At the end of this month Nebraska's move to the Big Ten becomes official. With the addition of the Cornhuskers the football league will be split into two divisions. Each team has a protected rival in their cross division, with Purdue and Iowa getting paired together as the two teams that were leftover after the conventional rivalries were set. Some call it a forced rivalry, especially considering that the Hawkeyes have been off the schedule for two years.
As usual, there are secret forces at work here. Our new Most Hated Rival did not come about because Jim Delaney said we need to hate Iowa. Instead, it was made as part of a secret pact from the President of the University of Iowa. You see, Sally Mason is a secret Boilermaker. She earned a Master's degree from Purdue in 1974, and is working as we speak to bring down the terrible Iowa football regime from the inside so her alma mater can triumph this fall.
Only true badasses can exert their will with Jim Delaney. Mason wanted things her way when the Big Ten divisions were re-aligned, and that meant helping her alma mater dominate their new Most Hated Rivals. Obviously, she has compromising pictures of Jim Delaney if she can turn the Big Ten realignment into a Burger King order.
Mason's background:
Our friends at Black Heart Gold Pants do not like Sally Mason, which is reason enough for us to support her as Iowa's President. It takes something special, such as breathing wrong, to draw the ire of those guys into a proper public shaming on the internet. Their ire is very rational in this case, and it goes back to a sexual assault case in 2008 when they asked Mason to resign. That's a pretty serious issue, to say the least, but their frustration has only grown from there.
I know it is because they knew of the secret plans to bring Nebraska to the Big Ten and set us up as Iowa's rival. They knew we were coming, so they fear us. Since Mason is connected to us, they fear us even more. Here is a link to her "official" history, according to those duped at the University of Iowa:
The daughter of an immigrant family and the first child to attend college, President Mason received her B.A. in zoology from The University of Kentucky in 1972, her M.S. from Purdue University in 1974, and her Ph.D. in cellular, molecular, and developmental biology from The University of Arizona in 1978. She subsequently spent two years at Indiana University in Bloomington doing postdoctoral research before joining The University of Kansas in 1981. A strong advocate of undergraduate education, she received awards for outstanding undergraduate advising and teaching, and she was awarded a prestigious Kemper Teaching Fellowship. During her 21 years at Kansas, President Mason served as a full professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, Acting Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, and Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In 1995, she was appointed Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the largest academic unit on the University of Kansas campus. President Mason served as Provost of Purdue University from 2001-2007, where she was responsible for planning, managing, and reviewing all academic programs at Purdue's West Lafayette campus and four affiliated branch campuses throughout Indiana.
It was all a cover. Mason completed an undergrad degree in Zoology from Kentucky before getting a Master of Science Degree from Purdue in 1974. She completed her Ph.D in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Arizona in 1978. This gives her insight into two of the Big Ten's other rivals: The SEC and the Pac-12. Furthermore, she conducted research at IU in the early 80's, thus allowing her to relay information from Bloomington to the north.
Her infiltration into bringing Nebrasaka on board began in 1981 when she began teaching at Kansas. She eventually rose to the position of Associate Dean of Liberal Arts. In 2001 she came back to Purdue, ready to give us all of her information from years of spying. Sure, her official title from 2001-2007 was "Provost", but that was only for propaganda purposes.
I know the truth though. I stumbled across a late night meeting in early 2002 where it was obvious she was training for something big to help Purdue University. That training paid off in August 2007 when she was named as the 20th President of the University of Iowa. She has presided over a sustainability initiative while Iowa has battled the Recession and the struggles of the current economy. She also continues to teach, something that few University Presidents do. Clearly, this is so she can build her spy network through undergrads. She is a well respected University President nationally as her cover:
As Chair of the Council of Presidents, President Mason is a member of the Board of Directors Executive Committee of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), formerly the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). She currently also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education (ACE), and as Chair of the Iowa Coordinating Council for Post-High School Education (ICCPHSE). President Mason also served as President of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), and she has been a member of The Washington Center Council of Presidents since 2007.
Member of the Board of Directors Executive Committee of the Association of Public and Land Grant universities, you say? Surely that is just a mundane council she serves on. Surely you're naïve, then. You see, Purdue is a public Land-Grant Institution! This is how she passes off the information that she gets in her spying. Her codename is "Sparrowhawk".
The Iowa guys do not like her, however, and that is why we should like her. A selection of quotes, again from Black Heart Gold Pants:
We know we trust Sally Mason as much as we trust a scorpion with a rose in its mouth. - In regards to the way she handled the sexual assault case.
I Don't Have to Like Sally Mason to Love the Hawkeyes
Mason saved some face by firing two people in the bungled sexual assault case, but she has still not impressed herself to the Iowa fanbase. As I stated though, it is all a cover. On November 19th all will be revealed when this true badass rips off her Iowa sport coat to lead Purdue in SHOUT at the beginning of the fourth quarter. It will be the greatest moment in the storied Purdue-Iowa rivalry.