O.J. Mayo, according to ESPN, took $30,000 while in high school and college from an event promoter who wanted to represent him when he cashed in to the NBA. Mayo denies any wrongdoing, and USC presumably was only driving the get away car and didn't witness any actual crimes.
And so it goes.
In 2005 the NBA and NCAA colluded with the help of the NBA Player's Association to restrain trade and forbid players younger than 19 from entering the draft. Their motives were pure.
Pure greed.
The NBA was paying high school entry players multi-million salaries for rookie years which were usually worth about as much as Memphis Grizzlies playoff tickets. The NCAA was watching the best product escape without getting their share of the cut. The NBA Player's Association wanted contract concessions.
Everybody left the table happy, except the high school players who knew they had winning lottery tickets they couldn't cash for a year (and who expose themselves to considerable financial risk every time they take to the court).
What to do?
First you buy an insurance policy with money you don't have. Then there is the obligatory armored car sized SUV some heretofore unemployed relative purchased for you. If there's trouble, an attorney will be provided. You have the right to remain silent, to stay out of class, and to hang out with your entourage. Oh yeah, and to have adults who should know better refer to you as a "student athlete".
You just can't have the money. Officially.
This is where the Rodney Guillory's of the world come in. He's the generous fellow who reports say paid Mayo $30,000 and bought the occasional flat screen TV. In exchange he got Mayo's signature on an agreement to allow Bill Duffy Associates to represent him when he turns pro, and to keep anything left over out of an initial $200,000 payment.
Louis Johnson, now known as "a former associate of O.J. Mayo" messed up this perfectly fine arrangement by talking to ESPN. Which leaves the NCAA in the position of having to investigate a situation they created.
Who can blame Mayo, or anyone, for wanting at least a taste of the $4 million they will lay hands on within 12 months? If he only got $30,000, I think he showed admirable restraint.
So faith has been broken, tears must be cried (where have I heard that). USC will be slapped on the wrist and life will go on unchanged. Why? Because you can believe O.J. Mayo isn't the only freshman star with this kind of arrangement, and that the NCAA and the power schools know it.
The deeper you dig the more you could find. And what you find leads back to the basic injustice of the 19 year old rule. The NCAA wouldn't want anyone to figure out elite basketball and football stars are affiliated with their schools to much the same degree Paris Hilton is acquainted with chastity.
There's another angle to the Mayo story. The one and dones do as much harm as good for the schools they attend.
Since the rule went into effect, including this year's declared early entries, 23 players will have gone the one and done route. Every single one attended a major conference school, figuring it will increase their exposure and chances of being drafted early. The shoe companies help this out by steering these players to big schools through the camp system and "advisers".
The one and done crowd, then, is headed for programs who could live without them. Eleven of the eighteen schools who recruited one year wonders lost more games once the wonder kids arrived. The payoff can be great (see Ohio State with Oden, Conley, and Cook), but most don't take their teams any further into the NCAA's than they already have gone.
Take USC (please). Does anyone believe they were a better team for having the O.J. Mayo show in town? The Trojans were 2-6 in games Mayo got 20 shots, and you can make the argument Mayo's agenda was about this year's draft and not winning basketball games. You can look it up. O.J. Mayo = 4 fewer wins for USC.
Like most bad decisions, recruiting a one year rental player can come with a hangover. The year after the one and done left, 4 out of 7 of their teams won fewer games the next year. If the pattern repeats itself with the 13 freshmen from this year's class, maybe it's time for coaches to rethink chasing players they won't have around a year from now.
And maybe it's time for the NBA and NCAA to set the O.J. Mayo's of college basketball free.
I'm listening to #### Vitale talk about the great heavyweight fight between Tennessee and Memphis. And he's right. Big instate rivalry, the #2 team knocks off an undefeated #1 from the same state, and the level of intensity on the court was great.
But is this great basketball and are these great teams?
No and No.
Vitale's heavyweight analogy goes another way. College basketball is like heavyweight boxing. It has seen it's better days. Today's champs would be eaten alive by the great teams of March Madness past. Too many early exits to the pros, too many players reading their own press clippings, and the game itself just isn't that good.
The greatest athletes who have ever played the game and the worst basketball players.
Let's look at Tennessee-Memphis. #1 vs #2.
Playing with a three point arc so close it turns routine jump shots into three point plays the two best teams in the country couldn't score but 128 points combined (114 without the extra point tacked on for the 14 three pointers the two teams made).
These are the guys who can't shoot straight.
The Volunteers made just 40% of their two pointers, and 32% of the their 19 three point trys. They made 67% of the free throws they attempted, a figure which would cause any high school coach in the country to send his team back to the gym for practice.
Memphis was a little better at two point plays (15-31), which should have motivated them not to spend the night throwing up errant three point shots (8-27 30%). Of course, if they had pounded it inside the odds are they wouldn't have converted on any free throws they earned. For the night, the #1 team in the country made 8 free throws and missed 9.
What we are seeing is the transition from the inside to outside flow of offense in the past to an outside-inside game. Look for the bad shot first, then get the ball inside. Which, if it worked, would be a good idea.
But it doesn't.
Vitale's two "heavyweights" also racked up 24 assists and 26 turnovers. The two best teams in the country can't get their A/TO ratio up past 1? The top assist total by a Memphis player was 5, tops for Tennessee was 3.
Assists are hard to come by when you don't run, and you can't run without rebounding. Rebounding requires good fundamentals, which these teams don't have. The leading rebounder was a 6-2 guard JaJuan Smith who had 10.
Great games are supposed to be a stage for great players. Tennessee's much hyped Chris Lofton had 7 points. Derrick Rose showed up big for Memphis, as expected, but if you pull his stat line away the toothless Tigers made only 8 other 2 pointers, were 6-22 from the 3 point area, and 5-11 at the charity stripe.
These are great teams? Are they even good teams?
Tennessee gave 24 minutes playing time to a guard (Ramar Smith) who went 2-9 with 2 assists. Two Tennessee starters played 57 minutes without a free throw attempt between them. Memphis invested 28 minutes in Joey Dorsey and got 1 point back.
