Nobrainer’s Think Tank

I think I’ll be trying this ASAP!

My meeting ended just before 10, and I headed back to my office. At the same time, the 9 o’clock classes were letting out. The bustling campus is a nice change from the slowness of a college summer. I suddenly realized why this crowdedness was so nice. The crowd consisted mostly of girls — hot girls. “Hot girls” I thought, “at the e-school?” What’s more, most of them were pouring out of the mechanical engineering building. That they were leaving the building in droves is not surprising. That they were in it to begin with is. Surely, somewhere, the universe is out of whack.

And now for the “etc.” I have to send back a defective product today, and I ran out of packing peanuts. Since I needed packing material, and the campus newspaper is free, I picked up a few copies. Of note:

• More students are purchasing Apple computers. I still predict that with the Apple switch to Intel processors, the consumer will start purchasing the computer of their choice then the operating system whether it’s Linux, Windows, or MacOS. For the sake of the Apple business plan, they had better remain focused on selling good products, rather than overpriced average products that look good.
• Washington Weekly Monthly (the Cav Daily accidently mislabled the magazine in the headline on their frontpage.) (whoever they are), a left leaning magazine is trying to break into the college ranking business. Apparently the only reason I should care is because UVA isn’t ranked at the top. Instead they’re at #22. The idea is to rate the schools that do “the most for their country.” They rank schools by things like the number of grads in the peace corps, the # number of students with pell grants, research, community service and others. For them, a university should be heavily committed to social mobility (cough socialism). I’d be slightly more impressed if they took into account the number of students who went to serve in the military.
  

  “To be honest, the fact that a state-funded university would have one of the lowest percentage of students on Pell Grants was offensive to us,” Franklin said. “Schools that we think of as elilte institutions did better on this than U.Va. We think that frankly the school could be serving its citizens better.”

  Would you really steer your child away from a school because a left-leaning magazine thinks the number of students with Pell Grants is too low? In summary, these rankings are as important as my college football rankings.

• Lastly, the paper is looking for Viewpoint writers. The application consists of two 700 word columns: one on a university topic, and one non-university topic. Reckoning that I write that much material anyway, I expect to submit an application by the deadline in the middle of September. I doubt I could write anything more ignorant than today’s “An army of none” by Cari Lynn Hennessy.
  

  [F]ew able-bodied young people seem eager to sign away their lives. Unfortunately, the desperation to meet monthly quotas has prompted recruiters to resort to bribes and manipulation of young people who are considered most vulnerable.

  Only the Army is missing its total recruitment goals. Recent news has shown they, in fact, are exceeding some goals, such as those regarding re-enlistment. Strike one.

  Let’s look at what a “bribe” is:

  1. Something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to a person in a position of trust to influence that person’s views or conduct. 2. Something serving to influence or persuade.

  A “person in a position of trust” contradicts nicely with “young people” being “manipulated.” so the first definition is right out. Certainly a bribe is meant to “influence or persuade.” So is an “incentive” or a “bonus.” Do you feel “bribed” when you are considering job offers and one of them throws several thousand dollars at you to choose them over other companies? Strike two

  But the fact is, recruiters pursue those who have the most to gain from joining the military, i.e. the poor and untrained. That’s exactly what they should do. Should we be sending them out to corporate offices to try to convince 30 year old executives that it makes sense to join the military? Hell no. Consider, also, that some universities specifically prohibit recruiting efforts on campus. Strike three

  So yeah, I think I can offer some viewpoints.

“Comments by Lou Holtz. Either print all of it or none of it.

“I have previously refrained from commenting on the NCAA investigation because today was the first time I have seen the allegations.

“Let’s examine what the three-year investigation and thousand of dollars spent by the NCAA did reveal. There was no money involved. No athletes were paid. There were no recruiting inducements. No cars. No jobs offered. No ticket scandal, etc.”

Here we see Old Lou suggesting that the NCAA should have saved itself the time and effort and not investigated the program of the old man with a tarnished reputation.

“There were five major violations, and four of them involved our academic office. Concerning these four violations, you will have to consult the university.

“I did not have any control over the academic office. I didn’t hire them. They didn’t report to me. They didn’t consult me concerning their actions, nor did I ever ask them to intercede on behalf of an athlete.”

Apparently, a rogue administrator who commits 4 major infractions does not at all point to the dreaded “lack of institutional control.”

“I would like to comment on the five violations that concerned our football program, one of which was major.

“The major violation was when our strength coach conducted summer workouts as all other schools do and five athletes felt these workouts were not voluntary.

“I told our strength coach to ensure our athletes reported to fall camp in condition. Coaches can not run the risk of an athlete dying in camp because he was unaccustomed to the heat. I need not tell you, Columbia gets hot in August.

“This unfortunate incident happened, and since it has happened, the blame does not go anywhere except to the head coach.”

Except that he’s blaming the strength coach and the NCAA. Obviously mandatory summer workouts should be acceptable.

