For the Love of the Game

For the Love of the Game

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

January 16, 2014

As a former teaching assistant at a major university during my graduate school days and a longtime fan of college sports I am not so naïve as to suggest college athletics is anything but a business for the schools that field teams – as long as those teams put fans in the stands.

Prior to jumping from the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) to the Big Ten, my alma mater, the University of Maryland (2002 National Champions in men’s basketball by way of defeating the Indiana Hoosiers) trimmed their athletic department by seven sports as a cost-cutting effort. I, for one, was disappointed to see the women’s water polo team bounced, but understood why. It’s all about the money – for the schools, but not for all the players.

Steve Siebold was wrong on several levels in his Thursday Indianapolis Star editorial “It’s time to pay college athletes.” His suggestion that because the players in the football championship did not receive monetary remuneration they did not emerge winners is faulty logic. The players won game after game on a national stage thus growing their own vales in preparation for the next level – the NFL.

Granted, not all players will play in the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL; in fact fewer than two percent who play college athletics will collect a major league salary. But college athletes know that going in and still play. They still endure the two-a-day practices in sweltering heat, the long bus rides, playing in rain and snow. They play for the love of the game.

College athletes already get paid – scholarships covering tuition, room and board, and an opportunity to make something of their lives the lack of a college campus would not provide. Studies show athletes benefit from the sense of teamwork, discipline, and coaching in work places later in life from which non-athletes do not.

Siebold is wrong to suggest a free education is not enough of an incentive for student athletes. This is an opportunity many athletes would not be afforded were it not for their skill of the field of play. Consider how many non-athletes would salivate at the opportunity to have a tuition/room and board scholarship.

As for those not drafted by a professional team, many athletes take their skills and talents on the road, playing basketball in Israel, football in Canada, soccer in any number of European leagues. And aside from the big four major leagues, the WNBA, men’s and women’s soccer, golf and tennis, there’s not a high demand for many of the roughly three dozen sports found on college campuses.

It is because 98 percent of the college athletes will not be suiting up for a professional team in the United States that earning their degrees is so vital. Earn a living off the field of play. Many will stay on the field as coaches, some move into management – with a degree, some move into the broadcast booth – with or without a degree.

If players were to be paid, who would determine the salaries? The individual schools? If so, there would be bidding wars from schools to sign on the best high school players – not unlike the recruitment process of today, but infinitely more intensified, as the Ohio States and the Alabamas of the world would be able to outbid the Ohio Northerns and the Samfords of the world.

Should there be a salary cap like in some of the major sports, thus a slap in the face of capitalism. After all, if these players are to be paid, why should there be a limit to how much is too much? What would be the impact of Title IX with regards to potential gender bias? Would there be any involvement from the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) or the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)?

Would pay be the same for basketball players as both men and women play 40-minute games? Would it be more for men than women in tennis as men play five sets and women three? Would all athletes be paid – even in the sports that are revenue loss leaders? If a player transfers to another school who pays the remainder of the contract?

Clearly each player would have to be under contract. Would the contract include a period time that students would be allowed to be on campus as a student to earn a degree. Would turning pro be a breach of contract? And if so, what would be the penalty? The student should be made to remunerate the university the value of the contract – even if he or she is not signed to a professional contract.

More bad than good comes from paying student athletes. Paying athletes would eliminate all thought of being a student and put them on a singular, linear path of earning that paycheck, thus further separating them from the rest of the student body giving them a greater sense of entitlement and allowance to take more liberties.

I support a return to the days when freshman didn’t play. Extend eligibility a year, but hold the student athletes to academic standards. The NCAA is already the de facto minor leagues for the NFL and NBA. There should be minor league systems for those sports and those athletes who legitimately do not qualify to be on a college campus should go that route. Former Indiana coach Bobby Knight once said “college isn’t for everyone.” He was right then and it still applies today.

Those who are fortunate enough to play college sports and get an education should also be covered by the university with an insurance policy, with the player as the beneficiary. An athlete injured beyond the point of an athletic career should be able to continue their education and not worry about their future if injured on the university’s clock. As for merchandise, take all players’ names off the jerseys and the fans can buy them for the name on the front. Players come and go; one’s alma mater is forever. Go Terps!

