THE (tm) Official End of ... THE (tm) Ohio St. ... Thread

[YOhio]

I talked to him once while I was at OSU. I actually thought he was fairly charming in person. Of course, it was in a situation where is was trying to be charming.

He was afraid of you.

[Guest]

And he wears bowties. So, agreed.

If he wears bowties , which obviously he does, then he doesn't look like a GA. Which, under interpretations of some, means he's not temple worthy. The LDS church probably won't claim him then. His tithing yes. Him personally, no. (sarcasm intended)

[PaloAltoCougar]

Gordon Gee looks and even talks a little like a Mormon Woody Allen. He taught my Labor Law class in '78. He gave me a good grade and thought I was funny, so I like him.

[dabrockster]

Another faux pas by Gee..


He may be a member but he is not an active member. He is in my Ward boundry and I have seen him once in all the years he has been here.. However, he may tour the OSU Wards more then his home ward...

[YOhio]

Another faux pas by Gee..


He may be a member but he is not an active member. He is in my Ward boundry and I have seen him once in all the years he has been here.. However, he may tour the OSU Wards more then his home ward...

lol. Stalker.

[Mormon Red Death]

His family was featured in a This american life episode. Here is the transcript. I liked this episode.

Act One. Letter Day Saint.

Ira Glass
Act 1, Letter Day Saint.

Sometimes a parent can do something kind of extraordinary, really above and beyond what most people do with the best of intentions, just looking out for their kid. And do I even need to say that they can have all kinds of unintended consequences. David Segal has this example.

David Segal
In 1991, Elizabeth Gee was dying of cancer. And as she thought about the time she had left to live, she worried about her only child, Rebecca. Then 16 years old. And she discussed her worries with her husband.

Gordon Gee
She just looked at me one night. I mean, she was hooked up with all of this stuff.

David Segal
This is Gordon Gee.

Gordon Gee
And she just looked at me. She said, you know, I really feel that I need to continue to be an influence on Rebecca's life and continue to be part of her life. She knew she was terminal. She knew that she only had about a month to live. And she made this discrimination that she was going to write letters to her daughter.

David Segal
Specifically, birthday letters. The plan she told Gordon was this. She would write letters that he would send to Rebecca, one per year, every year, on December 4, Rebecca's birthday. The letters would be sealed and for Rebecca's eye's only. There were 13 of them. Each tailored for a specific birthday. Plus a letter for the day of Rebecca's wedding. Rebecca didn't know any of this until the first letter, which she read the day she turned 17.

To a daughter reeling from the loss of her mother, it was the ultimate birthday present.

Rebecca
She said in one of my first letters that these were a way to connect to her. That all I had to do to connect to her was to open a letter. And then she would be there.

David Segal
One of the early letters arrived on a birthday at college, when she was feeling particularly isolated.

Rebecca
And this letter said basically, you will never be alone. You will never be alone. You will always have me. And I just remember feeling this incredible feeling of peace. It almost felt like getting a letter from someone who was alive.

David Segal
It happened the same way every year. Gordon, a college president for most of his professional life, now at Ohio State University, would overnight a sealed envelope, adding a brief card of his own. And every year, Rebecca went through a birthday letter ritual.

Rebecca
Usually sometime in the afternoon before dinner I'd sit down and open it and read Dad's note. Feel the page, look at her signature. Usually it'd be the first thing. And think, gosh, that's just so amazing that she's gone and I'm looking at her signature and it's saying I love you. And then I'd read through it.

David Segal
Each letter was about 2,000 typed words on thick white paper signed by hand, "You're the sweetest girl in the world. Or just, "Love forever, Mommy."

Elizabeth told Gordon that she wanted to describe the world as she saw it, and as Rebecca would see it as a young woman. And she does so in the letters with a mix of pep talks, moral instruction, autobiography, and parental affection. Often she focuses on what was happening to her on the age Rebecca would be when she opened each letter.

