By Joel Thurtell
The Detroit Free Press’s Drew Sharp was right on the money when he wrote that Coach Rod needs to fess up, shoulder the responsibility for a third miserable University of Michigan football season and stop blaming assistant coaches and players.
At first, I was baffled by Rod’s self-serving finger-pointing. Why would a coach at a university that claims to be the Harvard of the Midwest try so publicly and stupidly to excuse what is — mostly — his own major screw-up?
(I say mostly, because some of the blame for UM’s misery belongs to arrogant functionaries like former Athletic Director Bill Martin and UM President Mary Sue Coleman who hired Rod; but I’m getting ahead of my story.)
Doesn’t the university have handlers, I mean PR people, who can either muzzle or temper the remarks of someone like Rich Rodriguez, who after all presents himself as the face of the university?
Why do they let Rod pretend the blame lies with underlings or the previous coach? Remember Rod’s “cupboard is bare” excuses the first awful season of his tenure as he tried to blame Lloyd Carr for Rod’s poor performance?
But then, I had another thought: This is the same state-chartered institution of alleged higher learning where the president is allowed to supplement her $800,000 annual university salary with a tip of the drugmakers’ hat worth $230,000 a year.
I mean the earnings UM President Mary Sue Coleman receives for serving as a board member for pharmaceutical maker Johnson & Johnson.
According to Coleman, there is no conflict. She claims what she does or doesn’t do occurs at such an exalted level that it couldn’t affect the behavior of those menials such as professors and physicians who might actually be influenced by a free lunch or funding for, say, a weekend getaway for residents.
Low-life residents and attending docs are now prohibited from taking freebies from drugmakers, but Coleman gets to pocket her almost quarter of a million because she’s above the fray.
See what I mean?
With mentors like Coleman, a guy like Coach Rod can hardly be blamed for getting out of sync.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
