Ya know, I was just thinking the other day that it’s been a while since Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee said something your crazy uncle might shout at a family gathering during the holidays. Gee, as you may recall, has previously, and eloquently, referred to the Boise States and TCUs of the college football world as the “Little Sisters of the Poor” and once openly hoped that former Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel “wouldn’t dismiss him.”
Courtesy of the Associated Press, some comments Gee made during a December meeting of Ohio State’s Athletic Council have surfaced -- and will probably rub someone(s) the wrong way before this is all over.
When talking about his prior negotiations with Notre Dame, Gee uttered the following:
“The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they’re holy hell on the rest of the week,” Gee, a mormon, said to laughter. “You just can’t trust those damn Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday, and so, literally, I can say that.”
Gee wasn’t done. On the topic of Big Ten expansion, Gee asserted that the conference made certain “that we have institutions of like-minded academic integrity... So you won’t see us adding Louisville.”
When asked about jokes coming from SEC country regarding the Big Ten’s 14 members -- the “learn how to count” jokes, if you will -- Gee replied “You tell the SEC when they can learn to read and write, then they can figure out what we’re doing.”
For what it’s worth, Gee has already apologized to the AP for his comments:
“The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for,” he said. “They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate.”
Offensive? Eh, not really -- outside of his Catholic comments, that is. That’s definitely not okay. Then again, I’m not easily offended nor a university president. In that regard, Gee needs to have more self-awareness.