The Sports Curmudgeon

The questions that I can’t get out of my head are these. Do college sports have anything at all to do with college anymore? Are they merely organizations that share an external logo and periodically/accidentally occupy space on the same campuses with universities? Forty years ago, the answers would have easily been, “Yes” and “No”. Today the answers could well be “Of course not” and “I’ll have to get back to you on that one”.

Let’s review just the high points here. At the University of Georgia – fresh off the heels of the Jim Harrick Sr. and Jr. despoiling of the school’s reputation – we have a flurry of news. Five athletes were caught with marijuana in their dorm; coach Mark Richt suspended four other players for unspecified problems; an assistant football coach was caught in the process of DUI and was suspended for a month; then nine players sold their SEC championship rings on e-bay. The AD, Vince Dooley, is supposedly feuding with the president, Michael Adams.

Meanwhile, just down the road, Georgia Tech had to declare ten football players academically ineligible for all of the 2003 season. That can only mean that there has been a major breakdown in either the admission standards/processes or in the academic support programs offered to/foisted upon these athletes. Or maybe it was a failure in both areas? Makes no difference.

These events happened at the right time for me. I had begun to think that only coaches in college sports were capable of monumentally stupid behavior that would eventually come to light in the national press. Larry Eustachy and Mike Price must be thrilled that they are not the focus of all the collegiate sporting world attention anymore. Now, Larry Eustachy can try to put his life and career back together without any cans of “Natty Light” in his hands. Now, Mike Price can try to make his name something that does not evince a smirk; he was truly washed out by the rolling tide.

The ACC has decided to expand so that it can hold a conference football championship game like the SEC does and the way it plans to do that is to poach three teams out of the Big East. Three football defections from the Big East will leave that conference’s football “presence” virtually non-existent. The Big East will make counter-proposals to the three schools wooed by the ACC later this week.

The Governor of Virginia tried to throw some weight around to get VA Tech on the list of schools that the ACC would annex. Very firmly – but assuredly with utmost respect and propriety – he was told to go and take a dump in his hat. VA Tech is not one of the three “preferred schools” sought by the ACC because it does not bring a prestigious program to the ACC in basketball; it’s football program is OK but not renowned; Blacksburg VA is not a place that anyone would want to have to visit for any reason given any other alternative. The town motto for Blacksburg should be:

Why the hell did anyone stop here in the first place?

I can’t get past the thought in my head, however, that the ACC presidents missed out on a real opportunity to upgrade their football prestige. They should indeed invite VA Tech into the ACC; to make room, they should kick out GA Tech. With or without ten ineligible players and a program whose fan base is fickle and dwindling, GA Tech is not nearly the football power that VA Tech has become of late. The only answer I have for this is that the ACC presidents like to visit Atlanta and at least some of them have actually been to Blacksburg and have told the rest of their cohorts about it.

Amazingly, all of this is happening while the esteemed and courageous reformer, Myles Brand, is in charge of the NCAA. Think back to days before all of this recent nonsense and you can hear him saying that reform at all levels of collegiate athletics was on its way and it was going to be “genuine academic reform”. He has pontificated that the college presidents are going to stand up and be counted and that they will wrest back control of college athletics and put it all in the proper educational context of their institutions. Remember all that? Let’s get something clear right now. That is rhetorical poppycock and it is being mouthed by someone who deserves a reputation for credibility that is only marginally above that of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi Minister of Information. In fact, has anyone ever seen Dr Brand and Minister Saeed al-Sahhaf in the same room at the same time? Hmmm…

In case anyone failed to notice, it was the presidents of the ACC schools that met to vote to annex the three Big East schools. Take a moment to read that again; the presidents of the ACC universities voted to undertake this annexation. Now when is some important national journalist going to ask the NCAA reformer, Dr. Brand, just how these presidents are going to make all of this into “genuine academic reform”? Maybe you have not heard from Dr. Brand recently because no journalist can find him. Maybe he’s in a cave in the Himalayas trying out his new speeches on a group of yetis?

On 17 May 2003, Sally Jenkins nailed this issue on the head when she said that this was a hostile takeover by the ACC and that it was done for monetary reasons only and – most importantly – not a single dime of the money involved here or the added dollars that might accrue to ACC schools would go to improvement of college life at a single school. This is a business decision and nothing else and Sally Jenkins says that the way to rein it in is for the Congress to allow the IRS to tax these profits. Schools have dodged the tax bullet by claiming that sports are part of the fabric of the college experience and institution. That was true in the past; it is not true today. College athletes are often admitted only to play football or basketball or whatever; they have no interest in college courses; the colleges have no intention of soiling themselves by handing these self-centered ignoramuses a diploma. Major collegiate sports have become minor pro leagues – preparing a few athletes for lucrative careers as pro sports stars. That’s it; there is no more. I urge you to go to washingtonpost.com and read Sally Jenkins’ entire column; there is a lot of good stuff in there.

[Aside: If the IRS had been looking at the books, might they have found Ed Martin and his fountain of cash at Michigan a bit sooner? I’ll bet Tommy Ammaker wishes someone had.]

So maybe it is time to start a letter writing campaign to those people in Congress who want to assist college sports – usually by banning gambling on the games. Write to Senator John McCain and tell him to start the process to make athletic profits at colleges taxable by the IRS. Imagine how some of the schools with “active” boosters will love to have IRS auditors poring over the books to see where all the money actually comes from; imagine how the players will love to have whatever benefits – and maybe even minor league quality incomes – they get be subject to taxes instead of the current underground economy environment. Probably, just the threat will scare a couple of schools straight.

On March 18, 2003, I did a topical rant saying that university presidents as a category of people were no more virtuous and noble and altruistic than any other category of people. As events have unfolded, I will only say that some of these folks have made my case for me. In that prior rant, I said that Myles Brand was as useless as a bag of hair. I stand by that statement. I would like to add here that when the Good Lord gave out clues, Dr. Brand thought He said “shoes”. And Dr. Brand then decided to go barefoot through life.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…