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When You Have Cancer

The best solution is not always to “just watch it” though there are probably cases where that is necessary.

The report bluntly concludes that neither DeFleur and nor Thirer “reacted with sufficient objectivity and self-inquiry when faced with growing concerns from the [America East Conference] and its member institutions regarding the direction of [Binghamton’s] men’s basketball program.”

As a result of this lack of oversight, Kaye recommends that Binghamton’s Faculty Senate and its constituent athletics boards take a greater role in “supervising the direction and operation” (my emphasis added) of the men’s basketball program in the future. She also suggests that the SUNY system appoint an “athletic oversight officer,” which would report to the Board of Trustees, to consistently monitor “the admission, academic progress and behavior of student-athletes attending SUNY schools.”

SUNY Binghamton ought to drop its Division I sports programs immediately. This basketball fiasco comes on the tails of the school announcing (quietly) that it is spending millions on a softball complex. What’s all this I keep hearing about financing troubles for state universities? The taxpayers of New York are being plundered in an incomprehensibly awful way. And all we are going to get is, “some better oversight.” Fire them all. Drop the programs. Stop playing the stupid preferential admissions games for students (note how the E.O.P made it easy for these tricks to be played). And revoke all of their funding.

Alas, none of that will ever happen. They will convene more blue-ribbon panels, as costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to propose reforms to ensure better behavior. What a joke.

By the way, here aer some of the indiscretions:

  • The report itself, which the state commissioned to investigate wrongdoing, cost over $900,000 – who do you think pays for this?
  • (Head Basketball Coach) Broadus had the support of the administration in his desire to soften the university’s admissions for his recruits.
  • n several instances, Coach Broadus sought the admission of athletes who had exhibited serious behavioral problems at prior institutions.
  • The athletic director is on record as saying, “Why do you care if we take six players who don’t attend classes?”
  • And here’s what I mean about the race card and the E.O.C., “Months later, after Starke repeatedly questioned the admissibility of certain recruits put forth by Broadus, the report notes that Broadus and Thirer accused her and the admissions staff of “making decisions on basketball player-applicants based on race.”
  • Two players’ failing grades were turned into passing grades after late work was eventually turned in
  • Players dropped classes they were failing and instead took independent study courses to maintain their eligibility to play
  • In text messages cited in the report, the player asked Hsu to change a segment of his paper that he copied “from the internet. (what does this say about the culture promoted in the athletic department and the school? When would it ever be construed as remotely OK to even suggest this?)
  • Binghamton personnel, the report also notes, actively tried to keep news of players’ arrests quiet.

And there’s much much more.

2 Responses to “When You Have Cancer”

  1. Speedmaster says:

    Okay, at the risk of sounding like a brown-nosing shill (though I really have nothing to gain here), why didn’t I have a handful of Econ teachers like you 15-20 years ago?! I was fed the Keynesian line top to bottom.

  2. ROC'nroll says:

    Speedmaster,

    I was fortunate enough to have wintercow as a professor at Rochester, and I follow this blog religiously. His economics are top-notch, but his sense of fashion leaves much to be desired (I think he’ll be the first to admit this).

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