Be happy that the big carved Indian didn't go anywhere..

It's been a busy week of comings and goings around here.  Despite being groomed for the University of Akron  job, Jim Tressel  is headed to Youngstown State University,  and University of Toledo provost Scott Scarborough is coming to UA. Then, in case you strangely missed it, a young man roaringly celebrated  as Johnny Football, a.k.a, Manziel, was grabbed by the Browns to rise to the heights of a franchise quarterback beginning with pre-season ticket and T-shirt sales.

Virtually unnoticed in the area media has been the frenzied uprising by  GOP House members with certificates of excellence from the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts.  That may include at least half of the Republican  reps who want a seat on Speaker John Boehner's Select House (kangaroo) committee to damn well get to the bottom of Benghazi by the next presidential election.  There's probably no  group on Capitol Hill more qualified  to investigate the ad hoc scandal than this fishy gang of bottom feeders.

Also  going away were six more Beacon Journal staffers who accepted buyouts, including Jim Carney, Jewell Cardwell and Dave Scott. That reduced the size of the staff, reported the BJ Retirees blog,  to 30 pct. of what it was in 1991.

 And coming to Akron was Rick Santorum to sell his books and non-existent presidential credentials to an Ohio Christian Alliance lunch crowd.  But I think I already mentioned that earlier, didn't I?

Gone, too, for at least a year is Browns' star wide receiver Josh Gordon, who was suspended for drug violations.  The Browns couldn't even get through 24 hours of Manziel madness without a  cloudburst on their parade.  You have to wonder what they ever did to offend the gods.

That left the big carved Indian on West Market Street as the only  figure of interest in place.


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UA still hunting for new president - or maybe not

And so, dear reader, we begin a new week with the University of Akron Board of Trustees still unsure of the identity of the school's next president.

Presumably the gestation period began back in August, 2013, when President Luis Proenza announced that he would move on.    You can find more than one person on the campus who believes the required institutional "search" for Proenza's successor ended in 2011 when the school hired dethroned OSU football coach Jim Tressel and put him on
a fast-track career projectile that would seat him in the president's office when it was finally vacated.

The Board's  game plan appears to be drawn from the playbook of another OSU icon, Woody Hayes, known widely for a  grinding  offense relying on "Three yards and a cloud of dust". The trustees must have read about it somewhere.

The search, such as it has been,  has been  a pro forma exercise that finally drew a dozen and half or so applicants with Tressel prominently among them after a  series of coy responses on whether he was actively seeking the job.  Not only that job.   It has since been revealed that he has applied for the presidency at Youngstown State University. Has  the situation now opened to auction bidding for his services between the two schools?

There's been little coming from the Board, although I'm told that three Republican members, and maybe more,  are solidly behind hiring Tressel for the  top job.  That group is led by Jonathan Pavloff, Board vice chairman and chairman of the Summit County Republican executive committee.

Meantime, the next  president may have to demand hazard pay. He (or she?) will quickly be challenged by a projected $15 million budget  shortfall, a four percent decline in enrollment and a two percent increase in tuition. Tressel would find the challenges much greater than defeating Michigan.

College, anybody?

Browns search: Rebuilding sand castles at high tide

The Browns have interviewed -  or will interview - so many prospects on their list to hire a new coach that it wasn't until this morning that an office janitor in Berea happened to see a calendar scheduling  an interview next week with a coach they just fired -   Rod Chudzinski.

When reporters asked Team CEO Joe Banner about the odd entry on the calendar, he  said there may have been some things "on the upside" about Chud that have since turned up after he left.  "If nothing else," Banner explained, "it's entirely possible that Chud has now had plenty of experience to be the perfect transitional coach for 2014 until we find someone else for 2015."

Meantime, the great media mentioning game has now turned to Jim Tressel, who needs no introduction at this point in his career. He's widely mentioned  now in the media's   Department of Contagious Speculation as a candidate for the Browns, which have earnestly  - if clumsily - tried to rebuild sand castles at high tide.  But he's been teasingly coy about his next move, whether as University of Akron  President or Browns coach.

In fairness to Chud, as well as the team's choice for 2015, it would be charitable if
Tressel announced something soon enough to cancel further interviews with Chud,who is out of work with no unemployment insurance. .

P.S.  You heard it here first: neither Sam Rutigliano nor Knute Rockne has come up in any of the conversations.  

Is Jim Tressel's academic career on the goal line?

   Former OSU football coach Jim Tressel moved deeply into the red zone last week when the University of Akron board of trustees awarded  him a new title:  executive vice president. It is his third title since his arrival in 2011 as vice president of strategic engagement and later as the veep for student success.

The board's action spurred further speculation that his next title will  put him in the end zone:  president.

Not all of the speculation has met with  bravissimos in some faculty quarters,  where there are untidy questions about his lack of the doctorate so prized in academe for any  rise to the top administrative chair. 

Such talk among faculty and the school's boosters has been the subtext of his whirlwind career path since the school's president,  Luis Proenza, announced he was heading out in June from the position he's held for 15 years to engage in a  one-year sabbatical.  That would be followed by his return to the campus as a full time professor and president emeritus.

Since settling on the downtown campus, Tressel has been treated as a celebrity while busily engaged in motivational work with students as well as poetry reading to a UA creative-writing session and speaking at a Program Learn fund-raiser where attendees could get an autographed copy of his book,  The Winner's Manual.  

He's also considered to be an excellent fund-raiser at a time when the school is trying to find a way out of deep debt and a declining graduation rate.  With those elements in the equation, it might be reasonably asked how much is  a doctorate really worth in today's academic marketplace?   

Meantime, everyone directly involved in Tressel's future has been  quite guarded about his next move.  They have politely spun around media questions about his future,  particularly now that the formal search for Proenza's successor has begun.   But several sources  close to the scene have told me:  "It's a done deal."

Following this week's board meeting, the Beacon Journal noted that  Tressel "sidestepped" a question about his interest in the job.  Reporter Carol Biliczky quoted him as saying, "I think in fairness I'm interested in whatever role it is that our leadership wants of me".

Beyond that, the play calling remains in the brass'  huddle.  But when you are this close to the goal line it would certainly sound foolish to call for a Hail Mary.

(Re-posted from Plunderbund)

For Tressel, first down, one inch to score?

Are you eagerly into the Tressel Era at the University of Akron?

The iconic ex-football coach seems to be on a lot of people's lips as the looming successor to retiring President Luis Proenza.

Oh, there are scoffers to be sure.  They shrug  off all talk of a Tressel advance to chief executive as, well, you've probably heard the same expletives. But  the dot-connector will tell you that Tressel is on the one-inch line on first down, a breath away from Touchdown Heaven.  "It's a done deal,'' one told me, resigned to the connecting dots.

I haven't  seen any of the big shots on campus in the UA club, including the trustees who are engaged in the pro forma search committee, dismiss the possibility.  And Tressel told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he would be "flattered and interested" if he were offered the job.

The Aug. 28 edition of the Chronicle was less enthusiastic about the idea, noting that Tressel was asked to leave OSU because of the  silent treatment he gave to the sale of athletic memorabilia by several players in return for tattoos or cash.  The Chronicle also declared that he "lacks the traditional credentials of a  college president.  He has earned praise from Akron's president and Board for his work as an administrator, but for most of his career Mr. Tressel has viewed academe through the lens of a big-time college-football coach."

Still, in the current Tressel Era at UA, I have to think metaphorically about that one-inch line to the goal.  And as the school's critics have raised serious questions about the Proenza administration's hot kitchen on falling enrollment, cutbacks on faculty and the plunge into deeper debt, Tressel's name keeps appearing in his role as vice president, marketed by title as  "strategic engagement".

