BOULDER, Colorado. The buffalo is considered one of the dumbest animals on the face of the earth, and the Colorado Buffaloes, a member of the Big 12 Conference, aren't far behind. The football and basketball programs here face a bleak future under new NCAA rules that can cut up to 10% of a school's athletic scholarships for poor overall academic performance.
So Colorado head football coach Dan Hawkins, a pigskin intellectual who quotes philosophers to his players at half time, came up with a novel suggestion to avoid penalties that would deplete his depth chart. Beginning in the fall of 2006, Colorado has offered to accept weighted scoring that will allow opposing teams to get bonus points, and penalize the Buffaloes, based on the grade point average of players who score.
"There's no way we were going to compete against Stanford and Northwestern in terms of academic rigor," Hawkins said, "So we figure we'd spot them a few points if some Rhodes Scholar wannabe scores on an end-around."
Under Hawkins' proposal, currently under consideration by the NCAA Rules Committee, the base score for a rushing or passing touchdown before the extra point would be six points for a C student. A touchdown by a halfback with a B average would be worth seven points, and eight points if the player has an A average.
Conversely, teams like Colorado would be penalized for lower GPAs of its players. A touchdown by a D student would be worth only five points and, in the equivalent of a "death penalty', four points when scored by an F student. "When you get down to that level," said Hawkins, "you might as well kick a field goal."
NCAA President Myles Brand applauded Hawkins for innovative thinking, but reserved judgment. "How do we know this isn't a Jim Harrick situation, where the kids are taking courses in 'Introduction to Special Teams' and 'Pass Rushing 101'?"
Hawkins' proposal was prompted by the NCAA's release of the names of 23 football teams and 17 basketball teams at Division 1 schools that will be sanctioned under the new rules. A list of exemplary schools that regularly exceed the NCAA's requirements was also made public; that list includes Brown, Harvard, Yale and William & Mary.
While recognizing such schools' academic achievements, Hawkins was scornful of the quality of their programs. "What the hell is that supposed to be," he asked sarcastically, "the Metrosexual Conference?"
I like it. In all seriousness, they ought to drop all admissions requirements and just have a team requirement (combination SAT and GPA). You'd end up with a bunch of physics majors sitting by themselves down at the end of the bench praying not to get in the game.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
