Last updated: 9:54 am
June 30, 2008
Posted: 3:15 am
June 30, 2008
CRUEL world, continued. Bruce Johnson is not simply a victim, he's a symptom.
Johnson was good enough to serve Rutgers when Rutgers was the big state school on the edge of a village. But now that Rutgers has become a national sports brand . . . well.
The radio voice of Rutgers football and basketball since 1985, Johnson, in 2001, lost the football gig. It eventually went to WFAN's Chris Carlin. Rutgers Network basketball and football are heard here over WOR (710 AM).
Last week, RU regretted to inform Johnson, 54, that his run as the voice of Scarlet Knights basketball, after 23 years, also is over. That job, too, has been assigned to Carlin.
So it's clear that RU has entrusted its jewels to Carlin, who, when not calling games, is to further lend Rutgers a daily "Big Apple buzz" through his FAN and now SNY gigs, something that Johnson, as the sports director of a village radio station, WCTC in New Brunswick, couldn't.
Oddly, though, Carlin isn't yet the kind of play-by-player who inspires savvy Big Apple (or West Orange) audiences to sustained listening. He's a screamer. First-downs - those made by Rutgers - cause him delirium. Other times, he recites misleading or irrelevant stats. For now, he's more style and New York presence than substance. And that, apparently, is worth plenty to Rutgers, the brand.
Anyway, while Rutgers might have trouble this winter finding the money to heat its dorms and classrooms, it continues to pour millions into its football and basketball facilities. There's no better way for the taxpayer-funded state school to impress out-of-state recruits, many of whom, if not for football or basketball, would be far too academically deficient to be accepted to Rutgers.
But that's what brand-name universities do. They spend a fortune on those least likely to graduate. Sick, ain't it? And if the recruits are good enough, they might only stick around for a year or two.
And so what that Rutgers, in order to better financially serve football and basketball, eliminated far less expensive sports - crew, fencing, swimming and diving - that not only produced All-Americans, but superior students, the kind colleges are supposed to attract and then graduate.
Yep, Bruce Johnson, the village voice of Rutgers since 1985, was no longer a good fit, not for the modern brand. He's out for the same reason the Scarlet Knights now wear black uniforms.
