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Before poking the bear, make sure your facts are there.
That lesson plays out publicly Thursday for Scott Weatherbee, the first-year athletic director at Eastern Michigan University. He's called out pointedly on the Oakland University Athletic Department's official Twitter feed, though not by name.
The suburban Detroit university reacts to a comment by Weatherbee after EMU said Tuesday it will drop varsity softball, wrestling, women's tennis and men's swimming and diving to save about $2.4 million. The athletic director and university vice-president, who got his $269,000-a-year job last summer, told reporters abandoning football "wasn't even an option."
This part of his reply, as reported at MLive, brings a growl from the Golden Grizzlies in Rochester:
"If we drop [football], our NCAA money we get, the MAC money we get -- you are talking millions of dollars by dropping that. It would actually hurt us by doing that, and what conference are we going to go to?
"If you are going to drop down to Division II, is that the reputation we want? We compare ourselves to a Western Michigan, a Central Michigan, a Toledo and Bowling Green. Do we want to all of a sudden compare ourselves to Oakland, Saginaw Valley or Grand Valley?"
Tweet! Team OU drops a flag on that out-of-bounds play:
BREAKING: We are Division 1...as a matter of fact, we have won 6 of the last 10 vs EMU & 8 of the last 10 vs the MAC....maybe you should want to be compared to us...#FactsOnly #WEARtheBEAR pic.twitter.com/7MBt6zRAii
— Golden Grizzlies (@GoldenGrizzlies) March 22, 2018
Its pushback includes an image showing the second paragraph above, circled.
Well-played, Grizzlies. We score this face-off as Oakland 1, Eastern 0.
