Sunday, December 28, 2008

Audacity

From the St. Petersburg Times:

When the criticism got too loud, Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, decided to quit taking the $2,300-a-week salary for the one-year contract running the Florida Center for Reading Research — a program she got funded at Florida State University — while running the Senate's education budget committee.

"When people thought it was inappropriate, I decided I'll maintain my reputation. So I volunteered the rest of the contract and then quit," Lynn said. "Everybody's different. It means a great deal to me to maintain my reputation that I've had for 14 years."

At UCF, Senator Lynn’s reputation sucks. To those that know how she operates, she is seen as a manipulative bitch. The way she pressured UCF to hire her daughter, Karen Jans, was utterly unethical.

Here’s the story. Jans quit UCF because she couldn’t stand her boss, David Harrison. After a period of failure in the free market, she went back to Harrison to ask for employment. Because he couldn’t stand her any more than she him, he rejected her for employment at UCF (During this interview process, Harrison cruelly pretended that Karen was likely to be hired.)

It was at this juncture that the Senator started putting the legislative screws to UCF. This was easy because she is chair of the Senate’s Committee for Higher Education Appropriations. Because UCF values funding more than ethics, they hired Jans back for about 30k a year more than she made when she was previously employed by UCF. They also paid her out of Harrison’s budget but gave Harrison no authority over her.

Senator Lynn used the power given to her by the voters to get her daughter a sinecure funded by students and taxpayers. Her reputation is only good among the ignorant.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

UCF Loves Consultants

Of course, it is asinine for UCF to hire a lawyer/consultant to review the football program. Unless, contrary to his vocal support of O’Leary, Hitt is looking for cause to terminate O’Leary. Termination for cause would nullify O’Leary’s 5 million dollar buyout clause.

If You Build It, They Still Won’t Come

From an interview with UCF Athletic Director Keith Tribble:

Question: Attendance dropped this season, especially during the finale against UAB. Do you attribute that to the losing season and what will you do to bring the fans back next season?

It’s easy to say the record was a direct reflection to the fans’ lack of attendance. I think it was a combination of a lot of things. The economy, our students weren’t in town that particular weekend and a lot of people are leaving town. Traditionally, we’re a young institution. We haven’t had a lot of games like Florida-Florida State, Alabaman-Auburn or any other big rivalries that final weekend. Absent those types of games, we really need to educate our fans that it’s important to be there to support our team and send our seniors out on a positive note. I think we’ll continue to improve.

The fans need to be educated? Keith Tribble is the fucking asshole that needs to be educated. Here’s today’s lesson: Just because the king and his court want UCF to be a big-time football program doesn’t mean it is going to happen. People will purchase a product if it is something they want.

By the way, I predicted that attendance would drop.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Nicely Said

The Orlando Sentinel on the waste of money that is George O’Leary:

But Mr. Hitt bears the burden of this mess.

Smitten by Mr. O'Leary, despite his less-than-impressive body of work, UCF gave him a contract extension in May of 2006. Mr. O'Leary, who had been making $720,000 each year, hit the mother lode with the new deal: a 10-year contract extension paying $1 million a year, which could balloon to $1.5 million per year with incentives (including attendance benchmarks at football games). It also came with a fat, $5-million buyout clause, leaving UCF on the hook if it wanted to fire Mr. O'Leary.

That's a lot to shower on a coach whose UCF record at the time was 10-21.

Mr. O'Leary's salary is funded through an athletics association that receives money through various sources, including contributions and ticket sales. But student fees account for more than 40 percent of its budget. So every kid going to UCF is helping make Mr. O'Leary a rich man.

With such a steep buyout clause, UCF might have trouble coming up with the money even if it wanted to get rid of Mr. O'Leary. It would have an even harder time coming up with an explanation for such spending in these difficult economic times.

So for better or worse, they're stuck with each other, like two people in a lousy marriage.