I'm sorry, but I've about had it up to here with Michael Gartner and his freaking grandstanding over how the University of Iowa Athletic Department conducts it's business. The guy is an outright horse's a$$.
This is a guy who has only run organizations that were either heavily subsidized or lost tons of money. He wouldn't know the first thing about running a highly profitable, successful organization....free and clear of any taxpayer funds.
Here we have an organization (the Iowa Athletic Department) that not only makes over $100 million/year for Johnson County, but makes enough revenue on it's own merits to pay for it's entire existence. Not only that, but because of the tremendous success of the football program, all of the crappy Title IX programs that no one bothers to see are able to be offered. It isn't like if we all of a sudden cut Ferentz's pay down to $100,000 that the Writer's Workshop is all of a sudden going to see a windfall of over $3 million, or the Glee Club get a windfall of over $3 million. All of that stays right in the athletic department.
If he's looking at an egregious use of athletic department funds, why doesn't he start looking at the women's field hockey team that doesn't have a single in-state player on it's roster, meaning that all those full-ride scholarships that are offered are being offered at the out-of-state rate.
As far as I'm concerned, Gartner and his crony Ruth Harkin can both take a flying leap. If there's one thing we've learned in this country, it's that in bad times, whether we're talking a recession, a war, a terrorist attack, etc.....this country turns to sports for a diversion. So in a time of economic hardship, when a great number of Iowans look to Kinnick on Saturday afternoon to give them just a few hours of joy, Michael Gartner and Ruth Harkin want to give us a kick in our collective junk.
In the immortal words of Sgt Murtaugh...."GO SPIT!!"
