Re: My take on this roller coaster ride we are on...
Ask Mick Ronson, DBT. He's one of those academics.
it's my opinion that the antagonism between the AD and "academics" is overstated on message boards. it's true, personally, i think the integrity of the university (as 2 time degree earner) and employee is more important than W's in football. i don't see it as either/or as well. i also have thousands of posts here *and* i post in the hoops forum! and i grew up with CU winning and i want it again. i don't think win at all costs is where i or almost everyone wants to be.
corollary to this: i don't think the attitude among academics at CU is more hostile than at any other place as is often suggested....or nearly as exceptionally hostile as many posters here think. there are faculty at UT or Michigan or Oklahoma State who hate the sports phenomenon. it's not like they all go to the games and dole out grades to athletes. i do know of people who claim to have been leaned on to change grades at CU....particularly grad students teaching. true or not, dunno. i'm sure it happens here and other places.
but, i think practical reality of the football program is not something that really concerns 75% of the faculty/admins i know. the other 25% is probably an equal split between militant haters and those that take at least casual pride in the success of the team.
most of the faculty simply don't care. ambivalent, at best. couldn't name who we are playing nearly every week or whether CU wins or loses on Sunday. i think that's changing to a degree with younger faculty like myself who have grown up in a media environment where the distinctions between academic work (books, journals) and football (TV) are all united in a single media delivery system (internet use)...as a part of our education, training, and leisure or professional lives. so, for sports fans...that's a plus.
the idea that the football team's success funds the library and departmental budgets is something i would need to see on an official spreadsheet, because i don't see that at all. that seems like a "wish it were so" type of argument. now, good PR for the university is certainly to be had with national success. and your average academic ego likes to experience the feel of prestige more than "scandal" when traveling to conferences or whatever. i think that national press bruised some egos out on the circuit.
now, to make this decision...there may be some consideration of a rep from the Faculty Assembly, but that body has very little true power on campus. it's admins who are economists, big donor alums and PR peeps that have all the juice. Hawk's team GPA is more a boon to the PR people than anything the faculty are thinking about on a daily basis. i don't think 2.6 is anything to warrant multiple newspaper articles. it's pretty easy to make B's at CU these days. you kind of have to work at making a C or less.
and my experience with CU athletes in the classroom has been about 20% very good, 60% no diff than other students (mixed bag), and 20% very negative. whether it's a ridiculous and aloof or completely disrespectful of the classroom and people in it attitude or academic dishonesty (i've filed honor code paperwork 3 times and could have a 4th, 2 times were scholarship athletes--and one of those times included 3 members of the same team). in each athletic case, no action was taken which appeared to be a double-standard, at least potentially to me. there are a lot of bad experiences with non-athlete students, too. i take that in stride.
whether Hawk has eased that alleged rift, i really don't know. that sounds like something that takes place at an admin level in Regents....not something that happens "on the ground" in the classroom imo. i hope what Hawk says about academic support improving is true....but, sometimes "academic support" can be a little over-earnest to produce results. jus sayin'.