Which brings me to the latest Tressel  initiative that appeared today on the front-page of the Beacon Journal as a a putatively upbeat  sign that UA is trying hard to redefine its image, come hell or high water.

Tressel is promoting a program that will pay part-timers $8 an hour (!)  - 25 cents higher than Ohio's  minimum wage - to work with students to improve their academic chances of staying in school.

But you will need at least  10 years of teaching experience (do x's and o's on the game plan count?)   and it would doubtless help if you had a master's degree. "We're looking for people who want to make difference," Tressel told the BJ.

At their entry-level  pay scale, they would have to be desperate to put food on the table.

Proenza and UA: Red Ink spreads the blues

 Rumors are always the juicier back story  of an institution's narrative.   It follows that the larger the institution,  the more sustained and embellished the rumor mill.

But in the matter of the University of Akron, the rumors were true.  President  Luis Proenza is relinquishing the throne.  And like some other campus chiefs these days - say, OSU's Gordon Gee - he will return with many of the accouterments that have attended his days in office.  Well, not quite so many as Gee's pot of gold out the revolving door but certainly enough to keep him in the style that he's accustomed to.

For the time being  however, before he comes back to the campus after finishing out a new school year and a sabbatical in 2114, Proenza will be the subject  of post-presidential analysis by friends, foes and don't-cares.

Clearly, his dedication to the bricks and mortar development of the campus to make it seem more like, um...a campus, has won him approval from those who see it as a turn-around landscape to attract more students when UA is desperately in need of a strategy to  reverse the serious decline in enrollment.  But so far it hasn't worked and instead has piled up new debt on top of the cost of old stuff, plus a bonded new football stadium.

Times are tough all around for today's state-supported campuses.  I doubt there are many conservative lawmakers in Columbus who want to spare classrooms of the burdens  of budget cuts.  The over-fed pols that I've met over the years already had their college degrees from the days when an education didn't force you didn't have several jobs to pay for tuition,  parking and a few pencils.

If tuition is out of reach for many young people, you must remember that Gov.Kasich is running for reelection next year boasting  of tax cuts and even leaner public spending.

Proenza not only tried to live with  red ink. The financial swamp deepened. It didn't help the public perception of UA  that during his tenure the rise of well-paid (six-figures) titled employes, including public relations operatives,  became commonplace.   When Proenza's critics raised questions about the university's priorities  that seemed more corporately-inspired  than academic with so much cash floating around at the top of the organizational charts,  there was little discernible response from the president's office.

Meantime,  enrollment was plunging,  poor graduation rates placed  UA near the bottom of the ladder and...well, eventually we had to accept that new $61.6 million football stadium that  was expected to lend pride and power to the gridiron hereabouts.

Even before Proenza's arrival, the elixir  for the grid program was the hiring of a high-cost "celebrity" coach"  - Jerry Faust,  with Notre Dame credentials.   (It didn't do much good down on the field.) The latest celebrity to arrive (in December 2011)  is former NCAA Coach of the Year Terry Bowden, whose team won one  game and  lost 11 in 2012 playing in the Mid-American conference.

Oh, should mention former Ohio State University Jim Tressel, now the glad-handing motivational "engager"  (read, fund-raiser) on the campus. (Among the current soaring rumors:  Tressel will replace Proenza,  which is so rumorish that I'll step aside from such wild speculation.)

You have read that faculty hours are being cut for budgetary reasons, and some part-time teachers have been shown the door. Fact:  UA leads all Ohio state universities with nearly 60 pct.  of faculty comprising the part-timers. Some supermarkets may boast of better ratios.

There's not much hope for the next two years. UA is now faced with up to a 7 percent decline in enrollment while $30 million is whacked out of the budget and maybe 100 more jobs are eliminated.

Some of the dark clouds were beyond Proenza's control;  but the debt has grown   worse over the years. One of the reasons university presidents are paid so well is that they are expected to lead the school to higher achievement.  And if things don't go as well as planned, they also will be held accountable.  You see some of that in the corporate world. Isn't that what we've been talking about?