Vitale watches alot more basketball than I do. He knows some infinitely greater times more about the game than I do. But if he thinks this was a heavyweight match it says alot about the quality of play he is seeing and how accustomed he's become to seeing garbage served on a silver tray and called fine dining.
This was modern college basketball at it's finest. Lots of driving to the basket for off balance shots. Poor shot selection. Unproductive dribbling that doesn't lead anywhere. Poor movement away from the ball. No free throw shooting.
Heavyweight match? Wake up ####. Tennessee-Memphis was a pillow fight.
Donovan signed a $5 million a year deal to coach the Orlando Magic and then, in a Mickey Mouse move (sorry, couldn't resist that one), got all emotional about Gainesville, Florida and his job coaching the NCAA champion Gators.
What in the name of John Wayne is going on here? Have we become so emasculated that even sports has turned into group therapy? Must a grown man get in touch with his "inner Gator" and play out such an embarrasing scene in public? What have we come to?
Worst still, Donovan is getting all kinds of credit for failing to live up to his word. This isn't the Santa Anita Derby and Billy Donovan isn't Seabiscuit. This is the quintessential modern man, expressing publicly his emotional turmoil and pledging his devotion to a stack of bricks and mortar known as the University of Florida.
Spare me.
Billy Donovan is an adult. He is of age to sign a contract, he knew what the $ signs meant, understood the length of the deal, and knew he would be leaving the Gators behind. He made a decision, a decision that placed him in a position of trust with the Orlando Magic. And, in the course of a weekend, he embarrassed himself and humiliated his new employers.
If Orlando holds Donovan to the contract, they are bad guys all across the state of Florida. If they let him go, they throw away the momentum and ticket sales they were picking up by bringing the two time NCAA championship coach, and Florida legend into their organization.
There was a time when a person's word meant something. When the definition of what "is" is, was not a variable. When you said what you meant and meant what you said. When you stood by your decisions, even when they hurt. Not any more.
Now we hear that Donovan is "conflicted". That his emotional attachment to the U of F is so strong that he was emotionally torn about leaving, which is ironic since he trolled the highways and byways of pro and college basketball during the off season, looking for the biggest paycheck he could sign to do just that.
Where was this emotional conflict during his courtship with Kentucky? Where was the inner turmoil during his negotiations with the Memphis Grizzlies? How did it remain hidden during the negotiation process with Orlando?
There are two ways to look at this. Maybe Donovan is so wrapped up in whatever he found at Gainesville that he can't tear himself away. If that is the case, it's unfortunate and more than a bit odd that he couldn't come to that conclusion in the months since the NCAA championship game.
More likely Donovan is simply a diva. He loved the attention of the two Championships and wanted to build on it. Wanted to be courted wanted to have the dinners with prospective employers where he was wined and dined, his every word treated with the wisdom of the ages. He liked seeing his name in the papers.
Maybe, just maybe, Donovan never intended to leave in the first place. He would go through the off season mating rituals and Florida (seeing his opportunities) would raise the stakes. Any good agent would have told him to do just that. But something happened Donovan may not have bargained for. Florida didn't come across with a sufficiently kingly ransom and didn't stop him before he signed the Orlando deal.
I'm betting before it's over that Donovan is coaching Florida for less than Orlando's $5 million, but alot more than Florida planned to pay him. In a way Florida called Donovan's bluff and Donovan called theirs.
The Orlando Magic are left holding the bag, much to Donovan's discredit. But something tells me in the long run they saved alot of money, and dodged a bullet, by not signing as their coach a man who couldn't live up to his word.
March Madness could just as easily be called March Mundanity. So many platitudes, so little substance. The coaches talk in coach speak, the players talk in cliches, and the announcers talk endlessly without saying anything.
It's probably for the best. If I got to hear the interviews and comments I want, coaches would be out of jobs, players would be on probation, and announcers would be begging for spare change on street corners. Still, it might be fun to hear...
(Announcer) "Really, the turnaround came when the alumni forced out Coach Spotless and brought in Elmer Greed from Sleeze U. He was willing to lower academic standards and hook his players up with wealthy alumni. And I'm sure he feels just as bad as anyone about what happened to those girls. Bottom line, Greed did what it took to bring a winner to Foggy State."
(Coach) "Harvey doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. Heck, I could go on all day about the words Harvey doesn't know the meaning of. He's got the heart of a warrior. The brain of a crack addict whose been drinking heavily, but the heart of a warrior."
(Player) "Don't believe the hype. Johnson didn't belong on the same court with me. When you look in their eyes and see fear you know they are beat. I took him downtown and left him in the dumpster. After that last pump fake his shoes and the rest of his equipment weren't even in the same area code."
(Announcer) "It's like Coach Jones always has said, it's about the kids. Can't win without em', can't take them out in a field and put them out of their misery."
(Coach) "The sixth man makes the difference for Carolina. You might hold their starters down on any given night, but the refs will always be their extra man on the court. You know it, I know it, the player's grandmothers know it. You draw the Tarheels in a bracket you might as well just pack up and go home."
(Player) "I got 25 points and 8 boards, in a couple of months I'm going pro. I've got a sneaker contract that will pay me more in a year than everyone of your relatives has made going back to when they came to America, and on beyond the next generation. And you think I'm upset because we didn't win a tournament? I'm high right now, but I'm not as far out as you have to be to ask me that."
(Announcer) "Billy, I'm sitting here listening to you and it occurs to me that you don't have any idea what you're talking about and probably haven't the whole time we worked together. Do you ever listen to what you're saying?"
(Coach) "Should I have sat Peterson with two fouls at the end of the first half? You're asking ME, about a coaching decision. Son, I own cuff links that are worth more than what you make in a year. Why don't you go warm up the Prius and wait in the car while the adults talk basketball."
(Player) "Sometimes in practice Coach would make us run the same play over and over until we were about to drop out. Then I'd just look at him and think, 'My son is going to have one mean suno####un for a grandfather.'"
(Announcer) "I'm sorry Jay, what did you say. Did you see that cheerleader?"
I'm the Sargeant Shultz of NCAA basketball. He was the amiable guard on the TV Series "Hogan's Heroes". His trademark expression, in times of stress (which was pretty much all the time) was "I know nothing..." Which is a good description of how I feel about the 64 team NCAA Championship Tournament getting underway tonight. Or last night. Or is it 65 teams? See, this is the problem.
There are two versions of heresy in sports. One is not watching the Super Bowl (I think about it every year, but always end up in front of the TV waiting to see which quarterback is going to Disneyland). The other is not getting excited about March Madness. Madness, by definition, is not a choice. It's a rampaging epidemic of excitement, sweeping all and sundry up in it's wake. Except me. I overslept and wasn't down by the curb when the bandwagon drove past.
I assume I'll be summoned before some sort of court. #### Vitale will be the judge. Billy Packer, fresh off his successful persecution, er prosecution, of the Mid-Majors will bring the case for the NCAA (or Nike, same difference). Bob Knight will be the bailiff. One false move and a chair will fly by my head faster than you can say "Boston College 84, Texas Tech 75".
Exhibit "A". My bracket sheet. Not filled out. The IRS got Capone because he didn't fill out his 1040. I'm going down for not completing an on-line bracket sheet, or for that matter even having one taped up somewhere at work. It's an open and shut case. This year the police aren't busting up the illegal wagering in office pools, they're going after the people who don't have money down on the games. Saves time.
If there is some sort of field sports sobriety test I'll fail it. For one thing, I don't drink or drive a large pickup truck. There's probably some watch list of guys with Middle Eastern names who work at chemical factories and sober sports fans who don't watch the Final Four. You hear rumours about guys who get taken away in the middle of the night and sent to Abu Cameron Indoor Stadium to be tortured by the inmates of that particular asylum.
Then there is the matter of my su####ious behavior. I attended a University of North Carolina game in December and didn't wear blue. Got to be some video tape of that getting reviewed. Not only that, I was there with a woman who is a NC State fan. It wasn't exactly Borat visiting the country club, but it wasn't far off either. I honestly thought the Dean Dome had something to do with Dean Smith and a toupee.
Like a German spy caught behind the lines in World War II who can't tell his captors who won the 1943 World Series, I can't identify many of the teams in the tournament. I thought Central Connecticut State was a made up school name they used on TV shows. I was born in Corpus Christi Texas and I had no idea there was a Corpus Christi-Texas A&M. Memphis, a basketball powerhouse? I just thought it was a good place to go for ribs.
In my defense, I have a su####ion that two major sports are fixed. Wrestling and college basketball. Wrestling because, well it's wrestling. And college basketball because I have a hard time believing that hundreds of millions of dollars are wagered on the tournament and not a dollar of it isn't ending up passing from gamblers to players. Why bother watching something that's obviously not on the level? Plus, it's taking away time from preparing for roto baseball and watching Kobe Bryant beat up on every white guard in the NBA.
Like most of the indefensible behavior I engaged in during high school I'm sure not watching March Madness is going to end up on my permanent record. I don't care. I'll pick up trash on the roadside or watch NHL hockey on the Versus Network or whatever they want me to do. Just don't make me watch Jim Nantz and Billy Packer. Even criminals have rights.
At 6'4" I grew up burdened with other people's assumption that I could play basketball. The sad truth was that I was too skinny to play inside and too slow to be a guard. The one skill I possessed was the ability to shoot. I had watched Pete Maravich in college and the NBA, and copied everything about his game (down to the baggy socks). His remarkable ball handling skills eluded me, but not the shooting. My range was basically anywhere from 15 feet out to the county line.
There was so much I enjoyed about shooting the ball. Watching the rotation as it left my hands, the splash-like snap of the nets, the instant approval you got from making a tough shot. At an age where I lacked confidence in just about every area of life, I knew if I got the last shot in a pickup game that I would hit it. It used to be called "shooter's cool" and in the ABA era of basketball no team left home without that one player who had it. Rick Mount out of Purdue and the Indiana Pacers had it, Bob #### with the Carolina Cougars, and George Lehman (also of Carolina) who made intense instructional videos showing him rapidly making shot after shot from every conceivable angle but always with the same perfect form.
The best part about being a shooter was not having to post up. For me, posting up and hitting a five foot shot was nearly impossible. The best way I can describe shooting in a crowded lane is to imagine trying to dance while three guys are beating you up. At an early age I realized what a leather basketball tasted like. Scoring inside requires the nerve of someone who walks into a bar and decks the biggest guy in the joint. Scoring outside requires a consistent touch and an aversion to being hit. I had both.
Because of my street ball experiences I have considerable contempt for the rule makers of college basketball. Back in 1980 they decided to make the easiest shot in the game worth 3 points. Like most bad ideas, the original reason for the rule no longer exists but nobody remembers or cares.
Basketball in the 70's had become like baseball in the 60's. Offense had dropped off the table. Coaches had become very good at constructing zone defenses to stop tall, athletic players from scoring inside. Simply put, the likes of Dean Smith and Bobby Knight had coached the life out of the game. Once a good team had the lead they would retreat to their bunker like zone defense and wait for the clock to run out. Something had to be done, and that something was the three point shot.
In theory, teams would have to abandon their zone defenses and come out to challenge the shooters, who now would get an extra point for what was a pretty makeable 21 foot shoot. This would create more scoring, and give teams a chance to get back in one-sided games by trading 3 pointers for 2 pointers. And it would keep teams from triple teaming the talented big men the fans wanted to see dominate the paint.
What it did was far different. It made one dimensional players like J J Redick into stars and, ironically, killed post play. Why work the ball inside when you get an extra point for staying on the perimeter? Rebounding is becoming a lost art, as the angles on rebounds lengthen with increased distance. And bad shot selection has been rewarded as more and more players drive through the now relatively traffic free lanes on their way to the hoop.
Perhaps the worst part of the 3 pointer is that, combined with the shot clock, it killed strategy. Where the little guy could control the tempo of the game and pull the occasional upset, raw athletic ability now wins games. Strategy is so small a factor that it is seldom even discussed.
Much of the rules changes I attribute to Dean Smith, the former UNC coach. In fairness I should say upfront that I also blame him for global warming, declining SAT scores, and various crimes attributed by law enforcement agencies to the Unabomber.
Smith had built a powerhouse program at Chapel Hill, and favored the shot clock and 3 pointer as means of putting distance between his more powerful teams and the lesser life forms that annoying nipped at the Tarheels. The 3 pointer also neutralized the influence of the big centers who could, in those days, single handedly bring a school like UVA (with Ralph Sampson) into the sweet sixteen.
All of this worked only too well. Post play is dead, there is so little inside play that nobody has fouled out of an NCAA tournament game since Jimmy Carter was President, and games are won and lost in the recruiting wars instead of on the court.
Good ideas come and go. We are never rid of the bad ones. The designated hitter will plague for the next 100 years. The shot clock will never go away. And the accursed 3 pointer appears set in stone. Protection for big time programs and extra points for a shot even a caveman could make. Somehow it doesn't seem right.
Greg Oden is, by all accounts, a good guy. Ohio State is a fine school. But what does Greg Oden have to do with OSU?
Nobody, least of all the Ohio State crowd at yesterday's win over Wisconsin chanting "one more year" care that Oden is not going to graduate. Odds are he's gone after this season, or his sophomore year at best.
Intercollegiate athletics are, in theory, for college students. Most college students, even the ones who drop out, go to school intending to stay around until they have a degree. Nobody expects Oden, or Kevin Durant at Texas to graduate. Both are in school because the NBA, in collusion with the NCAA and in restraint of trade, has a rule that says you must be 19 to turn pro.
Try telling your average college admissions officer you want a spot in the freshman class at an outstanding university but you intend to drop out in a year or two. You'll be told, and probably not politely, that the school doesn't waste it's time (or highly coveted admissions spots) or people who aren't serious about getting a degree. Unless you're a great athlete, in which case the rules don't apply. But shouldn't they?
Even the biggest college sports booster wants some thin line connecting players to academics. It isn't very pleasing to think that your school's players are less than academically qualified hired guns brought on campus to entertain alumni and students (in that order). So where do you draw the line?
A good place to start would be to make schools who recruit "pass through" players like Oden pay a price for their admission. Make a scholarship a three year commitment that lasts whether the player stays in school or drops out. And cut back basketball scholarships to 12, and football to 60 so schools have to start looking around campus for the guys at the end of the bench.
Another way to strengthen the ties between court and campus would be to peg admissions standards not at an arbitrary number pulled out of the air by the NCAA, but one based on some percentage of the SAT scores and GPA of the previous four year's freshman classes. It doesn't have to be an outrageous leap forward, but 70% of the SAT or GPA would be an improvement over current NCAA standards and alot more realistic measure of academic survivability.
If there were real reform in college athletics players wouldn't be kept off campus. They might, however, be kept off campuses they have little chance of surviving at academically. If there were a real redistribution of athletic wealth to schools with lower admission standards for the general student population would it really be such a bad thing?
The truth is that the big money powers who rule college sports-the NCAA, TV networks, shoe manufacturers, and alumni booster groups could care less if the players who wear their schools colors succeed in their classrooms. They are engaged in a cynical business that has alot to do with profit and ego and next to nothing to do with player's educations. They want Joe Tailback to attend the "right" school so the ratings, profits, future endorsements, and bragging rights fall to benefit them.
So, when someone says Ohio State has the #1 basketball team in the country, or that USC has the best football program, what does it mean? You tell me.
If you were looking for a single story that summarizes the state of big time college sports this is it. It's got internet bloggers with inside information, talented athletes, leaked SAT scores, a powerful coach with a famous name, and an historically strong football program.
Mickey Plyler is a blogger and sports radio host. For the past 13 years he's kept track of college recruiting and is one of the numerous gurus dotting the talk radio and internet landscape. And he is a Clemson alumnus with connections to coach Terry Bowden, the Clemson athletic department, and IPTAY the school's athletic scholarship foundation.
A week ago Plyler wrote in his widely read blog about two prized recruits Clemson had lost because the university's Academic Athletic Review Committee (AARC) would not allow the coaching staff to sign them to letter's of intent. The players were notified at the last minute of the decisions, with one signing almost immediately with the University of North Carolina.
Any school that admits athletes under standards lower than those applied to general applicants, which ironically is all of them, is required by the NCAA to have some process for justifying those admissions. Clemson, like many other schools uses a faculty review committee to look at applicants with low SAT scores and class ranks. In essence, the committee is a court of last resort to admit students who are at high risk of not being able to succeed academically.
Plyler's blog set off a firestorm of controversy in South Carolina, with allegations the AARC had turned down 15 applicants the coaching staff wanted to sign over the last year. He stated assistant coaches had to go through the "degrading" experience of writing letters of recommendations for some players and going before the review board to plead their case. Plyler also complained that one AARC member had said the brawl between Clemson and South Carolina football players two seasons ago was the single most embarrassing moment in Clemson history, and that the school had turned down creating some new majors more amenable to athletes.
All of this has occurred against the backdrop of Clemson President James Barker's goal of making the University one of the top 20 in the country (it's now ranked in the 70's). Some in South Carolina believe the AARC is a visible symbol that Clemson is devaluing athletics in favor of academics.
Plyler's blog got about 40,000 hits during the controversy, and there was talk of a demonstration at the President's house on campus after a Clemson basketball game. Before that could happen the University issued statements from the President Barker, Athletic Director Terry Don Phillips, and Coach Bowden.
Barker promised to review the AARC and come up with a process that "maintains academic integrity while not putting Clemson at a
competitive disadvantage". A.D. Phillips spoke of the need for a level playing field in recruiting, and Bowden said he looked forward to having input into the review. Both Phillips and Bowden downplayed the controversy, which is ironic in that no one has disputed that quotes from Plyler's blog come from inside the coaching staff and athletic department.
Depending on your point of view, these statements were either a humiliation for the President, or an an attempt to force the athletic department to toe the company line. In short, neither the academics at Clemson or the rabid Tiger fans came away happy. The most striking feature of the debate, in fact, is there is almost no debate.
