university last year and morale is at an all-time low on campus. In general operations alone, 38 have been laid off and 50 other positions will not be filled. On campus 104 teaching jobs will not be funded, including 44 tenure positions and 31 staff. “These jobs are gone forever. These cuts are permanent.” Even the library will buy 50 percent fewer books for its shelves.
The best reaction of all came several months later when a swarm of about 60 students at Ohio State stormed the administration offices representing a handful of minorities. They had a lists of gripes for the university president to read and were quite full of themselves at first.
OSU officials refused to allow food to be taken into the administration building, causing one student to tweet, “They are trying to starve us out.” And then around 6:30 that afternoon a university vice president told the students he respected them and recognized their concerns. “But the president refuses to read your list, much less respond to it.
“When you stormed into this buildings you scared some people who work here. Tomorrow our first employees get here around 6 a.m. so I need to inform you that anyone who is in this building at 5:30 tomorrow morning will be arrested, carried bodily to paddy wagons if necessary, and placed in jail. We will not stand for this. And there will be other consequences … “
One kid, still trying his hardest to grow a beard, said, “Consequences … what does that mean? To which the vice president answered simply, “Expelled.” Quite curiously, there were no students remaining in the OSU administration building at midnight.
Suffice it to say that ESPN laid a huge egg over the weekend. Any university official who claims to be proud of the “courage” the players showed will sign a separation agreement with his words alone. According to sources in Columbia, there is some very real hang-wringing in the UM athletic department over who exactly is going to LA to accept the ESPN award because he better swap the “courage” plaque for a flak jacket before he gets back home.
New football coach Barry Odom has already yelped, “Not me. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Besides, I have to be in Birmingham the next day for an SEC event … no sir, no no no… not me.”
Then there is this … what if nobody shows up to claim the trophy nobody wants?
royexum@aol.com