I was five years old at the time, but more than 40 years later I can still remember Texas winning the "Big Shootout" against Arkansas. President Nixon attended the game, and gave Darrell Royal the national championship trophy in the locker room afterwards. How did that taste, Penn State? I can still remember Randy Peschel catching that 4th and 3 pass from James Street, and Jim Bertleson scoring the tying touchdown. I guess "Shootout" wouldn't be politically correct anymore. Let's call it the "Great Participation Festival." We could give both teams participation ribbons, not keep score, and have each coach star in a skit to promote self-esteem.
College football is a special game. A special thing in our country, particularly in the south. Maybe there was a golden age before Nike sponsorships, coaches hopping from school to school, players taking handouts, and billion dollar TV contracts. Long before the NFL achieved popularity, people routinely crowded college football stadiums to watch the local team. Though still enormously popular, does it seem a little like wrestling now?
College football (and college athletics in general) sure is well organized, fair to its fans and players, and innovative. Its not all about profits and revenues, but instead it serves the student-athletes and promotes healthy spirit within university communities.
Yeah. College football makes boxing look fair and well run. Cedric Benson’s spending no time in jail for his burglary conviction, Barry Switzer’s OU squad assaulting coeds with impunity in between firing off machine guns on campus, and the NCAA’s four year investigation of Reggie Bush fully agree.
In two previous posts, I’ve schooled you on the utter and complete hypocrisy and sham that is the NCAA, and how the member educational institutions, whose mission ostensibly is to promote education, are just as rapacious and greedy as Enron traders.
Now its time to focus on the victims in this quagmire, the players. Excuse me, the “student athletes.” You know. The ones wearing letterman sweaters, hanging out at the malt shop, working on their fraternity’s homecoming parade float and looking forward pep rally before the big game. The ones practicing a couple of hours a day, and hitting the books the rest of the time. Yeah, them.
These are the guys getting caught with their hands out, and generally are the immediate precipitators of their schools getting put on probation, or slapped on the wrist as the case may be. For every car dealer who puts a Big 12 starting quarterback on the payroll for doing no work and not even appearing on the job, there’s a Big 12 quarterback who’s consciously getting paid at a “job” where he’s not doing any work. The players may be young, stupid, and particularly vulnerable to temptation, but they’re giving in to the temptation. And in seemingly increasing numbers. Reggie Bush’s parents accepting a free house in exchange for Reggie agreeing to use a particular agent for endorsement deals. Nearly half the North Carolina starting football team accepting improper benefits from agents. Andre Smith getting himself disqualified from the Alabama team for the 2008 Sugar Bowl for signing up with an agent prematurely (and of course eating his way off the Bengals). OJ Mayo taking gifts from agents and payouts from his coach. Terrelle Pryor trading his Big 10 championship swag for tattoos. Don’t forget all the DUIs. And breaking in to someone’s house to “get your TV back.” The list goes on and on.
When you and I were high school seniors (or even juniors) we were probably choosing a college based on which one has the best business program, or is the most fun place to live, or has the most enriching student life, or where can I meet the most interesting people that can help me fulfill my career goals. Do you think Cam Newton or Mark Ingram were asking those questions? Child, please. Your naivete is adorable. If that were true, no one would go to Oklahoma.
The only thing 95% of these guys have in mind is where can I go that will get me to the NFL or the NBA. Its all about going pro. And more specifically, about getting paid. They want to be on Cribs and hang with Beyonce. They want all the trappings of being an NFL or NBA player—a posse, riding in Escalades, packing heat in clubs, having nine kids with eight mothers. Didn’t you see Hoop Dreams? All these guys are convinced they have the game, and their sole criterion for selecting a school is which is the best one to help them get there. Going to class? Uh, no. Have someone go take my tests for me, please, I’m playing Madden right now.
