So Long, Chryst... Don't Let the Door Hit You

MAC Commissioner Rick Chryst is stepping down.

MAC Commissioner Rick Chryst is stepping down!

MAC COMMISSIONER RICK CHRYST IS STEPPING DOWN!!!

Chryst has been on the job for 10 years in Cleveland, and the debate about whether or not he was good for the conference has begun in earnest with his pending departure in June at the conclusion of his contract. Chryst, on the whole, was an average commissioner who basically backed into the job when the first choice resigned on the Monday after the Friday he accepted.

To his credit, he did increase the number of associated bowl games for football, but truthfully, that's about the extent of his tangible positive contributions. Basketball is in shambles, as there hasn't been a multi-bid year for the MAC since he arrived. He may have really helped out in gymnastics, field hockey or any of the other dozen sports I don't care about, and if he did, then that's really awesome for the handful of people who don't look at basketball and football as the real reason athletics exist.

Chryst said in a release, "Competitively the conference is positioned for the long term in a really stable way, which was not the case in 1999. Our future was in question then, primarily in football. Now that is stable, and our place around the (major college football) table is secure."

Really? Our place is secure? Newsflash Ricky... cooking up some half-assed television indentured servitude with ESPN for the next 8 years and dropping it in the next guy's lap doesn't scream "Place Around the Table". You whored out the conference you weren't even going to be running, and that's really slick how you waited till the deal was done and announced you were gone the next day. Classy move, brah. Are you planning on upper decking the executive toilet before you go?

The sad part about all this is that I don't think Chryst is a bad guy or even a bad commissioner. He was just an average commissioner who truly needed to be extraordinary. Unfortunately for him, the MAC was and still is at a real crossroad, especially in the football world. He was at a point where he was going to be swimming in some fairly deep waters, and frankly, he was going to drown. There is no way Rick Chryst could sit around a table with current SEC Commissioner and former BCS commissioner Mike Slive, former SEC Commissioner and BCS creator Roy Kramer, or current BCS commissioner John Swofford and have any semblance of credibility, respect, or voice. Those 3, or really any other BCS league commissioner would chuckle, pat him on the ass, tell him this is "Man talk, baby" and shoo him away.

So, Rick, thanks for the extra bowl games, now pick your ass up out of that Italian leather chair and get the fuck out.