Hiring someone to teach math is a routine task that can be delegated to the lay people who supposedly run St. Louis University.
But when it comes to hiring a basketball coach you need the services of a Catholic priest, someone trained in reading human character. Why?
According to this story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The bottom line, Biondi said, is that "college athletics today is a business" and Soderberg didn't deliver enough postseason appearances in five seasons.
"When you have a university with over 100,000 alumni, you have to be concerned with what people think and say…
The story details all the work that went into making the hire.
“Biondi” is Rev. Lawrence Biondi, S.J., president of St. Louis University, a Jesuit-founded institution that recently asserted successfully that it is not a Catholic university. That court case involved the receipt of public financing to build a sports arena on the SLU campus.
The newly hired coach, Rick Majerus, oversaw “dozens” of NCAA violations when he coached at University of Utah, earning that school’s basketball program a three year probation.
Just to be clear, we are talking about blatant cheating in a college sport.
If you read Majerus’ pathetic rationalizations in this Deseret News story, you’ll see why Majerus needs the Jesuits.
The Jesuits need a coach with a proven track record of cheating, because, as Biondi says, it’s a business.
And, presumably, everyone cheats at business—only a fool wouldn’t. The Jesuits are known for their “worldliness.”
BTW: My local Jesuit college, University of San Francisco, eliminated it’s men’s basketball program for three years as the result of being caught cheating. The coach at the time was Dante Belluomini, who taught at St Ignatius High when I was there. Dan turns up as a broadcaster these days.
[Judging from the two photos, running a Division I basketball program has taken its toll on Rev. Biondi.]
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