Being an Ole Miss Rebel fan can be particularly frustrating. There's the losing, the insane coaches, the losing, the nuisance of opposing fanbases, the losing, and the acute bouts with alcoholism.
But few things frustrate Ole Miss fans more than the direction of our athletic department.
Now, we've certainly stuck up for Pete Boone a few times, but don't let that fool you; we're not fans. The "damn you Pete Boone" tag should be evidence enough of this.
Our biggeset knock on our athletic department under Boone's tenure is their seeming inability to do correctly something which shouldn't at all be difficult. For example, to kick off MomentUM, a long overdue fundraising effort, a grand announcement was made at the 2007 Ole Miss vs. Arkansas football game. Highlighting this announcement was a grand fireworks display.... in the middle of the afternoon.... in front of a half empty stadium.... which knocked out HALF of the stadiums electricity.
Who thinks this shit up?
Heck, part of me feels that the royal clusterfuck that was the daytime fireworks show let Houston Nutt know exactly what he'd be dealing with if he were to ever make his way to Ole Miss: an administration built upon low expectations highlighted by dumbassery. It's a coaches paradise, really.
What makes these screwups even more frustrating are the overwhelmingly good decisions this administration has made including (but not limited to) our recent coaching hires and facilities expansions*. With regards to the latter, one of the most notable decision our athletics administration has recently made was to install the SEC's soon-to-be second largest jumbotron in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium's North Endzone.
We were thrilled up until the very moment it was officially announced. It was then that we realized that we had put our faith in the wrong hands. According to the press release, the screen was to be gaudily-gigantic, of "supposed" HD quality, and hopefully completed in time for the Memphis game.
"Great," we thought. Pete Boone had screwed this one up and, instead of doing this the easy and correct way (give Daktronics a call), he had gone through his rolodex to find a guy who made KFC signs for a living (nope, definitely not a joke).
When word of this was able to slither its way around the intratubes, people weren't happy. Message boards were ablaze with an anti Pete Boone and GOB network fervor. The fans were upset with all of this because it seemed that we were going to be stuck with an administration which possessed the incredible ability to botch something as simple as a cake 'n' punch party.
In contributing to this e-hate and in order to blow off some of our own steam while lampooning the situation, we presented what we felt to be the likely outcome of this moron-fest. We even gave the fancy new screen a name: The Powe-Tron.
Check out the picutres done up all fancy like by yours truly. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of them. Oh, and don't miss the comment from THE (doubt it) Jim Rome who blasts me out for making light of Jerrell Powe's academic situation... you know, Jim Rome would never, ever do something like make fun of somebody. Never. I mean, Heaven forbid a guy attempts to relieve the stress of having closely following an incredibly frustrating series of events by telling jokes about it.
Ok, where was I? Ah, yes, well, do you know what eventually happened? The frustration of the Ole Miss e-fan base was so evident that the board's bidding process was re-opened and, yes, he did give Daktronics a call! The screen was in true high definition and it was operational by the Memphis game. By golly, everything was going to be alright this time!
Now, I'm not trying to suggest we're responsible for this (or am I?), but a bloggeur can dream, can he not?
And to Jerrell Powe, no hard feelings, a'ight?
*Yes, they weren't done well, but they were done.