3.12.2008

FAREWELL TO THE BIG HOUSE*

We're beyond late on this, but dropping behind Penn State in stadium attendance - at least temporarily - has us perturbed.

It was a given that in a couple years some psycho school like Tennessee was going to up the ante and add 30,000 seats. We just would have laughed and said, "Oh, well."

But what really bothers us about the University stonewalling the MPVA to make the stadium more wheelchair accessible is that this is classic Bill Martin. He could have dealt with this a year ago, made the MVPA happy and kept Michigan Stadium the largest. But he obviously just thought this would go away.

He's a straight-shooter, cares about UM more than anyone will know and has done a remarkable job with the department's finances. But man that guy is stubborn. This is the same guy that forces every single coach to resign or retire (or if you're Jim Boccher, just disappear into thin air!) because he doesn't want to take the publicity hit of a dismissal.

Getting your ticket validated at the Big House? He claimed he wouldn't finance the lives of students selling their tickets, yet if you pay an extra 20 bucks to the department, then it's fine? What Martin meant to say is that it just pissed him off watching students scalp their tickets.

And we guarantee he will take his beef with the student section at Yost to the grave (granted, he's probably right on that one).

Which brings us to the current issue. We can just picture Martin at his desk when he first received the MPVA's complaint, furrowing his brow and throwing it in the trash immediately. Politically correct? Screw that.

As detailed in the Daily, he's tried every trick in the book to block this before finally caving. Claiming these were "repairs"? Proposing 14 wheelchair-accessible seats? Pathetic, Bill. Really.

Again, this is hardly a catastrophe. But when the PA announcer no longer comes on in the third quarter and says "Congratulations on being part of the biggest crowd to watch a football game today anywhere in the country" (correct us if we're off with this, we're a little rusty), Martin has only himself to blame.

Now, to pay our respects:

No comments: