This is an opinion column.
Hugh Freeze is Auburn’s Donald Trump. He’s shown that he can win where it counts, but poor judgment has dogged his career. Worse yet, his hire is a symptom of a larger trend demonstrating a powerful disconnect between the university’s leadership and the Auburn Creed.
As much as it pains me to admit, I have developed a deep respect for Auburn as an institution. Every university in America tells me about values and traditions. That’s part of the higher education sales pitch. Show me a university’s graduates, and I’ll tell you what they value.
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In that regard, Auburn is indeed unique. Many of my friends and mentors point to their time as students at Auburn as shaping their character in powerful ways. They have a deep affection for the “Loveliest Village on the Plains” as a place that imprinted faith, family, and principle on their lives.
Those people are Auburn’s greatest assets.
Over the last week, I’ve watched some of them contort themselves into explaining Freeze as the “Auburn way.” It’s shockingly akin to Christians papering over Trump’s character. His indiscretions are in the past. He’s being attacked because he’s a winner. He’s not trying to intimidate a sexual assault survivor; he’s just telling it like it is. He’s got an accountability plan, so there’s nothing to worry about.
Let’s not get started with social media issues.
One Auburn graduate I hold in high regard explained the situation as a disconnect between the Auburn family and the leaders making decisions at the university.
You think?
Put the Freeze hire in a different context. In March, Auburn paid $350,000 dollars to Richard Hansen, the former dean of the Harrison College of Pharmacy who resigned from Auburn after a Title IX investigation showed he sexually harassed a student at an off-campus bar. To put it mildly, Auburn completely mangled the disciplinary process. But for The Plainsman publishing the Title IX findings and creating a PR nightmare for the university, Hansen might still be teaching.
Auburn’s leadership is short on trust.
While Cadillac Williams might not have been the best candidate to be Auburn’s head coach, he’s certainly the right kind of man for the job. He clearly understands what it means to build young men. He’s not dogged by scandal. That baseline shouldn’t be too tall of an order for Auburn to fill? Right?
Wrong.
Auburn’s athletic director and boosters want to beat Alabama, and Freeze did it in back-to-back seasons at Ole Miss. Also under Freeze’s watch, Ole Miss cheated, fudged academic eligibility submissions, and lied to recruits to keep them from transferring. As it turns out, the only “escort” that matters is the one that leads Alabama out of Jordan-Hare after a loss.
Auburn lost a lawsuit this summer to the tune of $645,837 after an Alabama jury found the university illegally punished an Auburn professor raising questions about an unpopular major that had an unusually high concentration of football players. That’s not a result that inspires confidence about Auburn’s promised accountability when it comes to preventing a repeat of Freeze’s Ole “missteps.”
The uncomfortable truth is that plenty of folks will trade all that talk about the Auburn way for a few wins against the Crimson Tide. It wasn’t any different for Republicans. Faith, character, and principle were nice words that quickly surrendered to a man who beat the inevitable Hillary Clinton. It was fun to trounce the woman who called us “a basket of deplorables.” Losing the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate was less exciting. Then Republicans floundered in the 2022 midterms.
Trump said it was everyone else’s fault but his. Freeze said it was Houston Nutt.
There’s a gulf between the powerful decision-makers in Auburn and the people who believe in the Auburn Creed. It’s easy to avoid discussions about principles when you’re winning, but what’s left when that doesn’t happen? Something will change down on the plains. That much is certain. Hopefully, it isn’t Auburn’s character.
Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He engages media, business, and policy through the Triptych Foundation and Triptych Media. Please direct outrage or agreement to csmith@al.com or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.
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