I know this is sort of like blaming the victim for being in the wrong place. After all, the Fort Knox-like piles of cash that is college football and basketball don’t exist without the players. Nike isn’t exactly doing endorsement deals with the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and corporations aren’t buying suites to watch sociology lectures. The players see coaches signing multi-million dollar deals, fans wearing replica jerseys bearing their numbers, and athletics staffers getting huge bonuses when the players go to BCS bowls or the NCAA Tournament. In the NFL, with the weakest union relative to the owners, the players receive 60% of all "designated" revenue. In college athletics, the players get a scholarship to attend a university. What’s that really worth? In big time football and basketball factories, the pressures to win make it difficult for players to take a full class load and get their full value out of their scholarship. A cousin of mine was all Big-8 starting quarterback in the late 1970s, and during the season his class load was nine hours (average is around 15). And the value of these scholarships vary from school to school. A full scholarship to West Texas A&M is, of course, far less valuable than one to Stanford or Duke. Plus, to some of these kids, a college scholarship is about as valuable for their future lives as a GPS device on a kid’s bike. Some of these kids just have no business being in a university. That’s no aspersions against them, its just a fact. University isn’t for everyone. These kids are just marking time in school, struggling to stay eligible. Some of them have difficult family situations and need money now, not an education that may (or may not) lead to a more lucrative career in 10-20 years. So the “value” they get out of a scholarship is next to nothing, beyond it being a stepping stone to a pro career. Not only do the players get no money, they have little freedom to transfer to other universities if they happen to be playing behind a star (and therefore likely to see little playing time). Coaches can just come and go to job after job without having to sit out at all, even after leaving the last school on probation. Coaches can even move to other schools in the same conference with impugnity (I’m talking about you Houston Nutt). Players can’t transfer without sitting out a year, and without sitting out two years if transferring in conference. The scholarship supposedly is for four years, but is subject to yearly renewals. Every year, the big programs “run off” scholarship athletes before their four years have expired.
So the “student-athletes” in this ridiculous scheme must feel little if any heartburn about taking a little here and there. Or a lot. Before they’re supposed to. The little handouts here and there tend to pile up. And if they get caught? Until recently, this was highly unlikely. The NCAA had a miniscule enforcement staff, and was historically reluctant to go after the stars. The Reggie Bush “investigation” took four years, for example. In the internet age, however, with the Yahoo Sports and TMZs of the world running down leads sprouting on message boards, the NCAA can just follow up on cases uncovered elsewhere.
Guys, to put it bluntly, you need to keep it in your pants. To borrow from Socrates, if you’re not willing to live by the rules, don’t play the game. If you’re going to play ball, you have to play by the rules. Otherwise, stay at home, or do something else with your time. If you accept the benefits of the system (playing college ball, coming to the attention of pro scouts, taking coaching and physical development from the school), you have to abide by their terms. Yeah, their rules suck the big one, but too bad. Its their game. That’s like if you want to live in America, you have to pay taxes and watch American Idol. If you don’t want to watch American Idol, move.
Not only that, you owe it to your teammates, if no one else, not to bring down the program through ignoring the rules. You’re all boys, and you’re all in the same boat. Your success depends on their success. After all, you’re participating in a “program.” The team’s success helps you succeed, and vice versa. Football (and basketball) is a team sport; no one succeeds unless everyone does. When a school goes on probation, it suffers on field, and that makes it harder for everyone to achieve their personal goals.
You also owe it to yourself. Maybe Reggie Bush can get away with blatantly disregarding the rules, but most NFL teams don’t want to bring in bad character guys (unless they’ve got super human talent, and by definition, that’s a handful of guys at most). The NFL has lots of rules, and its teams have even more rules. They want players who are capable of following them. Teams will definitely take your inability to stay inside the lines into account on draft day. Guys who would have been top 10 picks may drop into the 20s. Guys who would have been first rounders may drop into the second, and so forth. So breaking the rules can hurt your pocketbook.
Plus, its just a matter of months, not an eon. Basketball guys only have to stay in college a year, and football players only three years. If you can just keep it together for a short time, you’ll get paid.
The alternative is what we’re seeing now. Ever increasing violations, increasing sanctions, punishment meted out to the innocent players a couple of classes behind the cheaters, and reduced respect for and trust in the game.
Next-New Year's in Miami Beach
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