If you are the kind of person who likes to sit around on a
fall Saturday, drink a case of
Miller/Coors/Bud Lite/Light and watch college football, do not read
this. I implore you, don’t do it. You won’t like it and it will probably make
you mad. OK, fine, read away, but
consider yourself warned.
As we have just concluded March Madness and we bask in the
glow of another UConn Huskie dual-championship, I have been struggling with
issues surrounding college sports.
Within the last few years, my attitudes have changed about college
sports. I used to be a major college
sports fan. As a proud Nittany Lion, I
bled blue and white right up until the Sandusky Debacle. I will also freely admit that I am getting
back on that bandwagon, hence my dilemma.
There has been a remarkable amount of coverage lately regarding he state
of amateurism in college athletics. I
have recently watched a few documentaries on the issue, which I would greatly
recommend; Schooled: the Price of College
Sports and Youngstown Boys. Both of these address, from different
perspectives, the dichotomy which arises in college athletics. You have the institutions, both the NCAA and
its member Universities, who generate billions in revenue annually from
broadcasting, merchandizing, licensing, and ticket sales, and you have the
student athletes, who get a scholarship.
I appreciate that a scholarship, depending on which school a student –
athlete attends can be worth up to and above $250,000 over 4 years of a college
career, and for the majority of students, the vast majority, it is a remarkable
benefit that can, and should, make their outlooks much brighter than they might
have been otherwise. But, however, there
are examples of how this model is being corrupted and those models are becoming
much more frequent and much more obvious.
A confession; I used to watch the NCAA Men’s Basketball
Tournament like it was a catechism. March
was my Christmas for a long time. I had
a standing tradition with one of my best friends. We would take the first Friday of the
tournament as a day off from work, go into Philadelphia and take in WXPN’s Free
at Noon concert, regardless of who was playing.
We would then go to our local sports bar, Quotation’s in Media, PA, and
watch the second day of the tournament.
All. Day. Long…
I would then spend the remainder of the month’s weekends watching the
drama unfold. Cinderella stories every
year. Heroes and Villains. Buzzer beaters. Inviduals who willed their
teams to win. Teams who would not give
up on each other. But this changed for
me. Slowly but surely, I have come to
hold the NCAA in contempt. I’m not sure
what changed more, me or the NCAA, but I suspect it was me.
Recently, at least in overt appearance, college sports,
primarily basketball, has shifted from a program where “student athletes” would
play for the school that provided them a scholarship for 4 years and then, if
possible, pursue a professional career in their specific sport . Now I am completely aware that there has
always been those individuals who have left their schools early to become
pros. Believe it or not, that is not the
problem that I have with the system. The
problems that I have tend to be involving the restriction of players from
making their livings as they can, based upon their ability, and the
overwhelming difference between the money generated by the NCAA and the
treatment of the players. All of these
things contribute to an environment which is absolutely ripe with
corruption. Here’s and example. Shabazz
Napier, the senior guard for the Huskies, after winning the NCAA Tournament,
mentioned having to go hungry while at UCONN because he had no points left on
his cafeteria card. (CBS Sports, April
7) Meanwhile, head coach Kevin Ollie will pull down $1.4 million in salary,
endorsements, and fees. How many points
did Ollie score in this tournament? And
I LIKE KEVIN OLLIE. And to be fair, Coach Ollie isn’t even in the
same zip code as some other, more prominent coaches, like Tom Izzo, John
Calipari, Rick Pitino and a few others who make more than twice as much… All that being said, Napier could have gone
pro last year or the year before, had he thought he was ready. But
still, how much did his individual performance benefit Coach Ollie and the
University of Connecticut financially?
And he couldn’t even afford to eat at times.
I know some folks will shake their heads and say “his
choice. He could have gone pro last year and not had this problem.” But what about the other, less talented
players on bench? That is not an
available option for them. You may also
say “get a job”. Well, they can’t. NCAA rules dictate that scholarship athletes
can only earn up to $2000 above their grant level. $2000 doesn’t go very far. If you are a scholarship athlete who comes
from a poor background, you’re kinda screwed for the time being. You can’t eat lectures. Textbooks can’t keep you warm in the winter.
Watching a talking head program on a recent Sunday morning,
one of the pundits stated that education was the reward, the payment for the
athletes’ efforts. I have an objection
to that. Education is a subjective
reward. It does not have the same value
to some as it would to others. You
cannot take a kid, whose family, friends and neighbors have never provided any
positive feedback or support for education, plop him or her into an Econ 101 session
and expect that kid to have a light turned on.
