In an unsurprising show of loyalty at last week’s meeting, O’Dell’s puppets on the athletic board voted to eliminate men’s gymnastics despite two lucrative funding offers. I attended said meeting and was dismayed to hear one such puppet publicly make essentially the following statement: “Gerald O’Dell and his staff are experts in athletic administration, whereas we (the board) are not. So, if after doing his homework O’Dell makes a recommendation—such as dropping men’s gymnastics—then I feel that we should defer to his expertise and support his recommendation.”

If the board is going to support carte blanche every recommendation made by the AD, why have a board? What could possibly be the purpose? The board in theory should represent faculty, student, and alumni concerns, while also providing a system of checks and balances to prevent foolish moves on the part of the athletic administration. Unfortunately, in practice things are quite different. Since the board is an appointed body, it has a notorious history of pandering to the whims of the AD, often with egregiously deleterious results.

For example, the board’s rubber-stamp mentality has led it to endorse such proposals as: (1) dropping out of the MAC, only to discover NIU could not make it as an independent, (2) dropping baseball, despite widespread dissent among the NIU community, (3) firing the men’s basketball coach in the third year of a four-year guaranteed agreement, and finally, (4) dropping a nationally and internationally recognized men’s gymnastics program, despite an outpouring of community and statewide support for the program.

Perhaps the worst travesty of all is men’s gymnastics is paying for the board’s first two mistaken decisions. Men’s gymnastics is being dropped to make room for baseball, which never should have been dropped. Baseball is being resurrected because we must have baseball to belong to the AMCU, which we would not have been forced to join, had we not dropped out of the MAC. A classic example of one bad decision leading to another, while the spineless board looks on.

The board balked at the chance to gain credibility by rejecting O’Dell’s drop proposal. A glimmer of hope could remain if President La Tourette reconsidered his decision. One can only hope that after carefully reviewing the facts—most notably Budget Committee Chairman Gary Glenn’s unequivocal assessment that other fiscally responsible funding options exist which do not involve dropping men’s gymnastics—LaTourette will do the right thing.

Mylan Engel, Jr.

Assistant Professor

Philosophy