As Long As He Doesn't Put Bowties On The Unis

Ohio State welcomes back the nattily-clad Gordon Gee to lead the nation's largest university, after about a decade chasing more prestigious academic gigs. It's an interesting choice, as far as we're concerned, given Gee's latest interaction with his athletic department (he shut down Vandy's as an independent entity) and the recent state of affairs in the Ohio State athletic department. Clearly, this choice was made for more reasons than just athletics, but we here in The Search don't care about those other reasons.

As Ohio State fans know, and as Stewart Mandel mentions, Gee is a vocal critic of big-time college athletics as currently constituted in this country. We wish we could disagree, but his baseline principle of increasing graduation rates among student-athletes at large institutions is just way too sensible. We are not of the mind here that Greg Oden should stay in school for the sake of staying in school--in fact, we think it's borderline irresponsible to make such a decision when it means passing up financial security for generations of your family--but for every Greg Oden there's a Joe Forte or Kelenna Azuibuike. We like that Gee wants to focus on bolstering the "student" part of "student-athlete".

What's interesting is that Ohio State's athletic department has been under fire, if lightly punished, in recent years as a result of their treatment of big time athletes: Mo Clarett and Jim O'Brien immediately pop to mind. With such a behemoth animal acting as the de facto face of the school, it'll be interesting to see how Gee works with Gene Smith in this latest installment. Gee oversaw a period of pretty overwhelming success the first time around, we'll watch anxiously this time.

In one last interesting note, with a "Plus-1" playoff bowl format getting some press today, it's worth mentioning that one of the most influential schools in college athletics has as its president a vehement anti-playoff proponent. We're not suggesting that Gee can impose his will in the face of these types of numbers, but his voice will certainly be heard in the Big 10 and the larger discussion.

All we hope is that he keeps Tress and Thad happy...oh, and maybe HE can figure out a way to beat effing Florida...