Binghamton Zoo offended by comparison

Clearly, Binghamton AD Joel Thirer has been a bit stressed by the current situation involving his men's basketball team.

When you are the AD of a school with absolutely no basketball tradition, I'm sure it is difficult when you see your basketball team implode just six shorts months after their first trip to the NCAA's.

An hour before the announcement that the five more members of the basketball team would be getting thrown off, Thirer had this to say when asked about who he would blame (from PressConnects.com):

Truthfully, if I'm the president? Who's running the zoo? I'd start with me.

Now, if I were to tell you that Thirer has received some critical backlash for this quote, who do you think it would be from?

I bet the actual Binghamton Zoo would be pretty far down that list. This is an actual email sent by the Business Manager of the Zoo (first seen at The Dagger via The Quad):

I am tired of hearing that blight on Binghamton University, the men's basketball team, being referred to as a "zoo." The Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park has just received re-accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the industry's governing authority. We achieved this status by being in the top 10 percent of all the zoos in the country.

Our animal care, safety, employees and educational and service standards are set high and met accordingly. Not one of our tigers has been arrested with cocaine. No otter knocks over old ladies to shoplift condoms. Our bear doesn't have temper tantrums and storm off his exhibit. You won't find any of our lemurs busted for smoking pot. So, please, stop insulting zoos by comparing those criminals to us.

Amanda J. Padwa

Business Manager

Binghamton Zoo

Wow.

...

That second paragraph was vicious.

The most ironic part about all of this? The Binghamton student section is known as the BU Zoo.

I wonder if they were offended as well?