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. The University of Maryland alumnus is a member of the Alumni Association, the Terrapin Club supporting athletic scholarships for student athletes, and the Rebounders, supporting the women’s basketball team.

Joy in Happy Valley - for the Terps

Joy in Happy Valley – for the Terps

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

November 3, 2014

To paraphrase former President Gerald Ford after taking office on August 9, 1974, our long gridiron nightmare is over. (Seems appropriate as Ford played center at the University of Michigan.)

For the first time in my lifetime our University of Maryland Terrapins defeated Penn State University in football – vanquishing the Nittany Lions 20-19 on the strength of Brad Craddock’s 43-yard field goal with but 51 seconds remaining in the game Saturday – and they did it on the road in Happy Valley.

Fifty-three years. Not since 1961, when the Terps earned their heretofore only other victory versus Penn State, could they muster another win.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the first, and to date, only, Roman Catholic president – 48 years removed from the inauguration of the nation’s first black president – Barack Obama, born that very year – 1961. This was three years prior to the Civil Rights Act being signed and four years before the Voting Rights Act would be signed.

Vietnam was, for the most part, and unheard of far off Asian locale, not a hot spot for a Cold War era conflagration. The Peace Corps was established in 1961 and the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution was ratified that year, allowing the District of Columbia the right to choose electors for president and vice president. The Bay of Pigs invasion was an abject failure in 1961, and the Berlin Wall was erected that year. On April 12 the Soviets put the first man in space.

In 1961 Roger Maris of the New York Yankees set the standard for his 61 home runs that season, breaking the record of 60 held by Babe Ruth since 1927, on the way to winning the World Series in five games against the Cincinnati Reds. Cost of a ticket to the series was between $10 and $11.

Zip codes did not yet exist in 1961 and cost of a postage stamp was a mere four cents. Eggs cost 30 cents a dozen and a gallon of gasoline cost 27 cents. The average automobile cost $2,850, but that was a hefty price considering the average income that year was $5,315.

Our University of Maryland, still one year from integrating the football team, was a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which included Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest.

Other football information from 1961 included two leagues – the NFL and the AFL, and a sport six years removed from the first Super Bowl, sans Roman Numerals – which expected such poor ratings it was televised on two networks! The NFL was composed of 14 teams and did not yet include the Boston Patriots (now New England), Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans (now Kansas City Chiefs), Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans), Los Angeles Chargers (now San Diego), New York Titans (now NY Jets), and the Oakland Raiders – all born in 1960.

While this was a very good victory for the University of Maryland, and made the team bowl eligible in the first season in the Big Ten, the team marred the effort with its pre-game unsportsmanlike antics. Nobody dislikes Penn State as much as my generation of Terps. During my four years in College Park, Maryland lost those four games by a combined 10 points.

This victory was, to say the least, satisfying; accomplishing something Randy White, Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich, EJ and Erin Henderson, Lamont Jordan, Bruce Perry, Vernon Davis, Darrius Heyward-Bey, and hundreds of others did not. But to shun the pre-game handshake is inexcusable. These are fellow collegiate athletes – not Nazis or ISIS. The penalty received was a penalty deserved.

Actions speak louder than words. Shake hands, then go out and defeat them on the field. Be the bigger players. More importantly, be the bigger men. Learn the lesson, move on, and best wishes for the remainder of the season.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He is a Class of 1988 graduate of the University of Maryland, a member of the Alumni Association, the Terrapin Club, and the Rebounders.

Big Ten Becomes Big Tent

Big Ten Becomes Big Tent

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 19, 2012

In the multi-ring circus of college conference dominos, the Big Ten has become the Big Tent with its additions of the University of Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers University from the Big East.

Let’s see if we got this right – to see a Maryland road game, Terp fans have to schlep from the DC-area to Indiana to play either IU or Purdue; but in order to see a Butler road game, Bulldog fans have to schlep from Indiana to the DC-area to take on George Washington in an Atlantic 10 matchup. And this makes sense to whom?

