There are lessons worth learning from Deaton's email to Boren
Published: 3/18/2012 10:46 PM
Last Modified: 3/19/2012 9:27 AM
There's a terrific story in the Columbia Daily Tribune about Missouri's cut and run to the SEC. My favorite part includes an email from MU president Brady Deaton to Oklahoma president David Boren. It was sent last Sept. 24, the morning the Tigers played football at Owen Field. Deaton wasn't coming because, apparently, he had a dentist appointment.
"I will be cheering on the Tigers!" Deaton emailed. "I am sure it will be a spirited engagement!"
A spirited engagement? Is that what he really called it? Yes, that's what he really called it.
A spirited engagement.
There are three types of people who talk like that. Those acting in parodies on Saturday Night Live. Those stuck in 1926.
And academicians who have absolutely no business sticking their noses in the business of their athletic departments. Particularly when the very futures of those departments are at stake.
It's one passage from one email. But it illustrates perfectly the madness within the recent conference realignment fervor.
What happened at Missouri and Texas A&M was university presidents let the wrong people steer them the wrong direction – away from the Big 12 and toward the SEC. The two boards of regents authorized Deaton and A&M counterpart R. Bowen Loftin to act, when they should have authorized athletic directors Mike Alden and Bill Byrne to do so.
I don't know if Alden and Byrne could have reversed course, but surely they would have slowed the process enough to allow grown men to start thinking instead of reacting.
This isn't just my sentiment. I have covered games/events involving Mizzou and A&M since their decisions to leave. I have talked to coaches and athletic department types from both schools. I have talked to media who cover the two programs, and who know higher-ups in both athletic departments.
Bottom line: Both schools are making a mistake. More coaches and administrators believe that than those who do not. It's just too late to do anything about it, thanks to the presidents who bought into the inflamed rhetoric of influential fans and boosters. There's no going back.
All we can do is learn some lessons moving forward.
Number one: When it comes to college athletics, let's leave the really important decisions to… I don't know… those administering athletics. Let's leave them to athletic directors, with the backing and input of their coaches. Not to university presidents, whose job should be to hire the ADs and trust them that they know best when it comes to such matters.
Number two: Football games can never be referred to as "spirited engagements."
"We will miss all of you," Deaton's email to Boren continued, "and our champagne celebration!"
Please. Enough already.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