So when Rebecca turned 21, Elizabeth described a dress she owned when she was 21. Quote, "You would not believe what I wore. A black fake fur suit with a pink top and the plastic ping pong earrings. Everyone thought it was fashionable, but I laugh when I think of it."

A lot of the letters are advice on how to live. Quote, "Most children benefit from the simulation of daycare," she writes. Urging Rebecca not to give up her career when she has children. Quote, "You are not a uni-dimensional person. Under that balance, you will be frustrated."

And her mother had high expectations. In one letter she asks her daughter, "Are you contemplating a dissertation? Interviewing with scientific laboratories or NASA? Traveling to excited places?" Rebecca pushed herself to meet those expectations.

In college when her friends were out drinking, she stayed in and studied. Other kids might have found this all a little too heavy, Rebecca found it inspiring.

Rebecca
For example, when I decided I didn't have the confidence to go to medical school and I wasn't going to do it, the letter that year basically said, you need to find ethical expression in your work.

David Segal
She ended up going to medical school.

Rebecca
There was just no way I could have become a banker in the setting of these letters. I mean not that bankers don't have ethical expression, but for most of college, I think I had this enormous sense of purpose that I had a responsibility to do something meaningful. Both to me and to other people.

David Segal
As galvanizing as these letters could be, they could also be upsetting. The first person to fully appreciate how upsetting they were was her father. He was the one who dealt with the fall out. He saw that keeping his promise to his wife meant causing his daughter emotional distress. And on her birthday.

Gordon Gee
It was as if I could predict the sunrising. Rebecca would get the letters and then, I'd receive either that night or the next morning, a very tearful telephone call about how much she missed her mom. And I'd have these prolonged telephone calls.

David Segal
What sort of things would you talk about?

Gordon Gee
Well, I mean, she'd just say she's sad. You know, very sad. I wish my mother had been able to live. And been able to be here for me when I needed her. And been able to go shopping with me and all the kinds of things that I think any young woman would love to have her mother do. And you can imagine, that was very difficult for me.

David Segal
Toward the end of her college years, the letters were difficult for Rebecca for another reason. One of her mother's regular theme, actually you could say it was the dominant theme, was religious faith. The Gee's are Mormons and to her mother, staying close to the church was essential.

Rebecca
The most important thing for her was that I be a Mormon woman in the way that she wanted me to be. Which was a woman that went to the temple. A woman who married a Mormon man. A woman who believed all of the Mormon theology.

David Segal
By the time Rebecca was a senior in college, she was moving away from the church. So she worried a lot about disappointing her mother, who in the letters was constantly imploring her to stay. Quote, "You must always have the goal of going to the temple. For there you receive great gifts. It is in the temple that we are joined in eternal bonds and powers that will unite us in the world's beyond."

In another letter she wrote, "You will make good life choices. I know you will. But no matter your choice, never lose sight of the temple for me, please."

Rebecca
By age 21, after a few years of getting these letters and going through a process where I realized this right not going to be in my life, sometimes I would feel angry. And I remember at age 21 thinking, man, do I have to open up this one this year? This is tough. I don't want to do it. And my friend saying, well, why don't you wait? We'll go out to dinner. Maybe open it up tomorrow. And I felt guilty. And I remember feeling like if I didn't open it up I would really disappoint her. And yet, then I open it up and it's all about, I hope you marry a Mormon man and I hope you go to the temple. And if you don't go to the temple, you won't go to heaven. You're not going to see me. And I'm not doing it. And that's a pretty hard thing to hear on your birthday.

David Segal
Gordon was devout, but he could listen to Rebecca's reasons for leaving the church and came to accept them. Her mother couldn't do that. And in the three-way conversation that is part of any relationship of child, mother, and father, the voice of Rebecca's mother always spoke the loudest. It might seem strange that the deceased parent had the most sway, but her mother's opinion was fixed. There's no arguing with her. That haunted Rebecca. And while Gordon found himself reassuring his daughter, the comforts he offered were always trumped by Rebecca's memory of her mother.

