$2,183,036 Down the Drain

When your superiors heard of the settlement made between the Atlantic Coast Conference and the "Mount Rushmore of Collegiate Idiocy" (Rutgers, UConn, U. of Pittsburgh, and West Virginia University), we couldn't help chuckling at the financial losses incurred by the plaintiffs.

About two years ago, those four schools filed suit against the school you wish you went to, as well as the University of Miami claiming they had "conspired to weaken" the Big East football conference by defecting to the ACC. This past week, the lawsuit that stood as much a chance of success as a fat kid in a dodgeball tournament, was finally settled.

Although the ACC owed nothing to these Big East castoffs, they ultimately agreed to give $1 million dollars to each of the schools bringing suit. Upon the announcement of the settlement, tears of joy filled the dungheaps in all four plaintiff locales, but no more than in Morgantown, WV.


With the lawsuit won, WVU students let go of their inhibitions and partied like never before

As the dorms at WVU emptied into the streets in celebration of their "victory" over BC and Miami, the homemade Moonshine flowed like water and the local ho-downs went on well into the early hours. Days later after the anti-freeze hangovers had subsided and the latest father-daughter early pregnancy test detected another eleven-fingered, DNA-challenged addition to the family, the bill from the lawyers office arrived.


Following the announcement of WVU's $1mm settlement, students mobbed the campus in celebration

Despite "winning" their lawsuit, it was discovered that West Virginia University had spent a total of $2,183,036 on legal fees to achieve their victory. Though showing a net loss of just under $1.2 million dollars after the settlement, officials at WVU issued a mindnumbing victory proclamation nonetheless.

"We believe our position as a school justified the cost, especially given the importance of athletics at WVU", explained West Virginia U. official Becky Lofstead. Admittedly, your superiors don't know Ms. Lofstead, but considering she likely spent most of her formulative years in West Virginia receiving papsmears from her father via the handle of a screwdriver, her incomprehensibility is somewhat justfied.


Daddy's little girl (and wife) awoke to a large legal bill and, soon, another welfare child

The important news for collar-ups is now the countdown can officially begin targeting that wonderful date of July 1, 2005 when Boston College is officially welcomed into the ACC. More important, BC will bid adieu to the Big East Conference, their athletic home since 1979, for good in less than two months. Like the end of a 26-year bout with diarrhea, the ACC invite became the ultimate "run stopper" that spared BC from an eternity of athletic conference mismanagement.

The most sidesplitting aspect of this suit and the legal fee losses incurred, is the fact that since WVU is a state university, actual taxpayer dollars were lost in this frivilous lawsuit. Considering there is now a $1.2mm "debit" in the state's books, it doesn't take an intellectual's imagination such as mine to postulate about how the backward state will recoup its losses. Perhaps Becky Lofstead, WVU's information minister, has an answer for that one, too.

Collar Up.

- DW