After some time out of town, I am catching up on the latest basketball adventures at Ohio University. In the past, I have been critical of the athletic empire’s overly generous treatment of its major money-losing sports (football and basketball), and I must admit I fully expected the university administration to make Mr. Groce an outrageous offer he couldn’t refuse.
But I was wrong — not about the administration, but about the coach. Mr. Groce, unlike the administration, recognized that the university could not afford to keep him in the face of so many cuts in the academic area. Despite the deep connections he had developed to OU during his long tenure here, he very nobly turned down a 66-percent raise from $300,000 to $500,000.
I assume the administration will take a lesson from this and hire a new coach at a starting salary that will not be higher than the amount Groce was paid this year. That leftover $200,000 (which the administration claimed it could find) would buy a lot of paper and pencils for hard-strapped academic units.
Hope springs eternally ...
Barry Thomas is a professor emeritus of German.
