If it is the brutality of the ECBs decision to punish Durham that strikes first, it is the inconsistency that follows close behind.Oh, yes. There is some logic in the ECBs stance. A financial punishment would clearly have been inappropriate and this action - relegation and a heavy points deductions for next season - certainly sends out a strong deterrent.Against what though, is unclear. Against building a ground in an out-of-town location more than 20 years ago? Against bidding for international games in an over-crowded market place? Against slipping into debt? If so, the ECB needs to be relegating a few other teams.The only difference between Durham and Glamorgan is that, at Durham, the creditors - notably the local council - declined to waive the debt. In Cardiff, they allowed the taxpayer to pick up the bill. Warwickshire owe Birmingham City Council around ￡20m and have already benefited from a repayment holiday.So, if the ECB is to be consistent, shouldnt Glamorgan, who were stripped of a Test in 2012 and obliged to swap a fixture in 2013 after struggling to pay staging agreements for Sri Lanka Test in 2011, be treated in the same manner?And what is the difference between Durham and Hampshire? Or, indeed, Yorkshire? Hampshire, the beneficiaries of this action, have been bailed out to the tune of ￡10m or more by Rod Bransgrove, while Yorkshire are indebted to Colin Graves. The club owes - and continues to pay interest upon - trusts set-up by Graves totalling ￡24m. All were insolvent. The difference is that Hampshire and Yorkshire found benefactors; Durham found judgement. The ECB, with reserves of ￡70m and more, could have taken a more sympathetic approach.Such was Yorkshires plight that, in interviews with ESPNcricinfo, Graves referred to Yorkshire as bankrupt and 48 hours from being written off. So we can only presume that Durham are not being punished for financial mismanagement but for failing to find a sugar daddy to bail them out.Did Durham have to be punished at all? Might the ECB not have reflected that it was, at least in part, complicit in Durhams descent into debt? Might it not have concluded that, having encouraged Durham to build an international venue - a condition of being granted first-class status in 1992 - and then given them a May Test against Sri Lanka starting on a Friday, it had contributed to the difficulties the club has faced?Might it not have reflected that, by encouraging the counties to bid against one another to host international games, things were always going to end this way?And might the ECB not even have reflected that it, like the banks that offered 120% mortgages before the economic crash, had extended credit to Durham far beyond the reasonable? The ECB now admits it has been working on this rescue package for the best part of a year. In that case, why was the Test against Sri Lanka allowed to take place in Chester-le-Street? Why were Hampshire or Nottinghamshire not incentivised to take on that game?This episode is every bit as much the ECBs fault as it is Durhams. It is an inevitable product of the system.Besides, who does this decision punish? Does it punish the officials at Durham who, years ago, embarked on a course that always threatened to end this way? Hardly. Some are dead, some have moved on or retired and one of them (Gordon Hollins, once commercial director at Durham) is now chief operating officer of the professional game at the ECB.Does it punish the investors who involved themselves in the club when they thought hosting international cricket was a lucrative business or the officials at the ECB who created this system and extended the clubs line of credit? Of course not.No, this is a decision that punishes the players and the supporters. Innocent victims of decisions over which they had no control.It wont help them, either. At least one of the players - Keaton Jennings, who recently signed a new deal with the club - is understood to have a clause in their contract allowing them to leave if they are relegated. Those supporters who enjoyed Durhams run to T20 Finals Day this year may conclude there is little point attending in 2017; the points deduction is too much of a handicap. And you can bet that the next club in need of financial assistance will call Wonga before it calls the ECB. The governing body needs to take a more benevolent approach than this.The shame is that, as a cricket club, Durham has excelled. Yes, as a business they have failed and as a business they need to change. But no cricket team had been in the top division for as long (11 years) before today. Only a couple of weeks ago, Ben Stokes, keen to play when he could easily have rested, bowled his side to a crucial victory over Surrey in a thrilling passage of play that seemed to have avoided relegation. To snatch that away devalues so much that went before.Might the ECB have taken such a hard line to make a point? Might it have taken this opportunity to remind the counties of their precarious finances and of the need to embrace a new T20 competition? You would hope not.There are lessons to learn from Durham. We can see (as we can from Hampshire) that out-of-town cricket grounds do not work. And we can see (as we can see from Hampshire and as we will see from Northants) that private ownership (Durham, like Hampshire, is not a members club) brings more problems than it solves. Sympathy for privately owned clubs is limited; if they dont share their profits with the wider game, why would the wider game want to share their losses? Nor will it be forgotten that, a few years ago, Durham breached the salary cap. They