The Sports Curmudgeon

Yes, I know that I have never had anything nice to say about this man and my most common descriptor for him is that he is an animatronic suit-dummy. And I don’t plan to do a “180” here and try to convince you that he’s not nearly as bad a guy as that convicted child molester out on parole who was arrested for dropping his trousers in the elementary school playground last week. But just as the blind squirrel will sometimes find a nut, so too will Dr. Myles Brand stumble onto the right side of an issue. Now appears to be such a time; and so I’m prepared to offer some help.

At the event of the 99th NCAA Convention in Texas Dr. Myles Brand warned that many NCAA institutions have gone on a spending spree on athletics ever since the rights fees from television starting their exponential expansion and that such spending sprees cannot be sustained into the indefinite future. He’s got that right.

Of course, then he had to go off into scholar-speak and say that “value-based budgeting” was one means to keep this bubble from bursting and spreading goo all over a lot of the NCAA member-institutions. Somehow, I suspect that “value-based budgeting” will have all the impact and all the lasting import as did “zero-based budgeting” in the Carter Administration.

But he is correct in saying that the spiraling rights fees cannot continue to grow at the same rate as they have in the recent past and he is correct to note that many athletic departments run significantly in the red. And the response on campuses where money is being lost is to try to increase spending in order to generate a winning team that can cash in more heavily on those spiraling revenues – which are far more readily available to winners as opposed to losers. Duh!!

Since I am about to try to be constructive here, I do want to get one curmudgeonly thing out of the way so that it does not interfere with what follows. The NCAA was holding its 99th convention; it has been around for a long time and the current set of arcane and jejune rules is the best that it could come up with after 99 years worth of trying? And this is an institution made up of colleges and universities that purport to take smart people and prepare them to make the world a better place?

With that observation out of the way, let me cut through any of the politically correct management speak and try to lay out a couple of things that the member institutions can do in order to keep this system from really getting out of whack. I know that Dr. Myles Brand is not omnipotent in this area – although he certainly does like to leave us with the impression that he is omniscient – but through his bully pulpit and using any rudimentary back-room political skills he might have, here are some specific goals he might seek to achieve.

One way to begin to put a cap on costs would be to put an end to the runaway salaries paid to successful football and basketball coaches. In institutions that even try to make a pretense of having an academic mission that transcends their athletic conquests, it is absurd to pay a coach and his coaching staff as much as the school might pay to all of the professors in the philosophy department. This cost containment could come in the form of a “coaching salary cap” or possibly by paying head coaches at the top end of the academic salary scale and leaving it at that. But it is clear that some schools are spending far too much money on coaches and that fosters an atmosphere of “win at all costs”.

Coupled with the cap on coaching costs, institutions and athletic departments need to be a lot less trigger-happy when it comes to firing coaches with less than fully successful records. This year, two football coaches were fired after winning 60% of their games at the school where they had been plying their trade. Firing them cost the school some money and hiring the successor did not come cheaply either. It would take the pendulum too far to the other side to say that a coach should be immune from firing for the first 3 or 4 seasons at a school because situations could get way out of hand in that environment. But if NCAA schools were a bit more “patient”, cost escalation might be easier to contain.

I’d suggest that the NCAA adopt a certification process for coaches and that part of attaining that certification and more importantly maintaining that certification would be that there be no rules violations involved in programs under the direct supervision of that coach. When problems come to light, far too many head coaches do the “Sgt Schultz routine” from the old Hogan’s Heroes program. They keep shouting, “I know nothing…!” Well, if coaches needed NCAA certification to be a coach and if keeping that certification meant he/she had to be responsible for the things that their underlings and their charges did, I suspect that coaches would be far more attentive than they are now. Under the current situation, coaches are rewarded for being “unaware”. Imagine if that translated to academics. Bevis could be the next valedictorian…

I know that Dr. Myles Brand likes to cite statistics to say that athletes graduate at a higher rate than the student body at large. But we know that is a crock and the books are cooked. Look at major football and basketball programs and look at the majors listed for scholar athletes in their 3rd and 4th years at the school. Now tell me that these are people making real progress toward a baccalaureate degree. So when schools make a sham of graduation rates, I suggest that the NCAA hit them where it hurts most and ban them from post-season play – and their share of post-season conference revenue sharing – for a period of X years. If things do not improve in reality – and not in some window dressing mode – then extend the ban of getting any post-season money AND start chopping scholarships. At that point, the school will be forced to do something constructive or be relegated to the status of “perpetual doormat”.

I’d suggest that freshmen be ineligible to play any and all varsity sports at any NCAA institution. Yes, I know that means that schools will be shelling out money in the form of tuition and room and board to scholar-athletes who cannot “repay” that investment for a year. So what? If you want to send a message to students that they are in college for something in addition to playing some sport, here is a way to deliver that message loud and clear from the day they enroll. Yes, more high school basketball players will skip college and go directly to the NBA. So what? That’s the NBA’s problem not the NCAA’s problem.