It just doesn’t work that way. If
education is meaningless to an individual, or is contrary to their plan, the
value does not exist.
I will couch my overall statements by saying that the vast majority of college athletes will never play pro sports and that this experience, for that majority, is a huge benefit. I have zero issues with the kids at all. They are beholden to a broken system that they have to make sacrifices for in order to be a part of. It's the adults that make me angry.
The biggest issue that I have is that this entire model is supported
by the NFL and the NBA, at least indirectly.
What other sports require college attendance or graduation age? Name one.
Not hockey. It has a system of
minor leagues for young players to develop.
Not baseball. Also has minor
leagues and players are routinely drafted out of high schools or Latin American
sports academies. Not tennis, where some
of the best women pro’s are still high school aged. Not soccer, where players are routinely signed
to pro contracts in their mid-teens, both in the US and abroad. Only the NFL and NBA follow these exclusionary
models. The NFL states that all draftees
must be at least 3 years removed from high school. If you do not have the academic chops to be a
student athlete, what happens to you?
Well, we know that many colleges are willing to let these big fellas
fake it until they make it. Take a look
at the recent information coming out of the University of North Carolina for
support of this point. Recent
documentation shows that Tarheel players either took fake classes or were not
held to the same standards as other students in orders to maintain
eligibility. And UNC is universally seen
as a great school. Way to go,
‘heels! And for what reason does the NFL
employ these rules but not these players?
One of the things you will hear is “physical maturity.” I call shenanigans on this. I’ll ask one clarifying question; is the NFL
more physically demanding than the NHL?
Is getting sacked worse than getting checked? Doesn’t seem so to me…
I would go so far as to say the NBA is even worse, because
the rules are not applied universally.
The NBA rules around eligibility for the draft state: “All drafted players
must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft. To determine whether a player is eligible for
a given year's draft, subtract 19 from the year of the draft. If the player was
born during or before that year, he is eligible.” That, to me, is blatant age discrimination. But it gets better. “Any player who is not an "international
player", as defined in the CBA, must be at least one year removed from the
graduation of his high school class.”
International player? So, by
benefit of which country you were born in, you either may or may not decide to
go professional when you feel like you’re ready to do so. This means that there is a period of
time where an American athlete cannot ply his trade, as dictated by the major
employers within that trade. Somehow, mind-bogglingly,
this is legal for these organizations.
You want to hate the Calipari’s and Pitino’s of the world,
but it isn’t their fault. They are just master
of the program, winning within the format in which they have been instructed to
play. Please understand that doesn’t
mean that I am not disappointed in schools like the University of Kentucky who
have subscribed to this style of recruitment, which I equate to making a deal
with the devil. For years this system
has benefited and promoted those programs and schools who have given up on
academic integrity in order to have an elite athletic product. In basketball, specifically, we have entered
the era of “one and done” athletes who compete in the NCAA for one year,
because they have to, and then declare for the NBA as soon as their season is
over, never even completing their valuable freshman year of education. And I don’t blame the athlete. Some of the signing bonuses that these kids
receive will pay for their grandkids to go to school…
Mark Emmert, the current president of the NCAA, is quoted in
the April, 2012 edition of the Atlantic as saying, “"I happened to dislike the one-and-done rule enormously and wish
it didn't exist. I think it forces young men to go to college who have little
or no interest in going to college."
But why has it not changed? I
have an answer. A team of talented
freshman is more economically viable than a team of workmanlike upper classmen. In short, money. John Calipari is not the devil, Mark
Emmert is the devil. Coach Cal did not
invent the system, he just has the moral ambiguity to exploit it and exploit it
well.
I freely admit that I don’t have a overall solution, but I
do have some suggestions. I don’t think
paying the athletes is the answer, as it opens up another whole bag of
cats. Primarily, how much would you pay
the players? Would the starting
quarterback make the same as the goalkeeper on the water polo team? If not, why not?
The first thing I would do is eliminate the obvious
collusion between the NCAA and the NBA and NFL.
Their random and selective age restrictions consistently confuse me as
to their legality. (If any of my lawyer
friends can explain to me how this works within the confines of labor law, I
will be in your debt.)
And to make you feel a little worse about it, the NCAA just
signed a contract with CBS and TNT for $11 billion, (with a “B”) for the
broadcast rights to the NCAA Tournament through 2024, and the Huskies don’t get
any extra points on their meal cards.