Full disclosure, I am a Maryland alum living in the heart of Big Ten country for the last year and a half and now my Terrapins have followed me west by accepting the invitation to join the Big Ten, that with Rutgers, will now boast 14 in its paddock.

I should be thrilled that I will see my Terps on the Big Ten Network regularly or even in person in Bloomington, West Lafayette, Champaign, or Columbus – all drivable locales. Instead, I am disgusted – not disillusioned by what this move is all about – disgusted and replete with melancholy.

The nights in the overheated Cole Fieldhouse watching the late, great Len Bias school Duke and North Carolina defenses are irreplaceable and will not be found in a Maryland-Minnesota “rivalry.”

It’s about a little something called tradition, and it’s not just a song from “Fiddler.” The University of Maryland is a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, born 1953. The Terps played their first ACC game on October 9 that year and less than two months later their first basketball game in this storied conference.

There is no sense of tradition when it is tossed unceremoniously into the trash bin of history. There is the loss of the natural geographic rivals, and such a move will set off a cataclysmic and seismic quake around college sports. The Big East which should be called the Big Least by now will be poached and pecked away at until only a carcass remains.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse already agreed to join the ACC starting in 2013 and Rutgers is heading west with Maryland. No doubt more Big East teams will gravitate toward the ACC, but the ACC may also lose more of its teams to the SEC and the Big 12, which of course, no longer has 12 schools. Miami and Florida State seem a natural for the SEC as do Georgia Tech and Clemson, firming up their collective rivalries with Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Temple could be ACC bound along with Connecticut, Delaware, South Florida, and East Carolina. The Big East and Conference USA could find some way to merge as the dominos continue to fall. The Mountain West could split up where half end up in the PAC-12 and the others in the Big-12. Where and when they stop is anyone’s guess. But, leave the place names, directionals, and numbers out of the equations and name these behemoth mega-conferences the way it used to be done in the old NHL – Adams, Campbell, Norris, Patrick, Smythe, and Wales. What’s a little more confusion amongst friends?

“Membership in the Big Ten is in the strategic interest of the University of Maryland,” said President Wallace Loh.

This is a business deal and business only, by Loh, who has his doctorate from Michigan and served as provost at Iowa. Clearly he has more of a link to the Big Ten than the ACC. And Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, who fired popular head football coach Ralph Friedgen upon arrival, has only been in College Park since 2010. Neither man has any emotional ties to Maryland or the conference.

And yet, this business deal will cost Maryland a $50 million exit fee – this on the heels of the school losing seven sports due to a budget crisis. Maryland is hopeful of recouping such loses as part of a bigger media market – one that will stretch from New York City to DC to Lincoln, NE, a mere 1,055 miles from College Park.

The picture of Chancellor Brit Kirwan in The Washington Post makes him look like a grieving father. How and why did he go along with this?

I am not disillusioned to think that this move isn’t all about the almighty dollar. Chasing the vaunted “Benjamins” is certainly nothing new in this world of the meandering schools jumping from conference to conference in search of a bigger payday.

This cavalcade of musical conferences is one major reason why children don’t know their geography. (That it’s not taught in schools any more is a rant for a future column.) Notre Dame to the ACC (sans football)? Let’s not forget the “A” and “C” stand for Atlantic Coast and South Bend, IN doesn’t even touch Lake Michigan, let alone the Atlantic Coast. San Diego State and Boise State to the Big East for football? Is there any wonder no can read a map anymore? It’s wrong – philosophically wrong, geographically wrong and it harmful to real student athletes.

There is too much travel time and time away from the classroom for genuine student athletes to “make the grade,” as is the old adage. But seriously, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking colleges and universities are turning out Phi Beta Kappas when most don’t even graduate. Throw out the statistics that lump all sports together showing a 70-plus percent graduation rate full of golfers, tennis, lacrosse and field hockey players when it’s the high revenue sports of football and basketball that drive those rates into the ground.

