We don't really need to get into detail about why we think Tom Hansen is probably the worst commissioner leading a BCS conference. We have had numerous discussions on his incompetent leadership over the years here on BN. In short we have gotten accustomed to culture of mediocrity under him as we have seen the conference flail around the same way we saw our football and basketball programs were turning into national laughing stocks under Dorrell and Lavin.
Well Tom is retiring soon and he is going out in style looking clueless and completely tonedeaf. Check out how he responded to a question about lack of progress in Pac-10's investigation of U$C*'s athletic program in a recent Q&A he did with the LA Times:
Question: Does it bother you to leave with theUSC investigation still unresolved?
Answer: It doesn't bother me, because it's a rare time where you don't have some investigation going on. I realize the Reggie Bush part of this has gone on, I think it's safe to say, longer than any case that's happened during my tenure. . . .
The frustrating thing is that it's been so extremely difficult to gather information even when people are running around leaking information that they allege to be true. I notice that most of the time when people are talking in these cases there's a book about to come out, but I'm sure that's just happenstance.
Get that. Mr. Hansen is not bothered at all by the lack of progress in the U$C* investigation. Never mind the entire country now thinks the whole U$C* program is a big joke. Never mind the fact that a major sports coach from that tainted program has already had to leave under a pile of allegations and shady circumstances. Tommy cannot be bothered. He is just frustrated about the fact that apparently leading a conference and doing actual investigation is hard work! He just wants to get paid for sitting on his rear end and collect a pay check for coming up with the worst bowl arrangements and TV Ks in college football and basketball.
Oh Tom doesn't end there. He also trots out the company line for U$C* saying how hard it is for them to get to the bottom of pesky facts:
Q: Are you comfortable the USC case will come to a just conclusion?
A: Yes, I think the history of the NCAA and the conference enforcement programs is that things are done fairly, so I'm confident they will be in this case. I just hope, like everybody else, and I'm sure USC is No. 1 on this, that it all could be concluded. But I think you have to step back and see that USC can't bring this to a conclusion, because almost all of the parties involved lie outside the university and outside the control of the university.
Once those student athletes leave, and there's no eligibility at risk, you lose leverage completely over them. If Reggie Bush or O.J. Mayo were trying to retain their eligibility, then you'd have some leverage. But that's not the case.
I am sure Tom is also comfortable with OJ looking for the real killer.
It gets better. Tom bristled at all those who are wondering what has taken so long with pathetic condescension :
Q. Why has it taken so long?
A: The single factor that people probably don't understand, because they watch TV and they watch these prosecutors and police nail people . . . and they all do it in 19 minutes or whatever you have in a half-hour show . . . you have an excruciating process because we do not have subpoena power. . . . We cannot subpoena anyone or force them to testify, so they don't.
So get that. No one else except Tom and the bureaucrats in the Pac-10 office has no clue about how to navigate around the administrative procedures devised under current NCAA and Pac-10 provisions. Going back to his previous post apparently all this is "extremely difficult" for poor Tom (but it's not very difficult for Tom to take bold and decision action against a school UCLA for petty & innocent self-reported rule violations in tennis program).
I guess Tom thinks when he is communicating to college athletics fans today via a publication such as the LA Times, he is talking to bunch of little babies who are just cool with getting spoon fed by shallow talking points not based on kind of reality.
And people wonder why we (and probably rest of the Pac-10 fans except for Trojan honks these days) think this guy has been nothing short of a miserable failure. We have thrown around the temr "lack of institutional control" when talking about the renegade program across town. Reading this "commissioner's" pathetic comments above one has to wonder if that problem persists in the entire Pac-10 organization that has been devoid of any kind of credible leadership during the impotent reign of Tom Hansen.
GO BRUINS.