Internet message board posters revealed what may be the SAT scores of one of the recruits (a 675), but in the context of arguing that Bowden should have been permitted to sign the player to a letter of intent in the hopes he would remain loyal to the Tigers and come to campus after a year or two of junior college. Disdain for academic standards in general and the AARC in particular is widespread among Clemson fans, who openly argue that college sports are sufficiently corrupt that the only way to compete for a national championship is to have access to the same pool of candidates other schools do. In short, clean programs are for suckers.
It would be easy to paint this question as a football fan revolt against academics, but it isn't that simple. Bowden's program is considered by most to do a better than average job at maintaining academic standards for players. And the internet message board posters have a point. If a player the AARC won't let Bowden sign ends up at UNC or Notre Dame, it says that the level playing field (along with the lofty reputations of the Tar Heels and Fighting Irish for academic virtue) is far from a reality.
It is not unlikely that Bowden's staff knowingly used Plyler and his blog to incite a rebellion against Barker and the AARC. Barker has effectively boxed Philips and Bowden with their statements, which were likely demanded from them. Had the rebellion gone a week or two longer, Barker could have been forced from his job. Now the Tiger #### is in an uneasy alliance and ongoing negotiations to determine who is the tail and who is the dog.
We may be approaching critical mass in college football and basketball. With more presidents under pressure from alumni and the internet a consensus may form that the NCAA is more the problem than the solution for colleges. Safety in numbers would require a quick, decisive blow to reform the governing body of college sports. The result could be significantly increased admission standards, lower coaching salaries, or numerous unemployed academics.
I count myself among the critics of college sports and the rampant hypocracy it inspires. But Plyler and the Tiger faithful have at least brough forth an honest discussion of college admissions practices. Is it any worse to sign a player with a 675 SAT to a letter of intent and wait for him to complete two years of Junior College than to sign another student with a 900 SAT and 2.4 GPA and send him into classes with students light years ahead of him academically? Is the whole process so hypocritical that having no standards at all is that much different than the status quo?
I can't answer those questions. But I can tell you at this. At Clemson, football is up 17-3 over academics at halftime. Might as well change channels now. This game is over.
Saw UNC and Rutgers Thursday night in Chapel Hill. Just as Scarlett O'Hara always relied on the kindness of strangers, I had the good fortune of going with a friend who had tickets. It was a rare treat, as I would normally have as much access to UNC basketball tickets as Paris Hilton would have to propriety and moral rectitude.
I should say up front that I am not a fan of Carolina basketball. I'm happy that the Soviet Empire fell during Reagan's reign, but given a choice between the collapse of a repressive system of government that enslaved the whole of Eastern Europe or UNC basketball settling into the lower reaches of the ACC standings I would have picked the collapse of the Tarheels. When I would look at Dean Smith on the sidelines I always saw an evil cross between Stalin and Danny Thomas.
So there I was walking down hill from the familiar grounds of Kenan Stadium (Don't ask me to explain, but I'm a UNC football fan and have spent many happy afternoons there cheering on Carolina) to the "Dean Dome". Over the years I've been to Chapel Hill countless times but still had never even seen at a distance the 21,750 seat tribute to the man known locally as "Saint Dean". Now I was not only was I going to finally see the building, but possibly on the knight, er, night that Smith would slip into second place on the all-time coaching wins list.
Surprisingly, the Smith Center blends in with the campus around it. The genius of the architects who designed it is an amazingly effective use of vertical space that minimizes the footprint of a very attractive building. Not only that, but there aren't any bad seats. Rather than angle them far back from the court they are stacked vertically. This makes for some tough climbs up to your seats (on the way up to our seats I thought I saw abandoned oxygen bottles and the frozen body of George Mallory just before we reached summit).
One of the first things you notice when you go in is the dress code. Everyone is wearing blue. Not just blue, but Carolina blue which is sort of a powder sky blue. It's not an actual code (thankfully because I came from work wearing a sweater the shade of blue associated with, ahem, Duke). The rows of blue, the immaculate cleanliness of the facility, and mild mannered atmosphere leave you feeling like a congregant at the mother church of basketball.
There was a game, too. Sort of. Rutgers manfully hung in for about 8 minutes and was down by only three points despite missing their two best players on one game academic suspension. Was there hope? Could this whole perfect blue world be rent asunder by a bunch of guys from New Jersey? In a word. No. Rutgers has some athletic ability, but the team and their coaching staff (who resemble nothing so much as a walking Hair Club for Men commercial) seemed overwhelmed and overawed by the Tarheels.
Here is the other thing I should say about my attitude toward Carolina basketball. While I have trouble pulling for Carolina for the same reasons people distance themselves from the New York Yankees (they win too much, are too powerful, and their fans a bit too smug about it all) I respect what Smith built and what Roy Williams has carefully maintained. Although, as the Confuscians say, every man is the center of the universe UNC is the center of the basketball world. And it is a universe revolving around defense and smart ball management.
When Rutgers got to within 3 the beast awoke and consumed the Jerseyites. What followed was the most impressive display of smothering, game plan changing, defense I have seen in years. Rutgers literally was having to start their offense ten feet back of where it should and could not, by any means available, get the ball inside. Deflection followed steals which followed bad passes which lead to layups which turned to a 14 point halftime lead.
Having tasted blood, UNC outscored the Scarlett Knights 54-29 in the second half on the way to a 87-48 win. And that other knight, Bobby, failed to pass Smith. It was a long walk back up hill to Kenan Stadium's parking lot when it was over, but well worth the trip, because I probably saw this year's NCAA championship team and, even more likely, the best coached team in the country.
The boxscore will say that Hansbrough got 13 and 7, and the game reports will mention four brilliant freshmen, but the story is the system. It's a system built around the basketball values of that Smith fellow. The one they named the Dome after.
You can always get tickets to any sporting event. The question is how much you are willing to pay for them. For example, this week in college football:
Michigan at Ohio State StubHub (the best of the ticket exchange services) can put you right at midfield. Go ahead, take a friend. Seats in section 20A (closer to the 40 on the Michigan side) can be had for only $1829 a ticket.
At the "Whatever" Bowl, Michigan State travels to Beaver Stadium Saturday to play Penn State. $143 for a 35 yard line seat, but we can get you upper level corner for $40. (Must bring own oxygen supply and hiking gear).