The whole notion of the traditional student-athlete is gone, but this is nothing new. Millions of dollars are made from their labors – but, make no mistake, college athletes should not be paid money. They are already paid with an education should they choose to avail themselves of the opportunity given them. That is their choice. Let’s go back to the days when freshmen did not play – give them a chance to become acclimated to the college experience and lifestyle, then give them their eligibility. Those who do not turn pro, and that would be 98 percent of college athletes, allow them time to complete their degrees after their eligibility has expired. Those who are not academically qualified should not set foot on a college campus. Bobby Knight was right in the 1980s when he said, to much improper derision, that college is not for everyone.

“This is a real bad omen for college sports,” said Tom McMillen, Maryland alum, member of its Board of Regents, and three-term member of Congress who voted against the move to the Big Ten. According to The Washington Post the location of the Regents’ Board meeting was kept secret. (11/19/12) What were they afraid of? Perhaps a swarm of unhappy students and alumni wishing to retain Maryland’s tradition, history, and dignity.

Kristi Toliver, an integral part of the 2006 NCAA Championship women’s basketball team Twittered, “The big10? That’s like exchanging a Bentley for a Buick.”

Maryland looks desperate to jump so quickly at the invitation from the Big Ten. Clearly this is about the one sport that drives the bus – football. Maryland can barely get 35,000 to show up to Byrd Stadium to watch the Terps get clobbered by Florida State, but Loh and Anderson are salivating over the possibility of SRO crowds when the Buckeyes and Wolverines come a’ callin’.

But the flip side, is who will schlep to Minneapolis or Iowa City when the drive from College Park to the Research Triangle to see Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State is less than five hours. Shorter still to see Virginia Tech or Virginia in Blacksburg or Charlottesville respectively. This move is neither fan friendly nor family friendly.

Maryland great, Harvard Law grad, and ESPN analyst Len Elmore said of Maryland’s abandonment of the ACC, “sad,” and “a bad move. I didn’t think my alma mater would be looking for a money grab, one of the most pernicious things in all of college sports.”

Fellow alum and ESPN analyst Adrian Branch also had misgivings about the move. “I’m in mourning right now,” he said, via an ESPN transcript. “I’m missing the tradition and history and pride and what I shared as an ACC player. That’s been my identity as a basketball player.”

In a non-scientific poll conducted on-line by The Washington Post on Monday, November 19, of the nearly 8,300 votes cast, the margin was two to one against the move from the ACC to the Big Ten.

Terrapin alumni and fans should voice their displeasure and objections to this move via their wallets by withholding financial contributions to Maryland’s Alumni Association and Terrapin Club. After all, if Maryland will realize untold riches through the Big Ten, it certainly doesn’t need the hard earned money from disrespected fans and alumni.

Who will schlep from College Park and its environs to Big Ten country where half its 12 schools are in the Central Time Zone? While Happy Valley, PA is a mere 130 miles from College Park, the other 11 campuses are no less than 330 miles away – Columbus, where the Horseshoe is traditionally sold out a year in advance.

ACC School	Miles from U of MD	Big Ten School	Miles from U of MD
Virginia (Charlottesville)	105	Penn State (Happy Valley)	130
Pittsburgh	190	Rutgers (New Brunswick)	165
Syracuse	220	Ohio State (Columbus)	330
Virginia Tech (Blacksburg)	225	Michigan (Ann Arbor)	422
Duke (Durham)	230	Michigan State (E. Lansing)	470
No. Carolina State (Raleigh)	240	Indiana (Bloomington)	515
No. Carolina (Chapel Hill)	240	Purdue (W. Lafayette)	540
Wake Forest (Winston-Salem)	270	Northwestern (Evanston)	605
Boston College	380	Illinois (Champaign)	610
Clemson	440	Wisconsin (Madison)	710
Georgia Tech (Atlanta)	550	Iowa (Iowa City)	790
Florida State (Tallahassee)	720	Minnesota (Minneapolis)	930
Miami	930	Nebraska (Lincoln)	1055

Mileage data courtesy of The Washington Post.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. A graduate of the University of Maryland, he is a member of the Alumni Association and Terrapin Club – for now.

Salivating Over a TCU-Rutgers Rivalry?

