Rutgers does not exist for us anymore.

Others involved with RU1000 may well be pursuing this struggle but, in our eyes, cretinism has triumphed.

Rutgers RIP.

So the Athletic Dept. waste rolls on.

As Rutgers’ academic deterioration speeds up.

Long live the Mulcahy Legacy!

Speaking of the legacy, Mulcahy’s final posting on ScarletKnights.com is just too perfect: “I was asked to resign. I have not offered my resignation.”

Indeed.

We assume the BoG will announce Friday that the stadium expansion will be delayed.

We assume Schiano, finally, will pack his bags and move out of state.

Call it three for three by December 31.

Meantime, our congratulations to Schiano & Co for the invite to play at the Pizza Bowl in Birmingham, AL, a town that would make one nostalgic for the richness of Camden, NJ.  Of course this bowl does have the lowest pay out of any bowl — the Ledger’s Tom Luicci calls it the “worst bowl” there is.  Is there any truth to the rumor that Rutgers fans who attend will receive, gratis, little scarlet brushes as keepsakes of this experience?

Right now, the fan base is in a lather about possible bowl appearances for the 6-5 Scarlet Knights — but even some fans (presumably the ones who can add and subtract) wonder about the value of accepting a bid to a tertiary bowl that will only cost RU money.  And the only bowls under discussion for Rutgers are ones where the school will come up financially short, meaning more money will have to be diverted from academics and into the football budget.

Meantime, in yesterday’s Bergen Record, columnist Mike Kelly makes several pithy comments, such as:

* With McCormick and the university board of governors in a virtual see-no-evil operating mode, the Rutgers Athletics Department spent money like the “Sex in the City” women at a shoe store.

* Cash here, cash there – the piggy bank seemed to grow each day, especially when it came to the high profile football program.

The problem is that the Rutgers cash reservoir was not bottomless. With the football gods calling for more, something had to give – and it wasn’t going to be football. So-called lesser sports, such as fencing, tennis and swimming, were downgraded to intramural status.

And that was just the beginning.

So ask yourself this: if Rutgers indeed goes to a bowl, how many classes will have to be canceled to pay the tab?  How many academic scholarships will have to be pulled?  How many more alumni will join the pledge to give no more until McCormick and Mulcahy are both given the bums rush?

This presumably will be the meeting where a kind of sanity emerges and the BoG votes to “delay” the stadium expansion and to strip AD Bob Mulcahy of most (all?) authority.  

RU alumni are watching!

Tell the BoG where you stand on ending the reckless, wasteful stadium expansion:

The President of the University
Richard L. McCormick
Rutgers University
Office of the President
83 Somerset Street
New Brunswick NJ 08901
koncsol@oldqueens.rutgers.edu

George R. Zoffinger
gzoffinger@gmail.com

Chairman, BoG
M. William “Bill” Howard, Jr.
Bethany Baptist Church
275 West Market Street
Newark, NJ 07103
mwhoward@bethany-newark.org

Vice Chair, BoG
Patricia “Pat” Nachtigal
31 Elston Road
Upper Montclair NJ 07043
patricia_nachtigal@irco.com

Albert R. “Al” Gamper, Jr.
475 Holland Road
Far Hills NJ 07931
al.gamper@cit.com

Rochelle “Shell” Gizinski
553 Winding River Court
Brick NJ 08724-1183

Leslie E. “Les” Goodman
The Eagle Group
928 West State Street
Trenton NJ 08618
bhours@aol.com

Robert A. “Bob” Laudicina
4000 North Ocean Drive
Apt. 904ET
Singer Island FL 33404
doclaudicina@comcast.net

Duncan L. MacMillan
16 James Court
Princeton NJ 08540
dmacmillan@bloomberg.net

Eugene M. “Gene” O’Hara
258 Clearbrook Court
Little Silver NJ 07739
emo829@aol.com

John F. Russo, Sr.
488 Madison Avenue
Toms River NJ 08753
golfer997@aol.com

Patrick Ryan
North Buffalo Advisors, LLC
728 Estates Boulevard
Hamilton NJ 08619
ndbanker88@yahoo.com

Isn’t it appalling to be singled out as an exemplar of waste…by Trenton politicians?  Isn’t it more appalling that they are right?  Rutgers is riddled with unnecessary expenses, featherbedding, and bloated salaries.

