I was a teaching assistant at a major ACC university for a year and it was a markedly different experience than Davis. There were a number of male athletes in one of lectures and each was provided a (gorgeous) female "tutor" that accompanied them to each class. For the most part the homework was all done correctly (in seemingly feminine handwriting) and then they all laid an egg on the tests. But in the end it didn't matter because the lead professor was notified by the president of the university that said students would be assigned B's and to make it look justifiable by any means necessary. Maybe isolated to that school, but I highly doubt it.

Keep in mind that in a lot of markets, the big time NCAA teams are in essence the local professional team of choice as far as fans are concerned because there are either a lack of true professional teams in the market or they are irrelevant. Many SEC and ACC teams have huge fan bases of people with really no affiliation to the university and sometimes no college degree at all. But even among alumni, the "good ol' boy network" runs much deeper than we see at Davis, with Ole Miss guys only hiring other Ole Miss guys and the like. These groups don't care about the academic integrity of the athletes as much as they care about the win column because they either have no personal investment or they are so plugged into their respective bro network that they don't care what the outside world thinks of their school. These groups buy the season tickets and merchandise, so university presidents are willing to overlook things.

Here's a visualization of what $30M buys you in construction these days:

1. Let's say for example's sake we are talking an athletic training facility, for which the ARC might be a good point of reference. The ARC is 155,850 square feet and cost $46.5M in 2004 dollars. In 2016 dollars this works out to about $58.8M or $377 per SF.

2. Assuming $377 per SF, you could be talking maybe an 80,000 SF facility of comparable build. Obviously you can push the price per SF down if you just want a metal frame field house for indoor practice or you can push it up if you are redeveloping an existing area with god-knows-what surprises underground.

3. In my area (which is not Davis, but is a place with a very strict building department) here's kind of an idea of what price per square foot gets you.

• $275/sf - basic but functional. Think painted concrete block walls, open ceilings, polished concrete floors, moderate connectivity/technology/equipment
• $375/sf - moderately upgraded. Think finished drywall, suspended ceilings in offices but open ceilings in clearspan areas, stained concrete floors or basic carpet tile
• $475+/sf - nicely equipped. Think finished walls, probably with added architectural cookies. Upgraded ceilings with acoustical treatments, terrazzo floors

4. I've built projects with and without union labor and it usually washes in the end. The union guys tend have fewer accidents/mistakes resulting in fewer redos and injuries. The things that really drive costs are A. if you have an unrealisitic lowball estimate from the beginning, B. the local construction climate (you pay more for materials and labor in a building boom), C. change orders resulting from lack of planning or a change in leadership (executives all come in with their own "vision"), D. if you have somebody in the jobsite trailer with a "construction science" degree but no real experience.

Here are my thoughts

• Blue seems to have been planning to fire Gould for quite a while. I don't think it would have mattered even if we won the close games this season.
• I think Gould has known --or should have known-- for a while that he was going to be fired. He seems to have a new job lined up pretty quickly if he was truly blindsided. Blue and Gould may not have talked about it beforehand, but there's a fair chance it was "double secret".
• $117k is a lower number than I would have expected. I know buyout terms typically decrease in the later years of a contract, but it seems like a good deal if it is a clean break. At least compared to George O'Leary (University of Central Florida) who was fired mid-season last year and then rehired as a 12-hour per year "consultant" fetching $200k annually through 2020.
• In Bruce's article, it mentioned that the $117k buyout would be "mitigated" if Gould found new employment in the next 13 months. If his Fresno State job holds true (not sure what the official start date would be), it sounds like we could get a discount on the buyout. Curious what happens to the balance of the donor money in that case... return to donors or used for other football purposes?