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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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Power Corrupts…

Most of the news from the UC school to the west have been about, police power, tuition hikes, and executive pay. This story, on the sports page, would normally get a lot more discussion, but it’s likely to get lost in furor, and that’s a shame, because while it’s not as important as these other stories, the university is at the cusp of facing a choice about whether to “play like the big boys”– south state “neighbor” and frequently on probation USC, and who could resist comparisons to the corrupting influence of big-time college ball at Penn State? What is so lovely about this piece is how revealing many of the quotes from the report are about so-called amateur athletics. Here are some choice picks:

…(S)ome facets of UC Davis’ operating philosophy do not align with many top-tier Division I programs.

Among the audit’s more controversial points has been that several of the eight “core principles” established by UC Davis to guide its move to Division I may actually “represent an impediment to increased competitiveness in Division I.”

Apparently, in amateur athletics there is no room from niceties like “philosophy” and “principles”, but they do