Salivating Over a TCU-Rutgers Rivalry?

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

November 30, 2010

For years I complained that the Atlanta Braves had no business being in the National League West while the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals existed in the NL East. As a lifelong New York Mets fan, I quickly learned how true the adage “be careful what you wish for” is as the hated Braves reeled off 14 consecutive division titles in the realigned East.

And for years, the National Football League also continued to twist American geography with the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East and the Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers in the NFC West. It’s no wonder American students have no sense of geographic knowledge of their own country.

 “The Dallas Cowboys play in the NFC East; TCU and their fans will be right at home in the Big East,” said former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, in support of TCU accepting an invitation to join the Big East effective July 1, 2012.

Comparing Texas Christian University being the Big East with the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles in the same NFL division is terribly disingenuous. Professional teams are designed to travel and can afford the time and cost of such. TCU is a university whose players are supposedly students first, and the extended travel time is even more time out of the classroom.

The NFC rivalries are about as old as the NFL itself. Who’s showing up for that vaunted TCU-Rutgers game – in either football or basketball? Ooh – there’s a snore-fest that will garner a .001 on the ratings scale.

I am not so naïve as to not understand the financial, recruiting and television contractual advantages to see the Big East expand to Fort Worth, TX. But then again, it hasn’t really been the Big East in years, more like the Big American Behemoth Conference, stretching as far west as Indiana – hundreds of miles from the Eastern Seaboard. These mega-conferences are too unwieldy and dilute the importance of the traditional conference rivalries.

The Big East is not a football conference and TCU is not a basketball school, the Big East's bread and butter. A 17-team conference is outrageous, not that 16 is any better.
TCU should compete in an all Texas conference with Texas, Texas A & M, Texas Tech, University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Southern Methodist University (SMU), Houston, Rice, Baylor and North Texas University.

There is no doubt the Texas Conference would be a more than competitive conference and would produce quality bowl representatives on an annual basis. Two five-team divisions would produce a conference title game with an automatic BCS bid and four additional bowl teams would lend much credence to a new conference. With nine games against the conference teams, traditional storied rivalries can be upheld on an annual basis – Texas/Oklahoma for example.

Villanova in the Big East for football is a good idea, as they are already a strong hoops competitor in that conference. Adding Richmond and Temple in both sports makes sense as well, but the Big East has got to lose Cincinnati, De Paul, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame and West Virginia. With Temple and Richmond in hoops, the Big East would have 14 teams. If the Big East feels compelled to have 16 schools, add George Washington and Rhode Island, who would already have natural rivals in the conference.

With the notion of Temple leaving the Mid-American Conference, they would have an even dozen teams; and leaving the Atlantic-10 would put the Owls in one conference, as it should be for all schools. There should not be split conference allegiances for different sports.

Dropping the six aforementioned schools would allow the NCAA to drop the Big LEAST from the automatic BCS bid, which is B.S. to begin with, but that’s a column for another day. The Big East would still have four or five quality bowl competitors every season, such as Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, and Temple.

The Big East would have a 12-team football conference that can be divided into two six-team divisions, featuring a championship game, and a 16-team basketball conference divided into two eight-team divisions. (G.W., Rutgers, St. John’s and Seton Hall would not participate in the football portion of the Big East.)

Conferences should remain true to their geography. The ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) should no more have Boston College among its ranks then the Big East should have South Florida. But at least USF is ON the East Coast or in eastern seaboard states. Trade the two – BC would renew their rivalries with Connecticut and Providence, while USF would have intrastate rivalries with Florida State and Miami, shoring up the ACC’s Florida link.

The six schools recommended for being dropped from the Big East – Cincinnati, De Paul, Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame and West Virginia could form a New Conference USA with Alabama-Birmingham, Central Florida, Dayton, East Carolina, Jacksonville, Marshall, Memphis and St. Louis. Tulsa could move to the depleted Big 12 while Southern Mississippi and Tulane could join the Southeastern Conference.

The invitation of TCU to the Big East is not the impetus of this tome – it has been a long time in coming since the Big Ten added Penn State and did not change its name; since Conference USA stretched from East Carolina to UTEP two time zones away in El Paso where frequent flyer miles are more important than grade point averages.