Gordon Gee
It's difficult to compete with a dead spouse or in this sense, a dead mother. Because I'm here and I have all of the frailties of who I am. And over time, obviously her mother became very iconic. In many ways, very perfect. And clearly, could do no wrong. And I mean I never did say this to her, although I've joked with her a couple times. You know, who am I, chopped liver?

David Segal
Because the letters were written exclusively for Rebecca, Gordon thought it was inappropriate to ask too many questions about them. For the same reason, Rebecca never volunteered to share them. Father and daughter were just following a set of instructions. As outdated and as trying as those instructions were.

Over the years, as he dealt with his daughter's anguish, Gordon tossed out some hints the perhaps it was a bad idea for him to lob these annual grief bombs into her life.

Gordon Gee
I did on several occasions, I just said, you know, you have to remember that your mother was very ill. And that she loved you very much. But I'm not quite certain how healthy this is to have these letters and I said that to her directly. And I've said that to her on several occasions. And because it was very hard on me. It would really break my heart when I would hear her be so sad.

David Segal
But Rebecca never seemed to pick up on her father's hints, or his misgivings. As painful as the letters were, she felt as though she had no choice but to read them carefully. So Gordon sent them all, though he was conflicted about it enough that he actually delegated the FedExing part to his secretary.

All of this letter related dread culminated with Rebecca's wedding, which happened in 2006 in an Episcopal church. But Rebecca and Gordon suspected the letter Elizabeth wrote for Rebecca's wedding would contain her longest course yet on the importance of marrying in a Mormon temple. Which is why both father and daughter told me they were secretly relieved when the letter, which Gordon's secretary says she sent, vanished in the FedEx system.

Rebecca
I remember thinking, if there is one for my wedding, I definitely don't want to open it on my wedding day. Because I really want my wedding day to be happy. And I don't want to sit, I don't want to cry. That day in particular, didn't want the letter to be a part of it.

David Segal
Because all the birthday letters had been sent, the wedding letter would have been the final letter in the series.

David Segal
Was there part of you when the letters ran out that felt relief?

Gordon Gee
Yeah, I think so. I think that without a doubt, it was an opportunity to move on. On the other level, this was the last kind of visible written, tangible connection that she had with her mother.

David Segal
It's almost like another death?

Gordon Gee
Right. And I think it was to her in many ways.

David Segal
But it was also a new beginning. For the first time, Rebecca began living a life that wasn't shadowed by a looming reminder of her mother's unmet hopes. Rebecca had become a physician. And she married a doctor named Allan Moore, whom she had met in residency. It was a very happy marriage and it ended tragically, a mere 18 months after it started when the couple was hit by an SUV while riding a Vespa.

Rebecca was severely injured and Allan was killed. For the second time in her life, Rebecca was forced to cope with a devastating loss. But this time was different. She spent her months of physical rehab contemplating and writing about her memories of Allan.

Rebecca
And I remember thinking to myself, this is how it should be when you grieve for someone. You should remember the beautiful times, the things you shared. You should celebrate that person, but you shouldn't be dragged back into the grave with them every year. Why did she do this to me?

David Segal
Rebecca says a year and a half after her husband's death, she feels like she's farther along in her grieving for him than she was 10 years after her mother died.

Rebecca
I mourned my husband's loss, Allan's loss. I love him, but I'm moving on with my life as he would want me to. I think to have letters from him for my birthdays or a yearly, would make it harder for me to move on.

David Segal
At the same time, the letters her mother sent were so essential in forming the person that Rebecca became, it's hard for her to imagine growing up without them.

Rebecca
In the end, would I have wanted a life without these? I can't say that because they made me feel incredibly loved. They made me know how much she valued her time on this earth with me. I got to hear that. I got to hear that after she died.

David Segal
Recently, Rebecca has started to grasp the hardships the letters imposed on her dad. And she thinks it would've been better if she had shared the letters with her father in real time, even if that went against her mother's wishes. This surely wasn't Elizabeth's intention, but when she wrote those letter, she left behind the bricks for a wall that kept her husband and her daughter apart, at least when the subject came to Elizabeth. Along with instructions that made discussing that wall very difficult. It was a plan that neither Rebecca nor Gordon ever consented to. And now, very gingerly, the wall is being dismantled.

