Friday, November 19, 2004
Laurie: Are we
on the same Paige? Might it already be time for Missouri to rename its newly-minted arena?
According to both chrysanthalbee is me and the Phog Blog, in a little under an hour 20/20 will run John Stossel's investigative report about cheating on campus.
Among John's interview subjects is a girl who claims that Wal-Mart heiress (Elizabeth) Paige Laurie, the only daughter of billionaire St. Louis Blues owners Bill and Nancy Laurie, paid her $20,000 to write all of her papers while she was a student at the University of Southern California.
Paige, a former girlfriend of UCLA star Jason Kapono, is the namesake of Missouri's new sports arena (whose website can be found neither here nor here). After her folks donated a cool $25 million toward the $75 million arena, they had it named after her. Hence the Paige Sports Arena.
For which Paige did the honors at the late October ribbon-cutting ceremony. Despite the objections (here, here, and here, for example) of those who found fault with the university's decision to name an arena after a girl who recently chose to attend a different institution of higher education.
What then, will the critics think of Paige Sports Arena now? If Laurie is found guilty of academic fraud, will -- or should -- Missouri rename the arena?