Finally, I suggest that Dr. Myles Brand remind the university presidents of the NCAA’s member institutions that he was once a university president just as they are. And he needs to tell them that he knows the pressures that they face from alums who relive their jovial collegiate days through the prowess of good old Alma Mammy’s sports teams. Nonetheless, he needs to remind them they are educators first and fund raisers second. That means they need to do something to take a positive stand in all of this messy business.

OK, there are a half-dozen or so basic ideas for Dr. Myles Brand and the NCAA to spend their energy on. I didn’t say they were easy and I didn’t say they were painless and I didn’t say they would fix things overnight. They aren’t and they won’t. But they will move the situation in a positive direction. It would be really good for the national media to begin to push Dr. Myles Brand to start doing things of this kind of positive nature and to stop giving him positive press for doing next to nothing at all. Next time he calls a news conference to pat himself on the back, it would be a positive thing to have a corps of reporters ready to call him out on these ideas and other constructive ideas. And most importantly, they must not tolerate him telling everyone that “they can’t be done”.

Here is a translation for you. “Can’t” means that whatever is being proposed either violates the laws of physics or some Federal statute. Most times when a politician or someone in a position such as Dr. Myles Brand tells you that something can’t be done, what he really means is that he – or the interests he represents – would prefer not do it. So don’t let him get away with that kind of verbal legerdemain.

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

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Unless you live in a cave or you have been in a coma for the last couple of weeks, you must have seen lots of sappy articles/commentary about the important events/trends of the past year and what they might portend for the coming year. All is warm and cozy and self-contained in those kinds of retrospectives. As you have come to realize, that is not the way the world is viewed from here in Curmudgeon Central. There is always reason to hope that future times will be better than the recent past; that is part of what makes humans keep trudging on in their lives. But there is also a realism dimension to Planet Earth and the best way to make tomorrow better than yesterday was would be to put a complete halt to some of the things that happened on yesterday.

I know we can’t just stop all the silly and annoying things that go on around us. To be candid, I would not wish for that to happen even if it were possible because then things would get very quiet around here in Curmudgeon Central. So, instead of basking in some kind of rosy and starry-eyed glow of optimism about how things will be much better next year [cue the music – The sun will come out, tomorrow …] let’s think about some things we can quit. And by the act of quitting them, we can make the world an infinitesimally better place for everyone.

Let’s begin by demanding that the makers of Samuel Adams beer stop telling us that “Samuel Adams is always a good decision”. No, it is not. You should not pop open a bottle and drink from it just as you are approaching a state police sobriety checkpoint. And if the ad agency folks that came up with that stupidity think my scenario is concocted, then I hope that the surgeon who operates on their next family member that needs neurosurgery is making that “always good decision” all throughout the procedure.

And while we are thinking about beer commercials, can we please stop all advertising about beer as a “diet beverage”. I don’t care if it is “lite” or “ultra” or” low-carb” or “all natural” or whatever; it’s beer and it’s not something that is going to be part of an intelligent and medically sound program for someone to lose weight.

As you watch your sporting events on TV, do you really need to be let in on any more of the exploits of the Geico gecko? I didn’t think so. Even worse is the AFLAC duck. Have you ever seen how they force feed ducks and geese to create foie gras? They jam long funnels down their esophagi and pour huge amounts of grain into their stomachs several times a day. That’s what needs to happen to that damned duck before they go and harvest that fattened liver of his.

Do you remember the “Take me fishing…” ads that urged you to take someone fishing for a whole bunch of sappy reasons? Just once, I wanted that little girl to tell her daddy to take her fishing because she was planning to make him a grandfather when she was 12; and therefore, this would be the only time she and her dad could do this without the interference of her own rug-rat.

By the way, all of the commercials on TV and radio that deal with tampons, hemorrhoids, erectile dysfunction, PMS and diarrhea are annoyingly tasteless. If the ad agencies can’t come up with something creative that is not also tasteless, please take these damned things off the air.

Have you figured out yet why the “man in black” who tells us about Sprint cell phone service has to travel around all by himself in a bus? What has he got going on in there? How about driving around in something a little more “mileage efficient”? If you have to drive around in something that guzzles gas, you can probably get a good rental deal on the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

It is also time to drop the curtain on any more newspaper columns and magazine articles and TV exposés on the following stories:

The BCS: We already know that it is fallible. We know that every time they improve it, the improvement is not significantly better. We know that the old system of bowl games was even more fallible. We know that polls of coaches and/or writers are skewed, biased, and unreliable. We know that an on-field playoff is the best way to determine a champion. Now, unless someone has something else to add to the discussion…

BALCO: There will be an indictment and ultimately a trial. Then we can learn things from testimony under oath and with cross-examination. Until then, stop the shocking announcements based on leaks of information that is supposed to be privileged.

Eldrick Woods’ slump: He has not won nearly as many golf tournaments in the last two years as he did before that. In fact, someone pointed out that his PGA Tour wins last year was equal to his number of marriages and that is not good. Yet, everyone continues to call this a “slump”. Unless they can prove conclusively that he is not declining in skill or that others have not surpassed him in skill level, we don’t need for them to define this ever so conveniently as a “slump” which will miraculously go away some time soon. Wait until he does it and then report it.