A months ago Rebecca sent her Dad a copy of one of the letters from her 24th birthday. Much of which is about Gordon's strengths as a dad. She has yet to share any of the others. And during our interview, Gordon joked that he was a little jealous that I got to read the letters before he did.

But a dying wish has a momentum all its own. And though the letters are now locked in a safe in Gordon's home, he still hasn't looked at them. And Rebecca still hasn't asked him to.

Ira Glass
David Segal is a reporter for the New York Times.

[MUSIC- "PAGES OF MY LETTERS" BY KERI NOBLE]

Coming up, a set of parents like any others trying to impress their values on their child. Though in this case it's tricky because the child is not in their same species. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

[dabrockster]

lol. Stalker.

HEY. I merely see it as a shocking amount of Coincidences where we seem to see each other or NOT see each other. Either way. More quotes of Gee is great..

Even when he is dissing nuns, Catholics in general, or Boise State (I have not forgiven him for that one), it has always been one you can chuckle at..

[dabrockster]

Well. The media has done it. They have pushed him out. Gordon Gee is retiring..

http://www.10tv.com/

[YOhio]

Well. The media has done it. They have pushed him out. Gordon Gee is retiring..

http://www.10tv.com/

lol. It was the media's fault. They're the ones who have continually made boorish and bigoted comments.

[dabrockster]

lol. It was the media's fault. They're the ones who have continually made boorish and bigoted comments.

I guess I should of including this.. ----->

[Paperback Writer]

Urban Meyer taking some heat on the Aaron Hernandez story in The Sporting News.

The accusation:

http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2013-07-05/urban-meyer-wife-daughter-twitter-aaron-hernandez-florida-gators

The rebuttal:

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2013-07-06/aaron-hernandez-urban-meyer-defend-florida-program-murder-odin-floyd

Interesting to specualte on the role a head coach has with developing character in players as well as winning. I like to think successful coaches do both.

In my view, I cut Urban Meyer a lot of slack. We won't know all that Meyer may have done to try and help Hernandez. To steal from a poster from another message board, "...who knows how many additional people Hernandez may have allegedly killed had not Meyer given him a football scholarship...".

The reason I give Meyer the benefit of the doubt is because of what transpired with Tom Osborne when he started winning national championships at Nebraska. He was mentor and coach to a gifted RB with a troubled past. In the past, he was successful at reforming similarly situated players including a Heisman Trophy winner. But Lawrence Phillips was beyond reform, and consequently, the wrath of the media was directed at Osborne and his very successful football team.

Anyway, the B1G is not the SEC and Urban Meyer knows that better than most.

[Coach McGuirk]

More arrests and accusations for Urban players.

http://collegefootball.ap.org/articl...legal-problems

[woot]

I think a lot of the talk about Urban post-Hernandez has been kind of ridiculous, but at some point one does have to wonder. I don't think a head coach can be held responsible for every little thing, as kids often just do dumb things. But as the arrests continue to pile up, I have to wonder if Urban isn't trying very hard to create the right culture in his program, or if he is doing his best but doesn't know how. The talk out of Florida suggests the former, but I just assumed he would be working hard to not repeat his mistakes at OSU.

I suppose it's also possible that he doesn't consider the character of potential recruits before sending out offers, which would certainly increase the difficulty of keeping them in line.

[woot]

It seems a third OSU player has now been arrested. Only for possession, but still.

[Eddie]

It seems a third OSU player has now been arrested. Only for possession, but still.

When he was in Utah - I seem to recall Urban spending a LOT of time talking about what is expected of players, team rules, and discipline. But with this stuff coming out, it sure feels like he doesn't mean any of it. I mean, sure - he might have rules in place. But evidence suggests that he doesn't care, and/or if you break them he might yell at you but if you are a player who is going to help him win, there won't be any consequences that might interfere with that.