Talk about success going to your heads, there is only 1 ticket listed for the Wake Forest home game against the Virginia Tech Hokies. Two reasons. First, the butlers of the Wake Forest grads don't do Stub Hub. Second, the Virginia Tech fans buy up every available ticket months in advance to their road games. It is hard to find a more loyal bunch of fans than the folks from Blacksburg. Image a cross between the people who follow the Grateful Dead and those who subscribe to "Better Silos and Tractors Monthly". I once saw two of them, thoroughly drunk, spray painting their shoes orange on a sidewalk. The only problem was they kept missing their shoes and spray painting the streets of Chapel Hill orange.
Carolina is playing their big rival NC State at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill Saturday. The best price is $184. They would pay you more, but that's the best they can do.
The USC-Notre Dame game is a week from Saturday. Stub Hub has tickets. One fan is willing to give up his seats deep in the corner of the visitors end zone for just $3,000. I have a hard time believing he'll get anywhere close to that, with better deals on the USC side near the 40. The really fun thing about these sites is the range of prices customers set for the same section. For example, section 24 (out near the 20 yard line) might cost you $200 from one seller while another wants $2000. (Safety tip-If you do get cheap seats, don't discuss the price with the person sitting next to you. It might put them in a profoundly bad mood).
I was surprised to see that Army-Navy is still such a draw. Standing room seats start around $90. People with actual seats are asking $400 and up. If you do go, be sure to be courteous to your neighbors. The guy shouting "Down in front!" from behind you may have the resources to track your vehicle from the parking lot with a drone and then blow up your Volvo on I-95 with a strike from Hellfire missles. Just saying.
As little as $200 will get you a seat for next week's Rutgers at West Virginia game. Be aware, though, that this event is strictly BYOJ (bring your own jug).
Consider your options carefully. We know your entertainment dollar can only stretch so far. After all there are those tickets to see Streisand in Vegas. $8236 puts you and a friend right on the floor of the MGM Grand Garden Arena, so close you'll be able to hear Babs hiss when a Republican enters the room. Life is full of choices.
Remember all the good times you had in college. The keggers, the parties that went on until daybreak, the friends you made? The time you committed felony robbery. Oh wait, you didn't actually get indicted for any crimes when you were in college? Afraid they would have kicked you out? Well then, you must not have been an athlete.
Tyrone Nelson is the best player at New Mexico State and an NBA prospect. Back in August someone decided to interupt the food chain by attacking the most respected source of nutrition for college students. The Domino's delivery guy. Who identified Tyrone Nelson as the person who robbed him.
Here it gets hard to follow. Nelson was suspended from the team for disciplinary reasons which Coach Reggie Theus said had nothing to do with the pizza boy robbery, even though he announced them the next day. A university committee, in place specifically to deal with misconduct by athletes (not that they expect problems you understand, just in case something were to happen), cleared Nelson of any involvement in the incident.).
So Theus promptly reinstated Nelson to the team (although none of this had anything to do with the charges against him) and said that Nelson had a list of things he had to do to come back to practice and he met them all. "Tyrone actually doubled up on what he needed to do so he could return sooner and that was great to see." Gosh, it's like that movie "Rudy". I'm tearing up even as I think about it.
Now the local constabulary, for reasons unknown, don't recognize the findings of special athletic misconduct committees. So they passed on their report to the D.A. who got two felony indictments against Nelson, one for the robbery and one for conspiracy. So, you're thinking that maybe a felony indictment puts you off the team? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
A spokesman for the school said the indictment has no effect on Nelson's status with the team. Last year he lead the team in scoring and rebounds, and this year in felony indictments.
Nelson may well be innocent of all charges. There may have been some other 6'9" student out robbing pizza delivery guys on campus. But shouldn't the school give Nelson time off from his extra-ciricular activities so he can deal with the charges? If you were facing felony charges, wouldn't you be just a little too distracted to focus on school work and basketball? Isn't the school interested in Thomas, the student? Well, you figure that one out.
I've got better than even money that Nelson, an unemployed college student, has a pretty darn good attorney and that he himself didn't find that attorney in the yellow pages. Which raises the question, isn't this kind of legal aid a benefit that would not be provided to other students? Which would be a violation of NCAA rules? Maybe there is some legal aid exemption in the NCAA rulebooks. Surely there needs to be one, what with athletic programs providing such a large proportion of arrests for serious crimes on most campuses.
It's just another day in college sports. A little song, a little dance, a felony arrest. All we need now is Theus to tell us he's concerned for the 'kid' and the story is complete.
When Boston College, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and Miami were added to the ACC there were people here in North Carolina who thought it would destroy the ACC. Football powerhouses in a basketball conference. The "Big Four" (Wake Forest, NC State, UNC, and Duke) would never go to another bowl. Life as we knew it would end, and our upright citizen student-athletes would be mugged in broad daylight by guys with low GPA's and criminal records that would make DIllinger blush with envy.
BC, Tech, FSU, and Miami were thinking they would roll over the Tobacco Road crowd and remain great football powers. No SEC problem of never winning the national title because of tough competition in conference. Start each season with 5 ACC wins a given, fill in with some non-conference walkovers, and all you had to do was win 2 of 3 competitive games. Life would be good, plus the basketball programs all got free upgrades. Win, win, and WIN!
The powers that be here in Greensboro (where the ACC is headquartered) figured with the realignment in bowls and advent of conference playoff games in football the time was right to create a 1-2 basketball/football punch no other conference could match. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!!
Here's where it went off the tracks:
We have some really, really bad football here in North Carolina. Wake Forest, a school with a student body about the size of Mayberry's population (with a similar pool of athletes), is the top Big Four football squad this year. UNC has already fired coach John Bunting, a spectacle much preferrable to having villagers with pitchforks parading his head on a stick through the streets of Chapel Hill (which was going to happen at some point). If Chuck Amato was Napoleon he would have recruited the finest of France and then got lost on the way to the battlefield. And Duke? Well, they've added a class on the ethics of sports euthanasia to the ciriculum. It's on the schedule right after, "Hating Western Civilization and the Bougasis Parents Who Subsidize Us."
