Ohio State hires Urban Meyer as the new football genius and so let us begin the new millennium in the Scarlet and Gray's iconic history. We can confidently tell you that is true because the morning papers reported it in headlines that would normally announce a war or a tsunami on Lake Erie. (See above photo in Beacon Journal) Add this from the front page of the Plain Dealer:
After a difficult season, Buckeyes get their man
For a winner-starved sports crowd in northern Ohio (albeit, the OSU campus is in Central Ohio!) the media's overly-expressive reaction was based on the employment of a coach with a winning record in an earlier life that has now earned him a six-year contract worth more than $25 million. In some respects, Meyer is the new kid on the block to replace LeBron James, another icon who shattered his blessings by the fans in these parts by skipping town to Miami.
And now we come to what some people will call the apples-and-oranges section of this short Urbanized piece:
The Buckeyes hometown Columbus Dispatch declared on Page One: MEYER ERA BEGINS
But there were a couple of other much less prominent items on the same page, one was headed Parks have to wait for improvements, which reported that the Metro Parks could not upgrade their conditions because of state budget cutbacks; and another: Westerville schools eliminate 62 positions., the result of having to strip $23 million from the budget during these, eh...hard times.
I have a problem dealing with the two universes, folks. As a political writer for decades, I realized that - optimistically speaking - based on election day turnouts, no more than 50 pct. of the readers gave a damn about politics. As for readership, that may have been wildly optimistic.
So is it fair to ask whether the Urbanization of a college football team is worth so much notice in view of all of the other realities of the workaday world?
I think not, but I do follow the happenings in the sports world, even on days like today when I can't avoid it with my morning coffee.
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5 comments:
Aah, you sound like somebody who went to, like, Illinois, or something.
Well, I keep trying to say that you sound like a disappointed fan who must have gone to someplace like Illinois.
Sorry to disappoint you, but as an Illini alum I long ago gave up being disappointed by the team that usually fares no better than the Buckeyes this year. Hope that Urbanization will help you get over your disappointment ASAP. The Bucks annual winning records, of course, place them in the same league as the 1 percenters.
The Ohio State football program has been in and out of trouble regularly over the last ten years. Their punishment? Signing Urban Meyer. Why not award Penn State Aaron Rodgers, and give Syracuse Dwight Howard? All's fair in love, war, and the NCAA
How many academic scholarships could be covered by $25 million? Or is the real number significantly larger than that -- say $40 million? As an OSU alum (BA '58/MA '64), I root for the Buckeyes. But millions of bucks for a football coach?!?! Yikes! Where are our priorities?
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