From Natchez to Mobile, From Memphis to St. Joe, From Jersey to UConn . . .
Robert Burton, wealthy Connecticut businessman, recently demanded return of $3 million from his donation to the UConn football program because he wasn’t a part of the process to name the school’s new football coach.
Apparently, it was Burton’s assumption that his donation came with strings, if not ropes, attached.
So it ain’t just down there
Bubba, or way out there
, Slim. Happens here, there and everywhere. Nearly all Division I basketball and/or football schools are reliant on the largesse of moneyed yahoos.
There’s little so pathetically curious as a fully grown rich man who throws his heart, soul, wallet, clout and ego at Division I basketball and/or football programs. Men whose happiness and fulfillment are driven by and contingent upon the results of games played by big and/or fast kids.
And there’s little so pathetically scandalous than the schools that embrace such men, doing whatever it takes to keep them placated if not pleased.
There are scores of such nothing-better-to do donors, many of whom think and act straight — except when it comes to “their” college’s athletics.
Consider that Robert Brennan, currently incarcerated big-time stock swindler — he and his minions specialized in targeting and ruining retirees — donated millions of dirty dollars to Seton Hall, with the pledge of millions more to come.
In return, Seton Hall allowed Brennan to call the shots for its basketball team, which became loaded with his
recruits, all enrolled only
to play basketball. “School” began the day practice began, ended after the last game of the season.
Brennan even ordered Seton Hall to give a full scholarship to a player who spoke no English. When the academic adviser — a theologian, no less, and a man who admitted to looking the other way on behalf of sustaining a top-rated team — grew fed up with the scams and tried to blow the whistle, the school stripped him of his position.
I’m friends with a fellow, a very successful and right-headed man, with one exception: He can’t sleep the night before “his” school plays. Seasonal insanity.
He’s a big donor, thus he has the best seats, plus an open-door invite to whatever luxury boxes the school may inhabit on game days.
And he has the full, first-name attention of the school’s president and its athletic director. He thinks they’re very fond of him for something other than the checks he writes.
I once asked him which he would choose: “His” school to make the Final Four, or all the basketball team’s recruits to graduate with genuine degrees. He couldn’t choose both.
He chose the Final Four.
I next asked what if his son played on that Final Four team, but didn’t graduate.
“Well,” he said, “I’d kill him if he didn’t graduate.”
‘Real Sports’ gives fitting tribute for LaLanne
Good week for nice touches:
1. Tuesday, Bryant Gumbel
wrapped HBO’s “Real Sports” with a tribute to fitness champ Jack LaLanne
, who died at 96.
2. Wednesday on MSG-Plus, Doc Emrick
, during Devils-Red Wings, was stuck for a stat, when Chico Resch
provided it. Emrick complimented Resch for his recall. Resch might have taken the credit, but quickly said, “No, no, Doc, that came from the guys in the truck.”
3. MSG’s Mike Breen
and Walt Frazier
early in the Wizards-Knicks game Monday, noted that Washington rookie Kevin Seraphin
had his shorts on backward. After a commercial break, MSG, on tape — and discreetly — showed the Wizards circling Seraphin as he removed his shorts, turned them around, then slid them back on.
Heck, if he had just turned his jersey around he could have played offense and defense at the same time.
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Baseball in the Age of Bud: The Cubs, depending on the dates and opponents, now sell bleacher seats for a low of $20 to a high of $72. Of course, the Cubs can’t guarantee the quality of the game or the weather.
Several years ago, a Cubs executive established an “independent” ticket agency to which the Cubs funneled tickets to its most in-demand games, including interleague games and those against the rival Cardinals. From there, the prices were jacked up far above the tickets’ face values.
What did the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball do about such systemic price gouging and racketeering? Nothing. The day his co-team owners appointed Bud Selig
commissioner, the “steal sign” was put on, and it remains on, no need to check with the manager.
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Now that ESPN is a 20-year, $300 million business partner with the University of Texas — they will run a 24-hour UT sports cable network — well, we all know by now how ESPN takes dives to push its people and properties. Expect “Around The Horn” to be renamed, “Hook ’em Horns.”
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Sit up, lie down, roll over, play dead: The basketball teams at Florida State and the University of Southern California — both schools’ colors dark red and gold — recently, on orders from Nike, became the latest to add black uniforms.
Another mulligan for Tiger
Apparently, among those most eager to issue Tiger Woods a mulligan are those redneck rich guys who run and rule the Masters. Woods and the Masters now share top billing in a new video game “played” on Augusta National. In this case, both parties do have money in common.
Still, that doesn’t quite rhyme with Charles Barkley’s knee-jerk assertion that the Masters’ folks, by lengthening the course, are overtly racist, with Woods specifically in mind — a claim that made little sense given that Woods, more than most, benefited from such a change. But when it comes to racial issues, Barkley hollers “Fire!” at the smell of a smoked ham.
Speaking of Barkley, TNT Friday apologized for a crack made by NBA pregame guest Tracy Morgan (“30 Rock”) after Barkley asked a wise-guy question.
“Sarah Palin’s good looking, isn’t she?” Barkley said. Morgan answered, “She’s good masturbation material.”