Well, there is huge news in Pac-12 college athletics! As long as you define board meetings regarding college Presidents as athletics. And given recent UCLA results, they probably did start board members at every position on the football team. But we're not talking about UCLA today. No, we're talking about Oregon, which recently fired its school President.
The State Board of Higher Education unanimously made it official Monday: Univeristy of Oregon President Richard Lariviere is out. And despite protests from a large crowd of supporters attending the meeting in Portland, Lariviere's contract ends in 30 days.
The board met today to vote on whether to renew the 61-year-old president's one-year contract, which ends June 30. Board President Matt Donegan last week told Lariviere the board would not renew his contract, triggering outrage from faculty, alumni and other supporters.
You know what this means? They need a new President. This Lariviere gentleman is gone. Moving on to bigger and better things. Probably professionally Presidenting.
But for Oregon, it means a return to the chalk board. They have to hit the recruiting trail. Comb all of America to find a President who is a perfect fit for the Oregon scheme. Everybody knows you can't just bring in the best suit-wearing 60 year old you find. You have to find somebody for that very specific Oregon system. You have to find somebody willing to do whatever Nike tells you whenever Nike tells you it. You have to find somebody unwilling to pay professors anything close to market rate. Can Oregon find that??
Well, apparently, Texas street agent Willie Lyles has an in with a great recruit out of University Of North Texas. This guy has it all!Kids name is V. Lane Rawlins and, for only $5,000.00, CGB obtained this excerpt from Willie Lyles' official scouting package evaluation:
V. Lane Rawlins has everything you'd want in a University President. Fund raising! Vice-Chancellor hiring! Boring event attending! Anybody that saw him give the commencement speech for St. Mary's Preparatory in 2009 knew that they were watching a future star in the making. The way he effortlessly moved from metaphor to inspirational cliche to a call for action to create a better future . . . it was breathtaking! Once attended 3 donor cocktail parties in one night. Plus, he has previous experience presidenting at Washington State, so he has some familiarity with the pacific northwest.
In the recent McDonald's All-American Presidenting Game, Rawlins put on a great show. All the scouts were buzzing about him afterwards:
Robert Mosely, Oregon Register-Guard: "Rawlins has the great speed we look for when evaluating college Presidents for the major level of competition. He raised over 3.2 million in under one month!"
Spencer Hall, Every Day Should Be Saturday: "He displays the dominant wingspan necessary to be a consistent leader of men. He created both a law school AND medical school at UNT"
Matt Hinton, Dr. Saturday: "This prospect has good flexibility, balance, and agility, which serves him well raising the average SAT scores at his previous universities."
There are few, if any concerns about Rawlins' ability to transfer his skills to the DI level. There are some questions about his maturity. He's completely dominated other major administrators at lower levels. He made the President at UT El Paso look like a fool on a complicated land transfer transaction, but how will he handle failure for the first time against stiffer competition? What if he attempts to make Oregon a world class institution? Is he a transfer risk if he doesn't get his way?
Our prediction? Rawlins goes to Oregon. He's taking officials to other schools, but Oregon has the in. According to documents obtain by Yahoo! Sports Phil Knight has already personally paid Willie Lyles $25,000.00 for all of his scouting materials about this 5 star prospect. And if there's anything you know about Oregon, when they pay Willie Lyles $25,000, they get their man.