What has happened to the newcomers is a classic case of falling in with a bad crowd. The North Carolina schools are so bad it's messing up the timing of the real football teams. Miami can't get arrested (well, not on the field). Virginia Tech had to let a player (Marcus Vick) go because he was incorrigible, which is about like the Gestapo handing walking papers to someone for having a bad disposition. When they talk about a fifth year eligible at Florida State, they are referring to parole status. And Boston College stumbles on still preparing for Syracuse out of habit and trying to figure out what bar-b-que and hush puppies is all about.
Virginia Tech, Miami, and FSU are historically renegade football programs that brought in players nobody else would touch. That competitive edge is going away because the schools have tried to clean up their programs at the same time the rest of college sports has lowered their standards. But I have faith that each school will respond to their recent adversity by digging a little deeper and lowering their standards even further. Order will be restored, and yes that means there is no hope that any Big Four school will ever again win 9 games in a season.
The real kicker is going to come when the wealthy alums at Duke and Carolina figure out that in roundball Boston College is not Georgia Tech or UVA, but a real power that isn't at all impressed with the banners in the rafters. Al Skinner is, in my heretical opinion, already likely the best basketball coach in the ACC and a threat to 15-501 axis of power.
The law of unintended consequences has reared it's ugly head and there is much disorder in the ACC. But, as Chairman Mao (a big sports fan and a snappy dresser) once observed, "There is great disorder under heaven, and the situation is excellent."
That old saying about "beware of Greeks" rings true today. The USA lost in the world basketball semi-finals 101-95 to a Greek team with no NBA players on it's roster. That the US team lost is less remarkable than staying within 6 points of a team that shot 63% from the field. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for Greece and they played a tremendous game.
Before the critics dissect the loss like a grainy scene from "Alien Autopsy", one question. Did you want the US team to lose? At least, did you care if they won? In any other country I'd guess that 90% of sports fans would support thier team and be disappointed today. In the US? I'm guessing 60% and probably overestimate the level of support.
Let me get this out of the way up front. I don't mind the US team losing to Greece. It's an American characteristic that we pull for the underdog and we have never been that in basketball. We're working on getting there, but it's still a David-Goliath situation with NBA all-star teams playing less physically talented teams. You look at the US lineup and wonder how they ever lose. Yet, they do and beyond the outraged callers to sports talk radio we really don't much care.
How could this happen? The governing bodies of US basketball did a smart thing in bringing in Duke Coach Mike Krzyewski and filling his roster with players more suited to the international game. But, it wasn't enough. Worse still, the script for the US loss was the same as it has been in international competition.
Miss free throws, play bad defense, lose game. The US team only hit 20 of 34 free throws. Greece was only 3 better at the line, but those were 3 big points in a close game. Then there was the 3 point shooting (9-28). Defense? There are 101 reasons to think it was a weakness, especially since Greece destroyed the American team with only a few basic plays. Execution favored Greece. As one of their players said afterwards, the US had the best players and Greece had a better team.
It doesn't bother us to see Team USA lose because it isn't our team, or even a team. It represents, to many fans, the worst of what basketball in this country has come to be. Bad defense, bad fundamentals, bad ball movement, and bad attitudes. Team USA belongs to David Stern and the shoe companies. What they have given us is a game, and a publicity machine, built around LeBron and Carmelo. Yet the Greeks showed us today that basketball is still a team sport.
The US should expect to lose in international competition. We send great players and poor teams there. Our guys aren't used to playing together and the NBA game doesn't translate to international competition. Smart, fundamentally sound, teams can overcome superior physical talent and win. It's a game and not a skills competition. And it's a game we will keep losing for the foreseeable future.
Could Coach K win with a team of college players and recent graduates? And would we care about whether they won? I suspect the answer is yes on both counts. Krzyzewski made a big difference in this year's team, and would make an even bigger impact with a team of amature players. We've got half the equation right, now let's go the rest of the way. Get rid of the NBA players.
Would America get behind a team with no NBA players. I think we would. For one thing, it wouldn't be a foregone conclusion that they would win. And that's not a bad thing. How do you get fired up about a team that is supposed to be able to automatically roll over it's opponents? The risk, and not knowing if your team will win. makes the accomplishment of winning worth something and the process of getting emotionally involved much more likely.
Today only the coach and a few US players congratulated the Greek team. The US players can lose the attitude now, because they haven't earned it on the court. It doesn't cost anything to be gracious in victory and humble in defeat. If the NBA players can't, or won't understand that, then maybe they should get out of the way while the US puts a real team together. A team we can care about, win or lose.
You can’t make this stuff up. Kelvin
Sampson is the incoming basketball coach at Indiana
University. IU has some “history” when it comes to
coaches. The former head man there was
a fellow named Knight who almost became more powerful that the president of the
University. Things had gotten totally
out of proportion.
President Adam W. Herbert has laid the law down to Sampson. No more will
the tail wag the dog. Indiana
University is a prestigious
institution of learning whose extra curricular activities must be headed by
mature educators capable of shaping young minds.
This point is critical. Without
guidance from right thinking sorts a young athlete could make bad
decisions. They might decide upon a
career selling produce from roadside trucks, travel to Lebanon
on vacation, or accept an athletic scholarship from the University
of Kentucky. What can be done to help these impressionable
youth make the right choices? This is
where Sampson comes in.
IU, being a partially owned subsidiary of its athletic boosters, is
permitted to engage in some academic pursuits insofar as they do not interfere
with annual trips to the NCAA basketball round of 64. Therefore, suitable sums ($350,000 annually)
are set aside to compensate the university president and other, appropriate
amounts ($1.1 million a year) are allocated for the more important post of
basketball coach.
Why is Sampson worth more than the president you ask? He earns it.
While at Oklahoma, Sampson
and a hard working staff of assistants managed to make 577 “extra” phone calls
to 17 recruits considering attending the school. It is this level of intensity of purpose that
Sampson will bring to his duties, and which no mere academic would be capable
of.
To begin with, would university presidents make more than 30 calls to each
prospective incoming freshman student?
Aside from the obvious fear of being arrested for stalking, most
presidents don’t have the total abject lack of self respect that prostituting
your dignity to high school students requires.
