IN THE BEGINNING

So this is my first post so I decided to go with something local for it. Since there is so much news in Knoxville, TN that is blog worthy I had some deciding to do. Should I go with the housing market, maybe KUB(Knoxville Utilities Board) would be a good target, but that will have to wait. The target for my poison today will be the University of Tennessee. For all of you that live under a rock the big story was the firing of a coach of 17 years in Philip Fulmer. I will hit on that in this story but a little later. I wanted to talk about some less known news about UT that I personally do not agree with. First story of interest to me is that Athletic Director Mike Hamilton decided this week that the elderly ushers at home basketball games no longer deserve a hot dog and drink voucher for their time. I'm sorry these people are only doing this because either they were UT alumni that are doing the university a favor or they are retired and they just want to get out of the house and have something to do during the evening. The athletic department said this will save them roughly $80,000 a year in costs but what they forgot to say is it will also make them money seeing as now these good people will have to buy there own food and drink.
They said this was necessary do to rising travel cost but I guess they forgot to mention that gas is down from the same time last year. So as far as I'm concerned this is just another way for big business to make more money off the poor and helping and don't be confused UT sports is big business. If you do not believe me this is from the universities sports web site. During his tenure, the reserve fund for athletics has grown by approximately $4 million, and the overall budget for athletics has grown from $59 million in FY 2003 to $79.46 million in FY 2008. Giving to athletics has also grown substantially under Hamilton, from $20.6 million in fiscal year 2003 to $33 million in fiscal year 2007.Since Hamilton's arrival at UT in 1992, more than $261 million has been raised for athletics. So is that big business or not you can decide for yourself. With that in mind do you not think they can afford to give senior citizens a $7.00 food and drink voucher for their time. Maybe big business would get a wake up call if these people just said screw it and let Mr. Hamilton do the job for himself. Maybe the basketball team could do it before they hit the court and during half time then that would save them even more money. But what erks me about this so much is they can afford to pay the coaches for the football team and basketball team in excess of $8,000,000 a year but can't pay out $80,000 for people that volunteer to help out the university. The next thing that bothers me about this is these people get raises every year for doing nothing but coaching. They are not teaching you kids an education but the first thing the university cuts is teachers salaries and jobs. Seems to me it should be the other way around don't you. But what's an education when you can play sports am I right. I guess i kind of rolled into my next subject of the day, budget cuts and salaries. Per UT Knoxville's website, web.utk.edu there is 5800 employees for fiscal year 2008. Now this number includes teachers, janitors, administration and so forth. This is not coaches for their numbers is on the UT sports website. The payout for these 5800 employees is $201,076,363 in 2008 that works out to about $34,668 per employee. I'm sure some make more and some makes less but this is the average. Now on the football side the lowest paid assistant is $150,000 a year to coach wide receivers, not to train doctors or lawyers, and that is it. I don't know about you but that is a little ass backwards to me. But what is the first thing the university cuts to make budget, you got it, employee salaries and jobs. The next thing they do is give the coaches a raise every year and a contract extension. The only way I see to solve this problem is to start standing up to big business and prove a point. Start by boycotting sporting events, that they pay the coaches unwarranted salaries so they can go in the local newspaper and brag about their 10,000 sq.ft. home that cost $2,500,000 that 2 people live in. Drum roll please. That would be UT's basketball coach Bruce Pearl. This story was printed in The Knoxville News Sentinel just a couple of days ago and it made me sick. Here the people in Knoxville can't even get a job at McDonald's to try to keep their house that is getting foreclosed on, but here this ass is bragging about how much money he spent on his house and to decorate it. How he knew this was the perfect house for him and his younger gold digging girlfriend. I sure this made his ex wife that he just got divorced from in the middle of last season feel real good. He can't buy a house like that for a woman he was married to for 10+ years but he can for the new arm candy. I would like to see people like him to see how the rest of the world lives for a month but we know that will ever happen. So I say stay home, turn off and do not buy anything associated with UT sports and see how they survive. UT average cost per football game is $39.00 the NFL average is $54.00 now that doesn't seem like much but consider UT doesn't pay its players now does it make sense. The way I see it that's just another way to line their pockets at the expense of fans. So stand up, take a stand and prove a point that without you the fan in the seats it doesn't matter what they raise prices to, $0 x 107,000 is still $0 just something to ponder. Well I guess that is enough for tonight but before I go one little tidbit of redundancy. At the beginning of the 2008 football season Mike Hamilton said "Rising costs for student-athlete scholarships, travel and operating expenses led to the price increase." for the raise in ticket prices, same as charging students for tickets and the same for the cutting out the food and drink vouchers for the ushers. I guess run with what ever makes you feel better Mr. Hamilton instead of just telling the truth that it was necessary to pay yours and the athletic departments raises. So until next time, ponder the facts above, because the first couple of my blogs with deal with the great state of Knoxville and big business. I will be commenting next on KUB and the other utility company's in the area. SO WE DON'T CORRODE LIKE STRUCTURES KEEP YOUR MIND SHARP AND DON'T LET IT ROT ON ALL OF THE FALSE THAT IS TOLD TODAY IN AMERICA.