Incompetence at $1.2 million a year

I have tried to hold back. God knows I’ve tried. But this has gone too far.

Earlier this year, the University of Florida announced that it would add women’s lacrosse to its array of varsity sports by the end of the decade. This came after a lengthy study by the University Athletic Association to determine what sport, if any, should be added.“After a study of developing trends in college athletics and considering emerging sports for women,” the school’s athletic department stated on its website, “the UAA has concluded that lacrosse is the most attractive option to be added to the University of Florida athletic program. With the addition of women’s lacrosse, the UAA hopes to not only increase the number of female athletes participating in the program, but also to enhance Gator athletics as a whole.”

And I’ve tried to hold back from commenting, because whatever I said could not possibly remain civil. But I’ll try.

For the 2006-2007 academic year, 57 high schools played at least one official women’s lacrosse game on the varsity level, and 46 played at least 10 games, the lowest total that realistically could be called a full schedule. And that is impressive, as only five years ago there were 28 varsity programs.

In just half a decade, the number has more than doubled.

But that’s where Florida’s decision stops making sense.

At the same time, there are more than 350 high school wrestling programs in the state, the best of which are frequently among the 50 best in the country. Brandon High School, which has won seven consecutive state titles and 18 overall, has not lost a dual meet since 1973, has the disputed longest winning streak in the history of high school athletics in any sport, and two years ago finished second in most national polls, is probably the most recognize.

And it isn’t Brandon’s winning streak that is disputed. No, Miller Place, a high school on Long Island, N.Y., had its badminton team go undefeated for more than 500 matches before losing, but for a while during the streak badminton was not an official varsity sport according to Suffolk County.

However, not a single four-year college in the state offers wrestling as a varsity sport.

That isn’t right.

Somehow, Jeremy Foley, who now makes more than any athletic director at a public university, after studying all the figures, has decided to add a sport that less than 60 high schools within the state play instead of one that more than 350 play?

The purpose of any public university is to provide educational services to meet the greatest number of people. And the University of Florida has failed mightily.

With one of the few self-sufficient athletic budgets in the country, the Gators could afford to add numerous sports, yet after a long study, it has decided to add only one sport and only for one gender.

And it decided against wrestling, a sport with six times as many high school teams and an equal lack of representation in the state’s universities.

While collegiate wrestling programs have been dropped left and right over the last thirty years, with James Madison and Eastern Illinois among the most recent to have their programs’ cut, it hasn’t suffered much on the high school level. The entire SEC dropped wrestling during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with Kentucky being the last to do so in the middle of the decade. But still, the number of high schools with wrestling has grown steadily over the last 20 years, and overall, the sport is seeing a mild resurgence.

But only on the high school level.

Because of ignorant and incompetent athletic directors, such as Foley, the opportunity for thousands of high school seniors within the university’s own state are denied the chance to compete and better themselves for the few hundred that play women’s lacrosse.

Sure, most of those wrestlers are not good enough to be on a varsity team, but it doesn’t change the fact that within their own state, there isn’t even a chance.

Foley has the opportunity to give them a chance, to give a varsity wrestling program to his school, but instead he has given it to a sport that could still be a couple decades away from having the same impact within Florida as wrestling.

But Foley is an awful athletic director; in fact, he is one of the worst.

He has spent his 15 years focused on making the athletic department self-sufficient at the expense of the educational aspect of college. Instead of adding sports that need to be represented to give many student-athletes the chance to learn and grow, he has added one sport with a very limited participation base and in that process denied everyone else that same opportunity. And to any able mind, that is insulting.

Insulting like the $1.2 million annual contract extension Jeremy Foley received last week for failing to do his job properly.

And I’ve tried to hold back, but the fact that this man, the one who each day on the job is helping to contribute to the destruction of amateur athletics, has received such a contract put me over the top. If any man is less deserving of such a contract as Jeremy Foley, I’d like to see it.

Foley has failed to do his job; he has failed to help the state provide athletic programs that best serve the need of his constituents, the high school student-athletes from Florida high schools. And one day, that will taint his legacy.

And it’s hard not to call him names, because god knows I want to and he probably deserves it, but I won’t. That would be immature.

But even so, I can’t help but say that he started it.

Foley started it by adding a varsity sport that was still immature, still a good generation away from even being close in participation to wrestling, and not adding wrestling. Of course, he could have done both and made a compromise, but when you’re as immature as Foley is, you cannot make a compromise.

Jeremy Foley has failed the state of Florida and it is unacceptable. But what is most unacceptable is that the state tolerated it by giving him an 11-year extension worth $1.2 million each year.

Show me where to sign and I’ll take the same contract; heck, I’ll sign it for half as much. And if you desire, I’ll be just as incompetent.

Just promise me that the money you save in hiring me goes to starting a wrestling program. That’s a fair compromise, I think.