A man with a 1.942 GPA, eight F-grades, and a failed Research Methods class somehow became a Doctor of Education. The question isn’t how. The question is who else is in on the joke.

Imagine Final Jeopardy. The lights dim. The think-music starts.

do de do do, do de do…

Behind the contestant podiums: Sheriff Gregory Tony, EdD; one alert squirrel; and one squirrel with diagnosed narcolepsy, currently face-down on his buzzer, empty bottle of Monte Alban nearby.

Trebek reads the category: WORDS THAT RHYME WITH CAT.

The clue: This three-letter word names a small flying mammal.

The alert squirrel writes BAT.

The narcoleptic squirrel, still asleep, dream-twitches across the screen and produces a scrawl the judges, after some squinting, accept as BAT.

Tony writes PhD.

Wrong answer. Wrong category. Wrong credential. Wagered $552,905 of public funds.

Trebek closes his eyes for a long beat. He has been doing this a long time. He has seen things.

Final score: alert squirrel — $1,200. Asleep squirrel — $1,200. Sheriff Tony — negative one criminology degree, a written reprimand, and administrative probation.

The narcoleptic squirrel wakes up just in time to claim the W and 30 hours of mandatory ethics training he does not need, because he is a squirrel.

Gregory Tony has a 1.942 FSU undergraduate GPA. Below the 2.0 minimum to graduate.

Technically speaking, Tony is a fucking idiot. Not in the casual “oh, he’s a fucking idiot” sort of way. IQ-wise, he is on par with three-day-old garage sushi rice.

Which explains the half-million-dollar branding spend. He has to be pinching himself in the mirror every morning, muttering, god damn, I really pulled one over on these idiots.

And those idiots, dear Reader, are the second kind. The fucking idiots, idiots.

That number is not opinion. It is the line that prints, in IBM mainframe sans-serif, on his own FSU Graduation Check dated December 20, 2001 — subpoenaed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement from the FSU Office of the General Counsel as part of investigation EI-14-0173:

>“FSU GPA — 1.942 GPA > NEEDS: 2.000 GPA — 1) GPA IS BELOW 2.0”

Eight F-grades on the transcript. Multiple withdrawals. Course repeats under FSU’s “Forgiveness Policy.” Football walk-on. Six character references on his next job application, five of them FSU coaching staff, including Bobby Bowden.

One of the Fs was in CCJ4700 — Introduction to Research Methods in Criminology.

Twenty-three years later, the same man barfed up a 71-page “doctoral dissertation” at Nova Southeastern whose entire premise was a six-year quantitative research design across five non-public BSO databases.

Nova Southeastern did not notice. Did not care. Cashed the BSO checks.

Pick any three.