Winning is not having to pay the money back.
Tammy Bowden lost his job yesterday. I’m not entirely sure it can be considered ‘losing’, though. The Clemsux Tigers know losing. They’ve done it a lot since Tammy came to town. They’ve lost to scrub teams and good teams. They’ve put out for mediocre teams and amazing teams. They’ve lost in spectacular fashion and in awful fashion.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
But I wouldn’t call Tammy a loser. Clemson University had to pay this asshat 4 million dollars to go away. They also had to do it before his daddy threw him another game - not that FSU is doing all that well, either.
I liken this payout to the bailout our congress just imposed upon us. Unlike most people, I was not afraid of our economy failing. Dell is moving 90% of it’s plants to Asia… and our government is letting it happen. Fuck a bailout – what’s going to happen to Sumter, SC when the only business in town besides Wal-mart pulls out? Besides, I have far less than $100k in the bank, so my little savings was safe enough. My 401k, however, bled to the tune of some poor schmoe’s yearly salary. Lehmen Brothers’ CEO made 480 Million dollars though. I know, I know. I saw him in front of congress, most of his money was in stocks. So in reality he lost 200 million. It puts my measley $14k in perspective. It took 15 years to raise the minimum wage 1 fucking dollar. It took 3 days to increase our debt by nearly a trillion dollars. GRAND IRONY.
Ron Paul made an interesting statement about the Federal Reserve which, I think, applies to sports management.
Rather than allowing asset bubbles to pop and malinvested resources to liquidate, Federal Reserve monetary policy has attempted to pump more and more new money and credit into the system to try, in vain, to sustain the economic boom. Money is gained upfront, while the cost of repaying that debt is pushed onto future generations.
You can sub FEDERAL RESERVE with any team in any sport that buys big names every year and doesn’t win. You could sub the name OF a sport in there. ‘You gotta spend money to make money’ seems to be the policy now-a-days. Is it any reason our economy is in the tubes? You can sub FUTURE GENERATIONS with Average Fan.
The Clemson Bailout was stupid and unnecessary. They should have sucked up the next year or 2 under Tammy. It doesn’t matter who the coach is, the Clemson fans will have to wait a minimum of 4 more seasons before they see any real results. Who knows, maybe Tammy could have turned this thing around. Maybe a new legion of coordinators would have done the trick. But this bailout does nothing for the standard Clemson Redneck. How does Clemson Administration plan to buy a new coach when the money set aside to pay a coach has been burned already?
Governments have three main methods by which they can raise funds: taxation, printing new money, and debt. I say that Universities have only 3 methods of raising funds:
- begging their state congress to increase funding - thereby raising taxes on the average fan to cover the cost of bad investments [coaches]…
- raising ticket prices on the average fans. According to stats I made up for this blog, a simple $5 increase in ticket prices, coupled with $5 dollar hotdogs and beers, will cover Tammy’s bus fare 20 times over. In fact, it’s prolly a better investment to bring in a new coach every 4 years without regard for win lost records. It brings in hope, which drives fans to the game. Trust, there ain’t shit else in Clemson, SC. Them toothless fucks have nothing better to do. It’s like Alabama without all the championships. I love Carolina which when 0-22 under Lou Holtz and still sold out EVERY SINGLE GAME.
- Debt - this isn’t an option for most colleges. I’ve read about Athletic Directors crying because they can barely stay above water. FUCK THAT, stop making bad calls. Don’t start a project to add 10,000 seats to Billy Brice Stadium before you’ve actually signed the deal with Under Armor, or Cingular or whomever-the-hell else.
What’s my point? Wachovia should have been allowed to fail. Before Wachovia took over every bank in SC, it was another bank… which was fucking failing. In this ass-rape of a relationship, the American Tax Payer - and subsequently, the average fan- is an abused wife. We throw ourselves into the fist. The government tripped and we fell on the dick. We love it. We let the fuckers we hired beat us and then tell us how much we need the beatdown.
I say again, Wachovia should have been allowed to fail.. to liquidate. The CEO should have lost his job and his jet. The business should have been liquidated and sold off in bits to people like me and my friends who might’ve gotten together the funds to open a small branch of our own.
Tammy should have been allowed to fail. We gotta pay his dumb ass anyways. That’s tax payer money Clemson just threw away. No one asked me if I wanted to fire this guy. I must have missed the board meeting.
Today will be witness to the beginning of the end here in SC. Game Day is already a mess which consumes the entirety of the city. I still live in Columbia, so I know better than to head anywhere near the South Side within 3 hours of the game. Every road is diverted towards the stadium. For good or ill, all traffic is pointed towards Williams Brice.