Congratulations, Dick McCormick, Rutgers even is on TV as a poster child for a foolish pursuit of bigtime football at the expense of academics.

Dick and Big Bobby Mulcahy told us they would put Rutgers in headlines — and indeed they have!

As New Jersey struggles with a billion dollar budget deficit, we urge you to make some of your first and deepest budget-balancing cuts in the funding for Rutgers.  This represents a sharp reversal in our past positions but the evidence mounts that Rutgers under President McCormick simply wastes money and is not deserving of the public trust or the public’s dollars.

We also urge you to take steps to correct this and to put Rutgers back on a course to academic success:

* Appoint fiscally prudent people of substance to the Rutgers BoG, which currently is largely populated by lightweight dimwitted jocksniffers.

* Instruct President McCormick to fire Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy for cause, immediately.

* Instruct the Board of Governors to fire President McCormick for cause, immediately.

* Dismiss the BoG chairman, Rev. William Howard, Jr., immediately.  The man is an embarrassment.

For our part, as concerned Rutgers alumni, we will withhold all donations to the school until the above four steps occur.

We also urge all New Jersey high school seniors who have Rutgers on their short list of schools to make plans to attend university elsewhere.  Rutgers just is not very good and it is going to get worse before it gets better.  A decade of ruinous policies has left the school a wreck and it will take a new president and several years of hard work to reverse the McCormick-Mulcahy decay.

It pains us to write these hurtful things…but this is the sorry truth and Rutgers will not begin to get better until these truths are recognized.

/s/ The Rutgers 1000 Alumni

Indeed.

The Bergen Record chimes in with, Failing Oversight 101. 

Quoth the Record: “AN internal report has finally said what critics have been saying all along: Rutgers University has failed to take charge of the decisions and spending of its athletics department, especially when it comes to football.

The review, released last week, used words such as “inadequate,” “insufficient” and “uninformed” to describe the glaring lack of oversight. Leadership by Rutgers President Richard McCormick was described as “limited.” Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy was described as acting with “vigor” but in an “increasingly insulated and ultimately counterproductive manner.”

Gannett meantimes writes: Rutgers sports fiscal overhaul just a first step. Gannett says: “Rutgers University Athletics Director Robert E. Mulcahy III was given virtually free rein to negotiate and execute sports-program contracts, leading to a breakdown of internal financial controls, a self-conducted review by the school has concluded. Critics of the Rutgers administration are incensed by the findings. With good reason.”

We have questions and the biggest is, why are we still discussing the obvious?

McCormick needs to be fired and he needs to take Mulcahy with him.

McCormick arrived on the Banks on a lie — he was in fact fleeing termination by the Univ of Washington — and his tenure since has been stupid and futile.  Mulcahy, of course, was himself on the bounce from a failed post.  A fine pair they have made, as they have plunged Rutgers into fiscal absurdity and the ruination of an academic institution.

Fire them both. Now.

Alumni have no choice but to withhold all donations, pending their removal from the university.  That is how bad matters have become.  

Even Trenton must notice the stink coming off the Raritan.

The Star Ledger picks up the story here.  

Gannett is here. 

AP runs with it here.

What is clear is that McCormick turned a blind eye as the bumbling, Ahabesque Mulcahy plunged into ever more delusional and incompetent action — and left to pay the price are students who see their university crumbling for lack of funding.

Clean house by, first, firing Mulcahy and then dumping McCormick.  There’s a start on reviving Rutgers.