The University of Utah has no business joining the Pacific-10 Conference either, but again, it’s all about the expansion of television rights. If the Pac-10 wants to expand, seek out hoops powerhouse Gonzaga, eventually they could put a competitive team on the gridiron.

Were the Utes to remain in the Mountain West conference with state rival BYU (leaving to become an independent – also a mistake), along with the addition of Boise State in 2011 as well as Fresno State and Nevada in 2012, this could be a powerful conference, especially if TCU were to stay put. This would be a geographically cohesive 12-school conference with solid competitors in both football and basketball. A football title game would put the winner in the BCS, where either Boise State, Nevada or TCU belong this year, as well as two or three other bowl eligible schools on an annual basis.

This is an expensive game of athletic and geographic dominos the conference CEOs are playing and one which the fans, and more importantly, the student athletes could lose – badly.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and political consultant living in Alexandria, VA.

College Griders Already Paid

College Griders Already Paid

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

August 22, 2010

After reading Donald H. Yee’s “Show Them the Money,” in Sunday’s The Washington Post (B-1, 4) in which he supports paying college football players and laying out a 10 step plan, it is painfully obvious he is in dire need of a 12 step program of his own.

Yee, a lawyer and partner in a Los Angeles sports-management firm, rightfully indicates that there is a corrupt system in place mingling agents with collegiate coaches and so-called student athletes. However, instead of suggesting ways to clean up the system and end the culture of corruption that has infested not just college football, but other high-ticket college sports such as basketball, Yee calls for a further perversion of college athletics by turning over the football programs to outside institutions and corporations and paying the so-called student athletes.

Such a transition would forever damage the concept of college athletics as well as the psyche of the so-called student athletes who are already treated as demi-gods on numerous campuses across the nation.

The worst of Yee’s 10 points, and the most offensive to the concept of the student athlete is to remove the word student from the mix altogether.

                       

                        “Academically gifted players could take regular university courses, if they could have gained admission on their own merit. Others may be more interested          in vocational training or other specialty classes. Either way, average students            would no longer lose a chance at admission because the university made an   exception for an academically less qualified athlete. And athletes would have a            broader array of course offerings. Some may even choose not to attend classes   and simply focus on honing their football skills.”

This is a disgusting and disgraceful notion. As it stands today, the NCAA is already a de-facto minor league for the NFL and the NBA. Yee couldn’t be more wrong about this particular point as to allow what would then be a non-student-athlete to roam a college campus without being a registered, class-attending student on some supposed degree track would be even more detrimental to the current status of the so-called student athlete. They would be strutting around campuses with bigger britches than they have on now with their over-inflated sense of entitlement.

College athletes, most notably football and basketball players, as they represent the big revenue generating sports, already get paid. Their pay is the scholarship that covers their tuition, books, tutors, room and board that often leads to players leaving school early for the NFL (or NBA) or not earning a degree prior to their eligibility expiring. There is no policy in place to demand players not staying in school four years to repay the scholarship in full.

Make no mistake, this is not a case of sour grapes, as I play and pay into this system as a season ticket holder to University of Maryland football, my alma mater, as well as being a member of the Terrapin Club, “the scholarship fund for Maryland athletics that helps offset scholarship costs of over $10.2 million in annual scholarship support for many of the 700+ student athletes who compete on 27 varsity teams representing the University of Maryland. …we receive no state financial support for our scholarship programs.” (www.terrapinclub.com/about/membership-information)

Yee calls for the elimination of university involvement with the football programs and turning them over to corporate entities to run. This would only further corrupt the system by removing the university, the organization responsible for bringing such student athletes to the campus in the first place.

Additionally, Yee suggests eliminating football programs that are perennial money-losers. Such black holes are no good for the university, Yee suggests. This defeats the lessons team sports teaches and would take away the vehicle for which genuine student athletes have for continuing to play football at the collegiate level even if they never enjoy a winning season or a trip to one of the myriad bowl games that only requires a six-win season (another issue for another column).

