It wasn’t a surprise to see a few dismiss this argument as being ridiculous.
Perhaps, because if Clemson University did indeed kill the football program, then the enormous revenue football brings the university would dry up. Given university officials are more corporate whores than true academians, I can see this also.
In reality, I think it’s both. Officials would love for football to go away but they’re not about to sacrifice the revenue that comes with it.
Because they suffer through something they resent in exchange for money, they epitomize the classic definition of whore.
As intelligent Clemson fans know, this all started in 1985 when Max Lennon was named University President after serving as an administrator at Ohio State. I’m not getting into details but I will say than when Lennon declared athletics would be subordinate to athletics, you have to remember the context of the time.
Clemson was a rising football power when Lennon took over. So much so that it is my belief that had Danny Ford been given two more years the Tigers would have been playing for a second national title. So when a university president says something like this during an era like that, the only way for that to happen with any expediency is to systematically dismantle football.
You can’t bring academics up quickly at all but what you can do quickly is bring football down.
It’s funny really. For all the academic bluster by Lennon and his cronies I don’t remember Clemson’s academics improving significantly under his watch. If true, all he did was destroy football and did nothing academically. The only thing I remember him doing was spend spend spend and build buildings. And it didn’t stop at Clemson; when he went to Mars Hill College the professors there hated him because of his fascist, corporate ways.
Nonetheless, the intentional destruction of football, no academic improvement and a deluge of cosmetic improvements to the university campus marked Lennon’s Clemson.
Is the same philosophy still present at Clemson?
I’m not certain that Clemson’s current leadership is as fascist as Lennon (maybe it is, I don’t know), but I do think it’s very probable that current officials are still intentionally reigning football in as a pre-emptive measure to keep it from being "too big".
I do know that it is highly prevalent among academians to resent sports in general. While I respect and agree with most of his philosophies, I do think prominent linguist and anarcho-syndicalist Noam Chomsky’s view of sports is a bit over the top. A couple of quotes:
“Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators.”
“...it occupies the population, and keeps them from trying to get involved with things that really matter.”
When considering Clemson’s pitifully average to below-average state over the past two decades and the more global view of sports’ perception among academic purists, yes I do think it’s very possible that Clemson still has forces within it whose goal is to keep football down. Very.
But again, these same forces are not about to do what they really want because of one reason only - money. Clemson prefers to dupe its gullible fanbase into believing it is football friendly and there is absolutely no hostility towards it at all in hopes of keeping revenues maxed out.
For all who may disagree with him, at least Dr. Chomsky isn’t a hypocrite when it comes to sports. Clemson officials are.
* * *
What Clemson officials don’t realize, or more likely don’t want to face, is that schools can have strong academics and strong football programs as well. Here is a list of schools that are actually capable of doing both.
- Georgia Tech (2009 ACC champion)
- Texas (2005 & 2009 Big XII champions)
- Ohio State (BigTen champion each year since 2005)
- Harvard (four Ivy League titles since 2001)
- Penn (four Ivy League titles since 2000)
- USC (six straight Pac-10 titles from 2003-2008)
- Oregon (2009 Pac-10 champion and current leader in 2010)
- Florida (three SEC titles from 2000-2008, 2006 & 2008 BCS champion)
What do all these schools have in common? They’re all members of the esteemed 63-member Association of American Universities, America’s version of the UK’s Russell Group (Oxford, Cambridge, etc). Magazine rankings are a beauty pageant, but to be an AAU member is where the real prestige is. All Clemson has is a magazine ranking, something you can manipulate your way up. You can’t manipulate your way into AAU membership. That requires real work.
This is clear, undeniable proof that schools can have top-notch academics and a championship football program simultaneously. But will Clemson fact this indisputable fact? Not a chance.
Considering its long-time goal to make athletics subordinate to academics, in the end Clemson has neither.
