Which Way Will the Wind Blow Gordon Gee?

Only one of these men has the courage to stand up to Jim Tressel or a gun-toting Maurice Clarett--and I'm afraid it's not the one on the right (but I hope I'm wrong)

Who says you can't go home again? Yes, Gordon Gee, the former chancellor at Vanderbilt, Ohio State, Brown, West Virginia and Colorado is returning to the Banks of the Olentangy River and The Ohio State University to serve as its head dog once again.

Gee is an interesting man for Academia, literally a man that has lived a role out of National Lampoon's Animal House (his ex-wife, Constance Gee, was accused of smoking a little herb in the president's mansion at Vandy by a little known publication called The Wall Street Journal---much like Dean Wormer's wife, Marion, and her slight drinking/infidelity issues at Faber College).

Of course, most in the sporting world associate Gee with the controversial sweeping of Vandy's Athletic Department into what amounts to basically the Intramural Department. This move, despite the fact that the Commodores' football prowess has been suspect since Watergate (1974-75 was the last time they posted back to back winning seasons), has actually produced a consistent program in the NCAA's Director's Cup. Of course, the Director's Cup is slanted toward those schools that either dominated the so-called "Olympic Sports" or derided "Country Club Sports" that seem to be in the wheelhouse of Vandy and its elitist demographics or those schools with mega-budgets (see UCLA, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, Michiga, Stanford). Yet, make no mistake, the Commodores have punch in men's and women's hoops as well as baseball in the competitive SEC (and they won a national title in Women's Bowling for 2007, too!). Of course, some of that comes from being the punching bag of the football schedule (that provides a large bowl payment annually, despite the Black and Gold rarely seeing the postseason on the gridiron).

Yet, Gee, who was at Colorado when Gary Barnett was an assistant coach to Bill McCartney including the national title years, knows the value of a good football program. He was at the helm when Eddie George won the Heisman in 1996. And yet, he knows full well of the less-than-stellar record for both CU and The Ohio State University's athletic programs of late-- the scandals of both Rick Neuheisel and Gary Barnett in Boulder; the Maurice Clarett saga, the Troy Smith suspension for accepting monies, the Jim O'Brien era basketball fiasco.

So here comes the great experiment itself: Does Gee, the 'affable bow-tie sporting' president
bring credibility to the Buckeyes by reigning in their reported $97.5 Million budget (the largest in D-I)? Or does he fold on his 2004 stance that University presidents needed to reign in their athletic departments and the spending?

As Gee was quoted in USA Today in 2004-- he pushed for a spending cap, despite its legal challenges-- all the while being the consummate reformer at traditional Athletic Have-Not Vandy. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Gee puts his money where his mouth is as the head man of one of college athletics' biggest "Haves"......