By now everybody should be aware that E. Gordon Gee is returning for a second tenure at Ohio State. Regardless of one's position on Gee as an academic, his history with athletics is cause for concern, major concern.
Since leaving OSU the first time, Gee presided over athletic powerhouses Brown and Vanderbilt. He built a reputation for lavish and irresponsible spending at both schools and showed a strong disdain for tradition.
Don't believe me? While at Brown, Gee used school funds to renovate his presidential mansion and disbanded the school's string quartet. The quartet was popular with the students but deemed unprofitable by Gee, which is why he axed it. Imagine if the OSU Marching Band were to meet a similar fate.
After being virtually run out of Brown in 2000, Gee took the job at Vanderbilt. Again, he renovated the presidential mansion. Only three years after taking the job, he completely disbanded the athletic department because of funding issues. Vandy athletics are now run by the Division of Student Life, the same organization that oversees student activities and organizations.
That might have worked at Vanderbilt, but something tells me that a similar move with OSU's behemoth Department of Athletics wouldn't work nearly as well. Although I enjoy the use of OSU's Recreation and Physical Activity Center, I don't want it running the day-to-day operations of the nation's largest athletic department.
In case you're missing the trend, Gee spent massive amounts of money on himself while cutting traditional, albeit less profitable, parts of the school. Hypocrisy anyone?
Gee is also well-known for his stance on increased academic standards by student-athletes. He said previously that schools with a graduation rate below 50 percent in an athletic program should be barred from postseason competition. Although on the surface this doesn't seem too unreasonable, at a school like OSU it can be problematic.
OSU is perhaps the best overall athletics school in the country and fields many of the best athletes. Just in the past three months, several high-profile athletes left school early to play professionally, including Ted Ginn Jr., Anthony Gonzalez, Antonio Pittman, Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. These early entries can affect graduation rates if student-athletes drop out of school to focus on their professional career making them academically ineligible to return.
OSU once infamously turned down a Rose-Bowl invitation in 1961 and under the iron hand of Gee, what's to say another postseason bid won't be turned down? OSU football only graduated 55 percent of its players last year, but I'm more concerned with OSU basketball. Only a few players need to leave early to make the program dangerously close to falling below Gee's 50% standard.
High-profile student-athletes choose the university they want to attend because they want to go to a school that will refine their skills and give them the best chance to make it to the professional level. The purpose of a university is to get students ready for their chosen career field, and OSU is among the best in preparing athletes for a professional career and getting them there.
What if Gee's philosophies deter these high-profile players from coming to OSU? These top-tier student-athletes have no shortage of suitors, and OSU needs them in order to continue running such a high profile athletic department. OSU's is one of the few athletic departments in the country that actually turns a profit and is able to provide countless opportunities to lower-profile athletes who might otherwise not be able to attend college. Without the Odens and Ginns, the money might not be there to field synchronized swimming and volleyball teams.
All in all, Gee needs to understand that he's not at Brown or Vanderbilt anymore. This is OSU, and at OSU, athletics matter. If Gee's differing views on building a winning program deter high-profile recruits from coming to Columbus, the public outcry will ensure that Gee's second tenure at OSU is much shorter than his first.
Josh Lehman can be reached at lehman.196@osu.edu.
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