are not blameless.Most of all, though, we can see that the arms race by which international games were allocated for a decade or more did not work. And we can see that producing players for England is not sufficiently rewarded. A club that has uncovered such gems as Mark Wood and Stokes should not be begging for help from its governing body. It should be cherished and nurtured.At some clubs, this setback would spark an exodus. But at Durham? There has long been a sense of unity about Durham that other clubs have admired and envied. And it has long been said in county circles that it is hard to drag their players away from the north-east. Maybe the examples of Scott Borthwick and Mark Stoneman show that times have changed. Or maybe this is just the event to redouble their determination and renew their sprit. If Stokes and Wood are ever made available to them in 2017, some Division Two batsmen will find themselves unwitting victims of this episode.There is not much appetite around the first-class counties for punishment of Durham. There is an acceptance that their days as a Test-hosting ground are over (for the foreseeable future, anyway) and an acceptance that they required some intervention. But punishment? No. That comes from the ECB, which has somehow tarnished one of the most wonderful finishes to the county season for years into a squabble about finances and legal action. The reverse alchemists have done it again.Well-governed sport is defined by events on the pitch. Increasingly in English cricket, we see decisions made in committee rooms transcending events on the field. It reflects poorly on the sport and, most of all, poorly on the administrators.Air Max 270 Flyknit Oreo . Denis Coderre, the former federal MP who was elected mayor on Nov. 3, has drawn the ire of some Montreal Canadiens. During last nights game he tweeted: "Hello? Can we get a one-way ticket to (minor-league) Hamilton for David Desharnais please. Air Max 270 Blanche Femme . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. 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The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season.The eagle does not always do what shes told. But at least shes now being told to do something.When Eastern Michigan hired Heather Lyke as its athletic director in July 2013, the universitys live eagle mascot would appear at football games and meet recruits in the team room before leaving with its handler. Where does the eagle go? Lyke asked her staff. Doesnt it hang around the stadium? Do we have a place for it?It hasnt always been a smooth flight, but Lyke is trying to take Eastern Michigan athletics to new heights.Throughout its history, Eastern has performed well on the fields and courts. The school has been a member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) since 1971 and has won more team championships than any other league member during that span. Of course, cross country and swimming dont get the same attention as football. And on the gridiron, the Eagles historically have not gotten off the ground.Their last winning football season was in 1995. Theyve appeared in just one bowl game in their 41-year history, in 1987. The team had the lowest home attendance in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) last year. Football is expensive relative to other sports, and an HBO Real Sports episode that aired in April questioned whether the school should abolish the sport because of its cost to the university. The program won just seven games over the previous four seasons before this one.This year has been different. The Eagles are 6-5 and bowl eligible for the first time since they posted that same record in 95. Theyll reach the seven-win mark for the first time in 27 years if they beat Central Michigan at home on Tuesday night (7 p.m. ET, ESPN3) in their regular season finale.People arent proud of Eastern Michigan because the football team hasnt been so good [in the past], Lyke said. Whether we want to believe it or not, football drives the attention, viewership, enrollment, fundraising. Having a successful football program to go along with the amount of success weve had in other sports was a real priority.And so she brought in coach Chris Creighton, now in his third season and one of nine head coaches -- along with a dozen administrators -- Lyke has hired at Eastern. Together, theyve tried to improve the culture and win more football games, recognizing that succeeding in one task often helps the other.Eastern renovated Rynearson Stadium before Creightons first season, replacing the field with gray turf, nicknaming the stadium The Factory, and plastering the athletic departments motto, Champions Built Here, on the wall below the student section. The phrase emanated from the programs desire to be tough and southeast Michigans manufacturing history.Creighton also introduced a 51-pound wrench that represents the teams mission to close the gap (the vices illustrate the gap) between its current status and its potential. When the team comes out for warm-ups, they are led by someone -- a coach, administrator, or former player, for example -- carrying the wrench. Lyke carried it last week. And before the team takes the field for home games, a few players use sledgehammers -- which are adorned with the jersey numbers of teammates who delivered big hits in the previous game -- to knock down a wall of cinder blocks.It will take hard work beyond these motivational symbols to revitalize the football program, and Lyke knows it. A 1992 University of Michigan graduate (where she was a two-time captain under