A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

1 December 2017 — 1659 mdt

There’s a way to protest the rehiring of Bobby Hauck:
vote against the 10-mill university levy next year

Bobby Hauck, a football coach whose 2003–2009 tenure at the University of Montana combined victories on the gridiron and big trouble off it, is back. His rehiring was announced this morning.

The people for whom winning football games is the most important thing a university can do will rejoice. So will innkeepers, saloon owners, eatery entrepreneurs, and bookies. They know that Hauck knows his job has two requirements, (1) compiling a winning record, and (2) beating Montana State, and that he’ll do what’s necessary to make that happen.

The people who rehired him will say, yes he had a few problems when he was here, but that’s in the past. I think there’s a high probability that he’ll either reprise his more colorful moments or produce new scandals.

UMT needs to be punished for this mistake — and there’s a way to do it. In the 2018 general election, the 10-mill university levy will be put to the voters. Ostensibly, the money raised goes to academics, not athletics, although I suspect some of that money may find its way into physical education classes and other academically disreputable endeavors that directly or indirectly support intercollegiate gladiatorial programs. Voting against that levy would send a signal to the university and the regents that Hauck should not have been rehired, and that athletics should be banished from Montana’s public colleges and universities.