Ryan Glasspiegel
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So we’ve known for about two weeks now how haphazardly everything happened in the Big Ten with regards to canceling football season in the fall. They canceled the season less than a week after releasing a schedule in which there were touted guardrails to build in delays. Commissioner Kevin Warren, whose own son is playing at Mississippi State in the SEC this fall, can’t get on the same page with conference administrators over whether there was actually a formal vote to cancel the season. Big Ten chancellors and presidents combine to make over $13 million in taxpayer money, yet a vast majority of them are too craven to put their names on their decision.
Now, we have a report that all 14 athletic directors in the Big Ten wanted to play in the fall, but were essentially crowded out of the communication by Warren and the presidents and chancellors.
Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos spoke to Omaha.com about the process:
Warren was aware, for example, that every Big Ten athletic director was in favor of playing a fall football season. Moos said he, Ohio State’s, Penn State’s and Michigan’s A.D.s pushed hardest, but there was unanimous agreement, Moos said, in wanting to play.
“He knew where we were coming from, and he was the messenger to the presidents and chancellors … “I knew where our people stood, but I would have liked to have been in the room when they expressed it to the commissioner and our presidents and chancellors,” Moos said. “The commissioner was operating in silos, and the silos weren’t connected. And, in the end, that created varying degrees of communication not being delivered.”
This is one of those weird things that should be stunning but is wholly unsurprising given everything else we’ve seen in the last two weeks. There’s always been an inherent tension between university leadership and athletic directors and coaches, and this feels like a time where said administrators flexed to show who was really in charge. It would be fascinating to see a parallel universe as to how this would’ve gone with former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney, who if nothing else would’ve handled the internal and external communication in a far more satisfactory manner.
Ryan — If you worked for anyone other than OutKick, SJWs could easily get you fired for this column. They would argue that you said a white commissioner would have communicated better than a black one. Fortunately, If the SJWs do attack you, Clay and Jason will tell them to Eff Off.
Great piece Ryan.
It’s becoming clear that Warren was ‘appointed’ to this position, so he could make ‘opaque’ decisions that effect others, while escaping accountability. If that’s racial, it’s because Warren is unqualified to be a ‘commissioner’ in the same way Obama was and still is unqualified to be a President.
If race keeps the big 10 from firing Warren, then … well … we’ll see what the lemmings in those liberal universities do … without five star athletes coming to their schools and no TV money.
Good Luck Big 14
Great Work Ryan!
My prediction is Clay Travis will have Republicans Buy Sneakers 2 2020 style and when the vote comes in November 3rd, people can look to the Karen 10 close vote by state as the reason why Trump will be elected to 2nd term.
If the election truly comes down to the Big 10 aka Karen 10, then this could be what Colin Kaepernick was to the 2016 election.
Free the Big Ten!
I’m 100% sure Warren is an Affirmitive Action hire.
Great piece, Ryan. Big 14… Karen 10… you guys are on it for a Sunday morning. Affirmative action hire you say? Pfffft, ya think.
Weird coincidence just happened.
My 10yo daughter slept at a friend’s last night. I went to pick her up this morning & naturally is moms were talking. I asked about her son (a HS junior) being disappointed because there’s no football here (in MN) this fall & one thing lead to another & we started taking about B1G. When I mentioned “Kevin Warren,” she said, “Oh! He’s a friend of ours (their family)!” There’s more to the story, but I’ll tell you more in VIP message boards.
Good column Ryan. This situation also goes to the elitist mentality inside many college administrations. Many of these presidents see themselves as the best and brightest and have created for themselves Insulated group think echo chambers. These presidents unlike leaders in the business community are not required to produce anything. It seems that they turn out many graduates who are ill prepared to function in society. Yet many of these institutions routinely raise tuition every year. The cancelling of football will result in millions of dollars of lost revenue for local economies. Impacted businesses don’t have the same luxury of simply raising prices to cover losses. Don’t expect change to come from these universities anytime soon.
This guy Warren is more concerned with pushing his left wing beliefs onto big ten athletes than the actual games