legendary softball coach Carol Hutchins), she worked as an associate AD at Ohio State for 15 years before coming to Eastern. Those two Big Ten schools have financially self-sustaining athletic departments and very famous football teams. Lyke says the guiding principles of an athletic department administrator -- academic success, winning teams, alumni pride -- are similar at all schools, but the approach varies.Managing a train thats already on the right track is very different than turning the train and moving it in an absolutely different direction, Lyke said. Thats the fun of it. You get a chance to create a new track and build tradition and do things that have never been done before.Shes one of just 37 women conducting a Division I athletic department (out of 352, according to the latest NCAA data, from 2015-16). Among schools with FBS programs, Lyke is one of only seven women. When I go to a meeting, everybody knows who we are, she said with a laugh. The reality is that the athletic directors chair, for whatever reason, has been pretty stagnant. Shed like to see that change.I want women to aspire to do this because therees nothing to say you cant, she says.dddddddddddd There are a lot of terrific men and women who will give you a chance. There might be some that wouldnt. Presidents and board members are making these decisions. I can build relationships with donors and board members just as well as a man can. You have to have the self-confidence to do the job. Put yourself out there and dont be afraid to go after it.She listed long-time ADs Debbie Yow (NC State), Judy Rose (Charlotte) and Sandy Barbour (Penn State) as mentors for her and other women in the field. She also mentioned Kathy Beauregard, the AD at Western Michigan, another MAC school in the state and an example of a football program that has drastically turned things around. Western went 1-11 just three years ago and is 11-0 this season, and ESPNs College GameDay visited Kalamazoo on Saturday.She was very aggressive when she got there, Beauregard said of Lyke wasting no time hiring coaches and staff. It was clear she had done a lot of evaluating ahead of time and didnt hesitate to move forward. She has an outstanding career ahead of her.While attendance numbers for The Factory are typically unreliable, Lyke feels the hard-working, middle-class community of Ypsilanti, Michigan, has embraced the Champions built here theme, and shes seen turnout rise.When Lyke arrived at Eastern, she repeatedly heard that the athletic department would never succeed because the Ypsilanti campus in southeast Michigan is just 10 miles from the athletic powerhouse in Ann Arbor. (She was told another reason was that alums were unhappy with the schools 1991 decision to change its mascot from Hurons -- referring to a Native American tribe -- because the name was deemed insensitive.) Given the drastic financial gap between the schools, Lyke said the University of Michigan is just not our competition.Eastern accounting professor Howard Bunsis, who was featured on the aforementioned Real Sports episode, said he believes the school should get rid of football -- or at least drop to the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) -- because he thinks it would save millions of dollars, money he feels should go toward scholarships and academic support for Easterns 18,000 undergrads.Using data that schools report to the NCAA, USA Today reported that of the $34 million budget for Easterns athletic department, $27 million is subsidized by the university. Thats 80 percent, the largest chunk in the MAC.Despite being a huge sports fan who supports the players and coaches at Eastern, Bunsis said, No matter what we do [on the field], its not going to change the finances. Were not going to get the support. Financial support for college football is cultural. Its just not there at EMU.Right or wrong, its the sort of attitude that Lyke is up against. When asked if there are any plans to downgrade football to FCS, she smiled and said, Absolutely not, a notion shared by the board of regents, who wrote an open letter in April supporting Lyke and her department.Lyke is positive, engaging, and uses the word phenomenal often. And why not? Under her watch the student-athletes have set record highs for graduation rates and GPA. The school won two MAC honors for the first time: the Jacoby Trophy (last year) for having the best womens teams, and the Cartwright Award (in 2014), given to the school whose athletes best mix on-field success, academics and community service. For the 2015-16 academic year, Eastern won the National Championship for Excellence in Management, given to the FBS school that best maximizes fiscal resources through championship victories.Department awards are one thing; winning football games is another. Eastern Michigan almost certainly will fill one of the 80 bowl slots this season. While this would be just the second bowl invite in Easterns history, at least one fan doesnt want the team to settle. At a coaches luncheon last week, an older gentleman advised Creighton, Dont go to that one in Detroit, presumably referring to the Quick Lane Bowl. Never mind that the MAC is no longer tied to that bowl, he was aiming for a better destination.Was this an overly demanding fan or a subtle sign that the culture is changing just a little bit?Andrew Kahn is a freelance writer. He writes about college athletics and other sports at andrewjkahn.com,?and you can find his Scoop and Score podcast on iTunes. Email him at andrewjkahn@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @AndrewKahn. ' ' '