Someone’s scripture refers to the “sins of the fathers being visited on the children.”
That’s what we’re getting at the University, and the big daddy is former University President Dave Frohnmayer. He joined in the notorious, no-contract handshake with Mike Bellotti to give him a farewell gift of $2.3 million. That was blatant and illegal, whether Bellotti resigned as athletics director as he claimed, or even if he was fired.
Two persons on campus asked me: “Do you think Dave Frohnmayer and Bellotti had a secret agreement to split the big payoff two ways, with each getting $1.15 million?”
That’s stretching things. Then again, the University and varsity athletics have been stretching things for some time. One has to wonder about the front-page photo in The Register-Guard with the announcement of Bellotti’s departure for ESPN. It showed the ex-president giving Bellotti another handshake. On Frohnmayer’s face was the broad smile of a Cheshire cat — one some doubters suggest had just swallowed a million-dollar canary.
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