SLOPPY ANALYSIS, FACTS
That's not what we normally expect from National Review, but when Anthropology professor Peter Wood weighs in on college sports, he projects his reasonable distaste for Donna Shalala's politics and botches his column critical of her actions in leading the University of Miami to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

First, the facts. Wood writes alternatively about the ACC and the AAC. OK, that's a simple proofreading issue. He then recites the correct fact that 12 teams are necessary for a conference to hold a football championship game under NCAA rules, then incorrectly states that the Big East has 12 schools. It doesn't. It has 14 member schools, only 8 of which play Division I football. He clearly doesn't think Shalala was right for making this decision, talking of "skullduggery", "plot twists" and "betrayals", as though Shalala should have abondoned reason and kept Miami in a poorly structured athletic conference that wasn't even a complete conference, and which surely wouldn't last. And to call the Big East's last minute monetary offer to keep Miami by guaranteeing a certain payout over three years, Wood fails to consider the long term health of the Big East and the ACC, not mention failing to understand that Miami would receive more money for basketball in its new conference. Shalala should be given credit for abandoning the liberal's disdain for anything that results in economic advantage, rather than be attacked by a conservative website for betraying her liberal ideals.

Later, Wood addresses the efforts by Virginia's "Republican" Governor Mark Warner to influence ACC expansion by pushing for the inclusion of Virginia Tech. Sorry, Peter, Warner is a Democrat.

I still suspect that the ACC is the bad guy because sports journalism is most influenced by the northeast media who cover the Big East, and this Boston professor may not be any exception. They all overlook the failure of the structure of the Big East where only some of the members play Division I football and the positive aspects of ACC expansion, which works to the benefit of all of college football by pushing closer to a de facto playoff system, is beneficial to Virginia Tech and Miami by putting them in a more geographically natural conference and even helping to make the ACC a real conference for a number of women's sports. And the rest of the journalists just want to appear enlightened by railing against the "Almighty Dollar," and lamenting the destruction of college football, which requires business success to survive. Donna Shalala should be praise by the right for shunning the feel goodism of spouting platititudes about "loyalty" and actually making a decision that shows loyalty to Miami and its fans.