Lucky To Be Rid Of Luck

What is it with my fellow West Virginians?

Jay Rockefeller is feted as a wonderful, one-of-us DC gladiator instead of what he is:  a carpetbagger, a treasonous leaker of national security data (Iraq War etc.) and a self-server of the first order.  He cares about West Virginia only because it has a border i.e. it's one of 50 states from which he could run for office with little or no opposition, thanks mostly to the state's childlike wonder at the presence of a 'millionaire.'

Oliver Luck was given similar treatment.  Most choose to ignore his uncommunicative, downright haughty and arrogant style.  You (read: we) fund the university through taxes and ticket purchases but Luck believes you are entitled to the odd scrap of information long after HIS decision has been made.  No debate, no canvassing of anyone, no consensus - merely a majority of one and off they go with their marching orders.

Well, he's gone now.  The NCAA and its law-unto-itself setup had to be irresistible to a control freak.  Warnings, investigations, sanctions...all the NCAA has to do is send a letter and institutions generally bow and scrape and don the hairshirt of self-sanctions lest they be placed in stocks in the public square by the NCAA.

Indianapolis?  What a coincidence.  If you're the Colts you now have quite a bit of leverage when it comes time for Andrew's new contract, 'cause mom and dad are in town now.  Indian-No-Place?  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.  Starkvegas is taken but Morgantown looks like Macau compared to Naptown.

The NCAA are like FIFA and the IOC:  a self-appointed arbiter of all that is good and right, raking in billions from a monopoly.  All that cash leads directly, almost certainly, to corruption.  They investigate themselves (!).  If any dirt is found, they freeze out the investigator or sack him under false pretenses!  Magically, the NCAA, FIFA and the IOC always emerge unscathed from so-called scandal.  Time to get the GoPro cameras out and catch payoffs being made in real time!

Everyone's treating this as a bump in the road for Holgorsen and the football program.  Ironically, his assistants are getting contracts and extensions but the new AD may decide to keep them and jettison Holgorsen.  Even more ironically, a successful year for Holgy will see his stock rise and increase the chances he leaves.  It's clear that he is itching like mad to return to the Big 12's home base of Oklahoma/Texas.  Easier recruiting, fans less resistant to his mad-scientist nonsense.

Milton's 'Paradise Lost' was quoted in the Star Trek episode 'Space Seed' (i.e. the one that introduced Ricardo Montalban as Khan):  'It is better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.'

WVU will always be an afterthought in the Big 12, geographically and every other way.  There is no more Big East but the new AD had better come up with an Escape Plan, preferably by finding a way to join the SEC (perhaps Vanderbilt will follow through with its reduced emphasis on athletics and drop out).

Parsons Out!

"Metronews’ Allan Taylor reports that WVU and long-time Deputy Director of Athletics Mike Parsons are parting company, and it’s not an amicable separation."

How to react? Relief? Elation? The mere satisfaction that something going wrong for years has finally been addressed?

Nobody has been harder on Oliver Luck than me but full marks to him for tending his own back garden and getting rid of the dead wood.

Parsons was the quintessential blowhard, issuing pompous proclamations that conflicted with reality. His focus was on his agenda and to hell with anyone with a legitimate disagreement.  The grapevine, so active in a college town, usually had the information first and accurate already, which made Parsons' PR twaddle even more risible. The only question remaining was, did Parsons himself believe it?  If so, he was unfit for purpose.

Forget the radio kerfluffle (and believe me I'd take MSN back in a heartbeat), Parsons' legacy will be the dagger plunged into Rich Rodriguez's back and allowing Ed Pastilong to take the resulting heat although Pastilong was far from blameless.  Rod's requests could have been evaluated and responded to individually.  If an NCAA rule prohibited something, then Parsons could have said so.  But Parsons seemed to take everything quite personally and so they chose to go to war and lost a quality coach and someone who loved the university and the state with every fiber of his being.