Hello! Among the least significant consequences of coronavirus has been the halting of The Intercollegiate Podcast and much of the rest of what we do here. Sorry to say, but the concerns of/with college sports really just really don't seem to scale to the heights of a global pandemic, and we’re still trying to figure out how (and if) we shall proceed as before. That said, I had been planning to speak with my latest podcast guest just before we all began sheltering in place, when it still seemed inconceivable that COVID-19 would threaten the upcoming college football season, among everything else. His perspective seems only more salient now.

In the podcast’s latest episode, I speak with Chuck Staben, a virologist and biologist who served as president of the University of Idaho from 2014-18, during which time he presided over the Vandals’ historic decision to drop down in football from FBS to FCS. As Staben tells me, the decision didn’t seem as ‘voluntary’ to him as it has been popularly portrayed. The controversial move likely contributed, in part, to Staben’s ouster as UIdaho’s president two years ago. In our hourlong conversation, Staben, who did his postdoctoral work on AIDS epidemic, talked about how the current state of the world may force many other university leaders to reconcile their athletic commitments at a time when higher educations budgets are facing unprecedented crunches.

If you prefer, you can listen to the podcast off The Intercollegiate’s website or on the following platforms:

* Apple

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* Stitcher

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Stay safe and happy listening!

Daniel Libit is founder and coeditor of The Intercollegiate. You can reach him with questions, comments, or tips at dlibit@theintercollegiate.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielLibit.

In our latest episode of The Intercollegiate Podcast, I speak with LSU journalism chair Bob Mann, an outspoken campus critic of what he describes as the discrepant financial priorities Louisianans place on college football and higher education.

PLUS: In our College Sport Research Institute segment, Peter Schroeder, an associate professor at the University of the Pacific, tells me about his academic work seeking a model by which to evaluate a college athletic department’s “culture.”

You can listen to the full episode here or, better yet, subscribe and download via the following podcasting apps:

* Apple Podcasts

* Spotify

* Google

* Stitcher

As I mentioned on last week’s podcast, Luke Cyphers and I have decided to unbind ourselves from a weekly publishing schedule for our reported issues of Newsletter of Intent, in order for us to make sure we’re delivering those goods when we have them in hand. (We’ll have one next week).

Happy listening.

The Intercollegiate is proud to partner with the College Sport Research Institute, an academic center housed within the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina. CSRI’s mission is to encourage and support interdisciplinary and inter-university collaborative college-sport research, serve as a research consortium for college-sport researchers from across the United States, and disseminate college-sport research results to academics, college-sport practitioners and the general public. You can learn more by visiting CSRI’s website.