Greetings, Bronco Nation, from the Office of Orange Jacket Guy; it is again a distinct honor to write to you. I now present this piece to you without external objection. My last piece touched a bit on what this is, but now I have been directed to not hold back.
If memory serves correctly, when I was writing about the Whole Package concept, to which most of us are aware, I gave a brief example hinting at WHY the University of Idaho is a school in decline. The case can be made that the U of I is an overall inferior school.
A lot of Bronco Fans can remember the terrible late 80’s to 90’s era of our football program. Let’s be honest. While we had our traditions back then, the team wasn’t as good in scores. There were even years that the Vandals beat us on the field. But year after year, the teams adapted and overcame. There were coaches that did better, and then we got Coach Pete, with his original position in 2001, then as Head Coach in late 2005. We all know what happened next. However during all this history, the Vandals (while making small bumps in improvement here and there) haven’t done so well. The scant few improvements ended up not helping the Vandal team and got them nowhere. They barely got into the WAC and it is there where they have languished in their state of less-than-mediocrity, and in a game of competition and accomplishments against direct opponents, they flat-out sucked. Whatever traditions they say they have with their football program have been betrayed by all this. It is a sad state of affairs for them and they only have themselves to blame for it, regardless of what Representative Tom Trail (from Moscow) has to say about it.
Now on to the Coach of that very team, Coach Akey. He is largely responsible for that very sad state of affairs (only in recent times, however). He makes excuses, talks trash without backing it up, and whines whenever he doesn’t get his way. While yes, that’s rather par for the course when talking about DUI, it is still a very sad state of affairs both as a Coach and as a leader of supposed tradition. How are we supposed to take DUI seriously with a Coach like that?
Now on to the next part. I find it tragically comical that Vandal fans try to claim either there’s as much of the “nasty, inebriated” culture with Broncos as there is with Vandals or when they claim that such culture doesn’t actually exist with Vandals. We as Broncos know both claims to be patently false. Even the DUI staff KNOWS that there is a very big problem with this, and one such person even admits it (see the video below for more info; the whole video is on that very problem but the crux of the whole thing starts at about 1:22 into the video). We all have our own personal experiences supporting the “nasty, inebriated” label that DUI has earned. And the worst part about it for them is that Broncos are not the only fanbase that knows this. Pretty much all other colleges with sports programs in the area also know this, which is one of the reasons why DUI is having troubles in the WAC these days, and by extension, the reason why they’re likely to be headed out of the WAC most likely into the Big Sky conference. Again, nobody to blame but themselves.
In pieces and comments that I am not fully recalling as I write this, I have touched on the next part. And while yes, it might seem like a low blow, but when compared to other local schools, not so much. In comparatively recent years, there have been increasing dangers to DUI students themselves, which does not reflect well on the school at all. The first of said dangers could be expounded upon much more, but the case in point would be the Ernesto Bustamante incident. It is sad that the school didn’t do all they could in student safety. Clear warning signs were there and they were sufficient to take action. Action was never taken and now a grieving family had to take them to court over it. (And just for your information, when this was in the news and was being discussed, I held back, believe me, I held back, out of respect for the grieving family.) In contrast, when BSU had its own incident with a teacher who became a danger to students, BSU did the right thing AS SOON AS THEY WERE AWARE (same with CWI). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go Google Cynthia Clinkingbeard. The other half of this is passive, lackluster, and patch-job actions towards alcohol and other substance abuse on campus and in school life. There’s reasons why they earned the moniker “DUI” which some of us use frequently. It’s sad when DUI has to measure the amount of semesters since the last student fell out a window as some sort of safety record. Shame on DUI. SHAME.
One claim that DUI often uses to act superior (even to the point of laughably claiming to be a “Flagship University”) is that the academics are better there. This may have been true and it was probably so for decades, but look at it now. It’s clear there’s a decline and some have even tied this to the alcohol culture there. The need to feel superior shows a lack of intelligence anyways.
While there are efforts to clean up their act, and make things better at DUI, we all know from experience from a long memory that this won’t pan out to very much. The football will continue to be in decline, the school will continue to suck, and the academics are little more than self-serving superiority complexes. Now I do apologize for the rather negative article, but it had to be said to make the point that we can be better, and are much more suited to be better. We treat our opponents with respect, we treat our guests with respect, and we are going upwards academically.
Until next time, Bronco Nation: In Pete We Trust
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