Now We're Just Haggling About Price

by T.H. on Aug 28, 2006 3:17 AM EDT in Cheap Shots Comment 0 comments

From Gregg Doyel's article on T. Boone Pickens' obscene donation to the Oklahoma State athletic department:

There's the T. Boone Pickens College of Business at West Texas A&M. There's the T. Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State, which offers the Boone Pickens General University Scholarship Fund and where the football team plays in Boone Pickens Stadium.

That was before he gave OSU $165 million. So what comes next, Oklahoma State at T. Boone Pickens Campus? He owns the place, you know. His total gifts are reportedly worth around $300 million at this point -- most of it since 2003, and more than 90 percent for athletics.

Of course this is ridiculous. No self-respecting educational institution would ever rename their campus simply becuase someone wrote them a very large check.

(The value in 2005 dollars that a certain tobacco magnate shelled out to a second-class school was $434 million. Only $134 million left to go, Mr. Pickens.)