I first encountered E. Gordon Gee when he was university president at Colorado. He made the rounds in the press box before a game in full Colorado gear, even wearing Buffaloes suspenders if I recall. My initial reaction was, what a goof. But at the time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for being enthusiastic.

I should have stuck with my initial reaction. Of all the goofs associated with college athletics, it’s hard to top Mr. Gee.

Now the long-time president at Ohio State, Gee embarrassed himself and his university again this week. Speaking to the editorial board of the student paper, the Lantern, he tore into Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News.

He said.

“‘Sporting News,’ ‘Sports Illustrated,’ a lot of them I don’t read. It’s bad journalism. And, so, why buy them?”

Gee was upset with a recent Sporting News story saying new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer left behind an out-of-control program at Florida.

Gee said:

You know, (OSU) is such a high-profile job, everyone’s going to nip at him. Not having fully read the story, but having read portions of it, it is what it is. I would hope that at our institution we teach a higher quality of journalism.

Hopefully, the Ohio State journalism department teaches its students to read the full story before commenting on it.

Then it was Sports Illustrated’s turn. From the Lantern:

Gee went on to scrutinize the “Sports Illustrated” investigative report of OSU, which was published as the cover story in the June 6 edition of the magazine. That report “revealed an eight-year pattern of violations under” Tressel.

“(‘Sports Illustrated’) came out with this big story about Ohio State, all of which was ultimately proven to be false,” Gee said. “I mean, the guy must have been looking at another school.”

Excuse me? If the story was false, why was your adored football coach Jim Tressel shown the door?

The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated both stand by their stories. George Dohrmann, who wrote the SI story, took a jab at Gee.

“(Gee) knows more about bow ties than he does about journalism,” Dohrmann said.

That’s giving him a lot of credit there, George.