It is time, long past time in fact, to end this fiction of student-athletes and scholar-players and state-supported institutions involved in big time, Division I sports.
And I say this as one who lives and dies with my beloved Spartans of Michigan State every year, and who covered my share of basketball tournament games. (In a bar one winter night, I could only see a small part of a TV screen across the room, but I was able to discern who was playing basketball by recognizing the coaches. Rollie always stood out.)
Let us disband the NCAA and let the teams act in whatever manner they deem appropriate. End the charade of classes for boys and girls who have no interest in broadening their minds. Even if they do, how do you fit classes into those schedules?
Don't drop the requirement to attend class, bar anyone involved in a team from campus entirely. Erect gates, post armed guards, and allow them on the premises only in the last few minutes before the contest begins.
Impossible, you say? Sacrilege, you fume? Economic suicide, you opine?
Pshaw, I counter. In the first place, sports is a terrible way to make money and in fact only a very small percentage of schools turn a "profit." http://www.dallasnews.com...
But the tradition! The camaraderie! The parties! The beer! The vomit! The DUIs!
Hey, license the school name to the team, let them take on the debt for the stadium and the facilities and the coaches' $1 million or more salaries and be done with it.
If the kids are successful and reasonably talented, they will be able to put away enough money to PAY for college after their playing days are done.
I am not saying you can't have a "school" team, just end the corrupting fiction that when he is not bashing defensive players, that 320-pound, 6'2" offensive lineman is staring into a microscope or dissecting a sonnet.
And for kids who really fit that mold, that want that experience, there will always be the Division II and Division III schools to accommodate them.
I daresay that there are few sports fans as nutty as soccer fans in England, but to get a flavor of how they treat sports at university, check out the Oxford football club website, http://www.ouafc.com/ . Here is my favorite line, "If you're not sure whether you're good enough to play for the University, why not come along to trials anyway? You might surprise yourself."
Doesn't really sound like Woody Hayes, now does it?
Unfortunately, big time college sports is a sewer and there is little reason and almost no profit in cash-strapped, tax-supported schools climbing into the muck on the off chance they can raise their national profile.
But, just in case my prescription falls on deaf ears, I'd just like to point out its been more than 1,000 days since the University of Michigan beat Michigan State in either football or basketball. (Who says OSU is "The Game?")
Go Green!