The cost of a man’s dignity and ethical core cannot be calculated in
mere human terms. In fact, the cost is
financial and normally starts at $800,000 for tournament eligible teams and
rises to over $2.5 million annually for an “icon”.
This is not to say that Sampson has not made mistakes. Unlike more experienced coaches, he was
caught at violating NCAA rules and actually admitted the violations. This ineptitude resulted in his being
reprimanded by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. To place this in context, a reprimand for an
ethical lapse by a group of college basketball coaches is the equivalent of
being a Hun and having Attila and the boys call you over to one side for a
chat. "Lothar, you know we enjoy pillaging as much as the next guy,
but you really crossed a line back there.”
But Sampson will learn.
Should he avoid getting Indiana
placed on NCAA probation and/or setting fire to the campus during the next year
his salary will increase in 2007 to $1.6 million. Lest you feel too bad for President Herbert,
who is paid about $1.2 million less to oversee a complex $2 billion enterprise,
keep in mind that he does get a new car every year for free and his wife has
been given a job with the school at a five figure salary.
Thankfully, Indiana
will never return to the dark days when Bobby Knight exerted such
disproportionate influence on campus life.
On learning of the coaches association decision to censure Sampson,
Herbert immediately issued a statement praising his integrity. It was not immediately known if the statement
was written on the tattered shreds of his own.
There are some organizations I find more loathesome than the NCAA. Organized crime, the men who are killing of####eneration in the Sudan, and some of the remnants of fascism in Europe come to mind. Then come the guys in suits and ties who talk incessantly about "the kids".
They are upholders of virtue who call themselves the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Or "coach". They are actively engaged in selling out the academic reputations of schools with traditions of classroom excellence dating back centuries. And when you think they have sunk as low as they can go they crawl lower.
The New York Times has an article this week on Auburn University. If you are a supporter of one of the schools ground beneath their athletic cleats you probably remember them. Their football team was undefeated and number two in the nation in 2004.
Well, golly, it turns out some of the team members might have gotten preferential treatment. It seems the head of the sociology department got the idea that there were too many students at Auburn, not enough courses, and a wonderful new tool called the internet available to bridge the gap. So he began giving "directed courses" where students read a book and took a test and got just as much credit as if they had slogged their way through the class in person, read multiple texts, and took numerous exams.
This one professor was teaching as many as 150 students at a time and doing the work load of three and a half instructors. Eighteen of Auburn's players took 97 hours worth of these courses and received 81% A's, the rest B's. One player, in danger of missing a bowl game, picked up the course 10 weeks into a 15 week quarter and got credit. A star running back got to take two demanding statistics based courses as directed study, even though other students are not allowed that option.
Finally another professor blew the whistle on the practice. The professor teaching the directed courses cut back on how many he taught. A notice was posted that directed study courses would now require reading as many as five books and taking numerous tests. Interest in directed study courses dwindled. The NCAA has not commented on the Auburn scandal, and no rules appear to have been broken.
So Auburn is an outlaw school run by bad people? Not at all. Auburn is just the typical NCAA football power carrying out it's mission to win football games with the best available talent. If you are looking for "clean" programs that don't cluster football players in a few academic majors, be prepared to spend some time trying. I picked ten at random and found just one, (Penn State) that did not appear to be "clustering" athletes.
Try this test. Pick your favorite school. Go to their official athletic website. Go to rosters, then click on the players name and follow through to the 'personal' information. If you look at all the seniors it will take just a short time to find out what the "football major" is at your school. (I'm guessing it will be sociology).
Some of my favorites:
Virginia Tech-Apparel, housing, and resource management had six senior majors. Then there were the seven obligatory sociology majors, and a cluster in human nutrition, foods, and excercise. So basically, you go to Virginia Tech and learn that people eat, sleep, excercise, spend money, wear clothes, and live in houses. Who would have thunk it?
Florida State-Bobby Bowden wants his guys equipped to take on the challenging society they will face when they leave the Seminole family. That's why they almost invariably major in social studies. We can't have too many people studying society, after all.
University of Tennessee-Arts and sciences and sports studies seem to be popular there. They must hate the 'Times' in Knoxville. Earlier this year the Times reported that UT was taking students from a high school diploma mill. They were then graduating them from, well, a diploma mill.
University of Southern California-Political science and sociology get the football players. Now, political science can be a demanding major, but what are the odds so many players would gravitate to that particular area. And what is it with football players and sociology? Pick a school, any school, and if you want to find the football team between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. look in the sociology department.
Texas-I loved this one. Every senior player's biography points out how active they are in the school's community service program. And they probably are. You also soon figure out they are active in the liberal arts, because 8 out of the 12 senior players with bios on the team website majored in that field.
Northwestern-I picked Northwestern because I thought it was a different type of place. I didn't think I'd see clustering here. Wrong. Seven of the 10 draft eligible seniors profiled on the team's website were communcations majors. Two were sociology majors, naturally.
Virginia-The Cavaliers dig anthropology. Because you know that if you're a star athlete who is worried about a job after his playing days are over the field you want to be in is anthropology.
Michigan-Generally speaking, it looks like 'general studies' is the football major. But here's the thing. I have to give UM alot of credit for the majors it does let it's players take. For example, you find players who major in film & video, brain behavior and cognitive science, history, philosophy, biopsychology, and economics. If you want to have some fun, go to the UM website and read the bios of the 30 or 40 punters and kickers (I'm not exaggerating by much). They can hold their own in any classroom in the country.
I have a solution. Let's just stop pretending college athletes are all college students. Give them a scholarship to play what amounts to minor league football or basketball (which is what college sports is evolving into) and make a rule that the players can take as many or as few courses as they want for six years at the athletic department's expense.
Not every player enrolled in a 'football major' is a poor student. The real shame is they probably have interests and abilities which aren't met by arbitrarily shoving them into a narrow range of academic options. That this is happening shows how little coaches, administrators, and alumni really care about the players.
Why befoul something as pure as college sports with all this academic stuff? It would also eliminate the scandals. You wouldn't have to worry about what some quarterback was going to make an the SAT's or what their GPA was. Just tell them to come on down and be ready when they tee it up. You have to keep your eye on the stuff that matters. That's football, son.
