On Binghamton's quick rise, quicker fall

A nice piece by a friend of mine on DI "glory"....
****

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-mendelsohn/my-city-in-ruins-binghamt_b_463972.html

 

my eldest son is a sophomore at the bing (class of '74); my sister and brother in law went to the bing (class of '82)... an excellent perspective from yet another alum here.

thanks, dave.

 

Pete Thamel really did a great job with that story. He raised questions when nobody else did, got killed for it by the school and its fans, and ultimately was completely vindicated by the official report. Nice job by the NYT.

 

Great story... so sad.

It reminds me of a story a friend tells. His buddy was a coach at a smallish school thirsting for its NCAA basketball 'moment.' The coach was-- quote-- "on the fence about whether to start cheating or not. And he decided to go ahead and start cheating."

 

An excellent piece about a compelling story. And I'd be remiss if I didn't publicly congratulate Thamel for the thorough ass-whupping he gave me on that story.

My only problem with this piece (and one George Vescey wrote in the Times) is the tone that Binghamton should have never gone D-I in the first place. That strikes me as throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's nothing wrong with having D-I sports. There are schools who do it the right way. The true shame of this story, to me, is that Binghamton was perfectly set up to be one of those schools that did things the right way but got suckered in by the lure of the quick fix.