The Super Bowl “Wardrobe Malfunction”: It wasn’t an accident. It was in poor taste. It is not a threat to civilization as we know it. It is not something that will destroy the minds of the children of the world. It is not worth nearly the over-reaction that it has already spawned. It needs benign and purposeful neglect.

By the way, think about how much worse that Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction could have been. Imagine if that had been Roseanne Barr…

We need to demand an end to those annoying and intrusive Internet ads that tell you that you are the 1,000,000th visitor to this website and if you click here, you will get a prize. Since I have gotten the same intrusive ad about a bazillion times, it is clearly not true that I have been the 1,000,000th visitor there each and every time. Why isn’t this something that falls under the purview of people who are supposed to enforce the false advertising laws?

And speaking of those annoying and intrusive Internet ads, I want people to stop telling me that I will get a free gift if I place an order now or if I fill out some kind of survey form. Hello. Can you tell me what other kind of gift I might get besides a “free gift”?

We need to begin a public education campaign and stop the currently acceptable uses of cellular phones in the country. First of all, everyone who has a cell phone needs to read the next sentence carefully.

You need to speak lots more softly into your phone because – take a deep breath here – I don’t give a rat’s ass about your conversation; and your forcing me to listen to your half of that conversation is really annoying.

I’m telling you that “phone rage” is going to replace “road rage” as the “violent outburst of choice” in the US in the near future. Someone is going to need a proctologist to remove a phone one of these days.

Each and every cell phone user who calls someone from a sporting event so that the other person on the line can tell the caller when the caller is on camera so the caller can wave needs to receive a massive beat down. That ought to put an end to that silliness. When someone does that, all that it proves is that the person is sufficiently insignificant and insecure that (s)he needs to know for sure that (s)he has been on TV lest all the waving would go for naught. “Pathetic loser” does not begin to describe these people. They must be stopped.

And can we please stop the cutesy ring tones on cell phones. They are annoying beyond words. I’d rather hear a synthetic rendition of four orangutans farting God Save the Queen than most of the stupid ones that people have programmed in these days.

The FCC is considering a change in rules that will allow people on airplanes to talk on their cell phones in flight. That ought to take airplane travel down yet another 10 notches in terms of an enjoyable experience. At the moment, traveling on a plane is just slightly more enjoyable than a wisdom tooth extraction – without Novocain. Write letters to these folks and tell them to stop whatever processes are in motion and to stop thinking about expanding the venues for cell phone use.

Qwest paid real money to put their name on the Seattle Seahawks Stadium. Isn’t it time for shareholders in these companies to rise up and tell the morons who make these “branding suggestions” that this is a waste of the shareholders’ money and that the shareholders want this to stop. Here’s a partial list of failed “branding suggestions” related to stadiums and companies:

Pro Player Stadium – Miami: Go find any “Pro Player” products on the shelf for Christmas. They aren’t there because the brand – as they would say in France – n’existe pas.

PsiNet Stadium – Baltimore: Can you spell bankruptcy? Same goes for Adelphia and/or 3Com wherever it was they stuck their names on sporting edifices.

Enron Field – Houston: Here we have the trifecta of bankruptcy and a massive defrauding of the public and of the shareholders.

Boy, this branding idea with sports arenas and stadia really works well…

Now that basketball season is almost upon us in full bloom, I am reminded that there is a phrase that must be exorcised from the telecasts and any commentary about any basketball game by any studio talking head. Please stop immediately talking about some player being able to “score the ball”. With what? An Exacto knife? What the hell does that mean?

Finally, here is my idea for a new reality game show – after we take all the current ones and remove them from the public airwaves. I’d actually watch this one and would want to participate in deciding the winners and losers because when someone loses they will stop being annoying presences in the lives of many. You create two teams of “celebrities” and you put them in a competition where they have to participate in totally degrading and humiliating acts as part of the competition. Then one team is deemed to be the loser by any objective or capricious manner you might like and the team members are banned from any kind of media attentinon for the next ten years – except for their obituaries of course. Here are my candidates:

Team A: Rosie O’Donnell, Dr. Phil, Pedro Martinez, Ray Lewis, George Steinbrenner, Joe Theisman.

Team B: Mark Cuban, Donald Trump, Gary Bettman, Ricky Williams, Donald Fehr, Larry King.

And after this program is a smash hit – how can it fail when at the end we get rid of at least six annoying presences and we have degraded and humiliated the “winners” in the process of the competition? - I have the sequel already in mind. You pit the entire cast of one annoying TV/radio show against each other in a similar contest with the same decade-long banishment for the losers. Entries in my “Elimination Tournament” include:

Cold Pizza – ESPN

All Things Considered – NPR

The McLaughlin Group – NBC (at least here in the DC area)

Any/All Professional Rasslin’ Shows

See how much better the world can become without doing anything new or positive if only we can get rid of the negatives. It is truly addition by subtraction. It should be the underlying theme for all of 2005.

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

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