The authorized version of Tressel's UA arrival

It now seems likely  that former Ohio State University football coach Jim Tressel's personal authorized history officially began the day he arrived at the University of Akron as the school's "vice president for strategic engagement".  Akron, UA's alumni magazine,  featured him in a cover story that ranged across two full inside pages without a hint of how he came to be available for the newly created campus job.

OSU's goal line stand backfired

PLANET SCARLET AND GRAY is becoming mostly gray these days as the collegiate sports world is sparing few acts of reprisal against the Ohio State Buckeyes. The reaction to the scandalous goal line stand offered by OSU's big shots to escape further punishment for their sins records another ugly chapter in the modern excesses of intercollegiate athletics. For the almighty Buckeye gridiron powerhouse in Columbus, it is now simply the case of the bigger you are, the harder you fall.

The epic began modestly enough by today's porous standards. Some first teamers, including the team's ballyhooed quarterback, were outed for selling off some of their collectibles to a tattoo parlor owner in returned for tattoos. What followed was a frantic goal line stand by the team's iconic freshly-groomed coach, Jim Tressel - a prayerful Mr. Clean - who had been respectfully esteemed as a Michigan beater as well as the way his teams clobbered a lot of other opponents.

It's a messy departure from the standard press box image that has led to player suspensions, reports of Tressel's use of ineligible players and a lot of seesawing by OSU President G. Gordon Gee, who couldn't quite find the proper words to make the issue go away. To make matters worse, OSU agreed to convert the $3.5 million coach's resignation into a normal retirement and drop Gee's avowed plan for a $250,000 fine while setting up a $50,000-plus retirement "bonus" for the besieged coach - the last month of his base pay. .

The current fallout will leave lengthy scars. Last season's winning season, including its Sugar Bowl victory, will be purged from the record books. There there will be other penalties when the NCAA issues its verdict in August. But that may be a good thing. It would be a healthy improvement, not only for Big Daddy OSU, which dominates all of Ohio's collegiate sports, but for other schools where sports have taken over the campus brand, by hook or crook.

That's probably wishing too much. But it's a thought that a few schools may try to live by to avoid the disgrace that attends Scarlet and Gray. How easy it would have been for the OSU front office to escape the worst consequences if Gee, Tressel and their enablers would have honestly taken charge of the situation at the outset instead of trying to run out the clock. After all, real pros don't panic.

The clock runs out on Tressel

AS WE ALL must know, rabid sports fans are a vacant lot, but have fun being so. So the hysteria over Jim Tressel's departure (ouster!) at Football Central in Columbus is not surprising. A full-scale disaster for the Buckeye Boosters, yes. But surprising, no.

In the brief mourning period since Tressel abdicated, there have been howls that the poor fellow not only had a knack for beating Michigan but was blessed with uncommon piety and class. As one who worked in Columbus for a decade, I can vouch that piety is an extraordinary virtue in a town where football, by God, is the practiced religion . That Tressel lied about what he knew was happening on his players back channel was hardly culpable for his teary-eyed cheerleaders. Some critics - mostly letter writers and call-in nuts - blamed the players for betraying their leader. And so the media have been a scapegoat for OSU's loss of one of its favorite sons.

Well, the time has come for a little soul searching for corporate level college sports. The front -office salaries are extraordinary; the cost of a single ticket that doesn't require binoculars is out of reach of many fans; and the media, now accused of hounding Tressel, contribute to the fantasy that the game is something more than a game. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in Buckeyeville, where one or two losses a year on the gridiron is not a winning season.

Ever wonder why Columbus doesn't have an NFL team? They already have one on the campus. And Tressel, the coach who could do no wrong, showed us how it was done, with a little tweaking here and there.

Don't fret, Buckeye fans. The big guys down there will make sure Tressel's avatar will take over from here.