USM: More about Nothing

Here is the entire public statement that Mississippi IHL Board President Roy Klumb made about the University of Southern Mississippi, after a 90-minute closed-door discussion:

The board has deliberately and thoroughly discussed all relevant issues at USM. The Board remains singularly focused on the task of moving the university forward and past the accreditation problems.

Despite its headline, the Board's press release gives so little attention to the prospect of the number 3 university in the state losing its accreditation that you would think it was utterly trivial. Maybe it is, from the Board's point of view.

Meanwhile, Kevin Walters' article on the Board meeting is worth reading for the subtitle alone, which draws attention to Thames' grotesque assertion that he's"having fun."

It is unfortunate that one of the best letters to the editor yet written about the USM crisis, and a strongly worded indictment of the Thames regime by Clarion-Ledger columnist Eric Stringfellow, who called on Thames to do the only honorable thing and resign immediately, were received with a vast collective yawn from the Board.

It is true that Shelby Thames was not invited into the room when the Board discussed his performance--and on the evening news on WDAM, Roy Klumb was acting coyly noncommittal about whether Thames' contract would be extended for another four years. But then Klumb may have been dodging and weaving because he plans to extend the contract, not because he intends not to.

If Thames has really obtained the Board's blessing, he'll go right back to having fun bright and early tomorrow morning. And he will very quickly leave more wreckage that I can detail in a couple of posts per week on this unfolding disaster in Southern Mississippi.