dripping sarcasm

This is an email sent to all-users on Fort Hays State Lotus Notes. It’s from the debate coach (Bill Shanahan), who is noted for his incredible sarcasm. He’s also a very strange and smart man, who happens to be extremely good at debate.

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to all:

since there seems to be a dramatic lack of response to, what i am now calling, the hughen group, here goes:

let’s acknowledge the important role student-athletes play in the classroom as well as in the pocketbook – let’s be up front about the amount of revenue brought in by intercollegiate athletics through any number of different avenues – and, let’s get some of that money into the hands of those student-athletes: in other words, let’s professionalize college athletics and embrace this wonderful source of revenue for the school and the student

- we should not be holding student-athletes to standards of other students, since, many times, they function in different roles – obviously, we do not hold all citizens to the same standards: our society, ostensibly, is a meritocracy: if athletics brings in money and students to the university, we should celebrate their contribution, not vilify it – let’s all get together and expose the sham-egalitarianism that seems to motivate some of the thinking on this very important matter

a brief re-cap: student-athletes bring a hell of a lot more to this university than just their extraordinary classroom participation – let’s face it: they also bring the cabby, and who among us would argue about how much that matters in today’s fiscally constrained environment

thanks and enjoy
:bill

March 17, 2004

Posted in cogitations.