“In hindsight, I should have dismissed the players from the team and taken their scholarships away. Is this how the NCAA thinks you should handle the situation? This rule should be changed because the coach is in a no-win situation.”

And he’d also like to blame the players who were apparently upset when told to do something against the rules. Why do they deserve to be dismissed from the team for not participating in voluntary workouts? If you have to workout or face dismissal, that is specifically involuntary. Plus the NCAA is still at fault and not really the old man.

“The other four were considered secondary and three of them were self reported. One, governor visited prospects at halftime of a basketball game. The football staff did not invite him, self reported.

“Two, our camp brochure had an illegal picture on it. The brochure was approved by the compliance office before it went to print, self reported. Six months later, the NCAA changed the rule and today it is not a violation.

“Three, I recruited an athlete and the media was present. The situation could not have been avoided, nor was it prearranged by me. I self reported this to the university the same day it occurred.

“The last one involved a student athlete who hosted a prospect and he drove him outside the jurisdiction allowed to pick up the prospect’s friend and brought him back to our campus. The young man picked up was a prospect as well. Both athletes did not attend USC. You could even say both went to Clemson. The athlete was not instructed to do this, self reported.”

Way to take an off-handed jab at the school that helped put an end to your career. That would be the same Clemson that defeated the “great” Holtz 5 out of 6 times. Let’s also question the semantics of the statement, “you could even say.” Did they or did they not go to Clemson? I could even say that I am actually Tommy Bowden and I’ve been pretending to be a young graduate student at another university.

“This includes all violations that I’m aware of that occurred during my six years.

“The three years probation without any restrictions says volumes. USC will still appear on TV; it will still be eligible to go to bowl games.

Don’t get ahead of yourself there Lou. They aren’t eligible for any bowl games yet. Also way to switch into pro-NCAA form after getting a slap on the wrist.

“I am sorry that any rules were violated, and I apologize for any embarrassment in my six years at USC. We tried to operate not only according to the letter of the law but the spirt of the law as well.

There was certainly plenty to be embarrassed about during his 6 years at USC. He should have also taught his players as individuals to play according to the spirit of the game. As well he should have taught them, as individuals, to operate according to the letter and spirit of the law.

“In my six years at USC, we committed one major violation and I can understand how this happened, but I do not condone it.

“I wish Steve Spurrier and the Gamecocks the best. They will not have anybody pulling for them any harder than me.”

Update: For a great volume of mindless drivel, you can read here how USC’s problems were caused by Clemson and Tennessee… well obviously they’re part of the on-field problems. But this article/rant is about the off-field problems.

I see some politicians are finally suggesting that we close the gas-per-mile loophole that has allowed SUVs to guzzle gas. It’s a good idea because it “fixes” a “problem” that politicians created years ago. They legislated. The people acted. Now we still have a ton of hulking gas guzzlers.

It’s a horrible idea otherwise. Think about it. If it was cost-effective to make 30mpg SUVs that are comparable to the 15mpg versions, the companies would already be doing it. If approved, the government is telling you that you have to spend more money up front so that you will save money later.

It would be a much better idea to repeal all the mileage requirements and let the consumer figure it out.

I picked up a copy of today’s Cavalier Daily. I’m mildly amused by some of the mind-numbing editorials. Plus the front page headlines caught my attention: “Student Book Store robbed by ‘gypsies’”, “Police issue summons at block party”, and “Beta Theta Pi fraternity loses charter status over summer”. Beta is apparently doing themselves no favors. The chapter VP said “They want us to be a model fraternity with the best, gentlemanly guys with the most class and the least amount of drinking. . . It’s almost like taking away what fraternities are about — People getting together and having a good time, and most times it involves drinking.” Priceless. Unfortunately the article ends with this paragraph, and I quote, “IFC President Ross Kimbel said it is a long and difficult process for a local fraternity without a”. Yes, I copied that exactly.

Then I laughed at an editorial about how universities should focus on curing social ills. Students should be taught to serve their community not to become successful CEOs who will eventually employ foreign slave labor. In summation, UVA should become more like Berkeley.

But I finally stopped reading when I hit the front page of the sports section. There is a football team here, and it’s coach of 4 years, Al Groh, has recently received a contract extension.

Since coming back home in 2001, Groh has led the charge to re-energize the student body about football — and he has succeeded, transforming Virginia from a “basketball school” to a “football school” in the blink of an eye.

[emphasis mine]

Do any of you, at all, think of UVA in any way as football school? They have a team, clearly. The facilities aren’t bad, but the stadium isn’t “football school” large. However, having the (now former) basketball coach put his team in the toilet and flushed twice (once for the bulk, and again for the remainder) and a football team that has managed to go 16-9 over the last two seasons, is not the same as being a “football school.”

Thank you, try again.

And to close, I ask, what is a student newspaper other than a blog on paper with bad editors and actual press credentials?