Team sports participants tend to make strong leaders in the corporate world as well as in government and politics, just as the Boy and Girl Scouts.

Yet, the bona fide suggestion of eliminating the unqualified so-called student athlete from the university system in the first place is never addressed by Yee. His answer, as stated earlier, is to allow the lesser qualified “students” to play football without attending any classes whatsoever. That is detrimental to both the university that would condone such a perpetual underclass and more so to the athletes who will never see the inside of an NFL (or NBA, since ultimately this would be the next sport to be drawn into such a myopic system) locker room.

Under Yee’s system, the non-student athlete would play football for four or five years then leave the university with nothing to show for the efforts, except perhaps a paycheck, most of which would have already been squandered by the 18-22 year old who had no skills in money management. Couple that with a less than two percent chance of playing in the NFL or even the CFL, what does Yee expect that former college athlete to do with no marketable skills?

Yee refers to the “coveted” high school athlete as being allowed to enjoy the “fruits of American capitalism.” Those fruits are offered in the form of scholarships, and are also one of the reasons student athletes are given more than four years to complete a degree program. With all the time allotted for practice and travel during the football season, as well as spring practice, football players should be afforded a lighter academic load during the fall semester, but conversely make up the load during the spring and summer sessions.

Those so-called student athletes unable to qualify for admission on their academic merits should be denied admission. If these athletes are so coveted, there should be a minor league system for them to hone their skills paid for by the various NFL or CFL teams interested in developing these players into professional athletes. For those who would argue that such a system would dilute the NCAA football programs across the country’s campuses, it would no doubt be felt on a relatively equal scale. This way universities would no longer have to turn an already blind eye to the academically unqualified under the guise of calling them “student athletes,” who will merely take the place of an academically qualified student who may major in engineering or political science while bringing no revenue to the school.

Yes, I recognize the student athlete generates revenue that he or she does not pocket in the form of a paycheck. But these same athletes are demonstrating their wares and skills on the gridiron or hardwood floor in the hopes they will be drafted by the NFL, CFL or NBA.

There is already a corrupt system of coaches in cahoots with boosters and agents on the sly with a knowing wink and a nod providing players with the various unspoken perks of being a coveted student athlete. This is done all in the quest of winning national championships, conference titles and bowl games.

Make no mistake, those of us who support our alma maters or local universities enjoy the winning seasons and post season play and are equally disappointed when the former does not occur on a regular basis. But we also know the importance of seeing those same student athletes who march down the field in victory, march across the stage in a cap and gown in the victory of earning a degree.

Clearly Mr. Yee’s column does not support the notion of educating our student athletes and that will only have long term deleterious effects on them for which we as a society will ultimately pay.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and political consultant living in Alexandria, VA. He is a Maryland football season ticket holder and member of the Terrapin Club.

Of Money and Mediocity

Of Money and Mediocrity

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

April 28, 2010

Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg gave a gracious interview upon learning his Hokies would be on the outside looking in at last months college basketball holy grail – March Madness and the NCAA Tournament.

Greenberg praised his team’s 22-9 regular season mark coupled with a strong showing in the ACC and a third place finish of 10-6 – certainly more than competitive stats to find a home amidst the field of 65, but it was not to be. Greenberg did not sound bitter in looking ahead to the NIT bid he was certain to receive hours after being shunned by the Big Dance.

However, the fatal mistake Greenberg made was in comparing his Hokies to those schools who clearly were “last in” picks by the selection committee. Is that really what one aspires to – being as good as the 64^th best team? Is it enough just to be invited to the Big Dance, or is it far more important to compete and advance to fight for the shot at playing in the Final Four and compete for a national championship? When did striving for mediocrity become acceptable?

To be fair, this is not an attack on Coach Greenberg, whom I like and admire. He has risen through the coaching ranks honing his craft at places like Long Beach State all the while fighting anti-Semitism in locker rooms at places like New Mexico State in Las Cruces. But as an ACC fan and alumnus of the University of Maryland, (losing on a buzzer-beater to eventual Final Four participant Michigan State) I see and read more about those teams and coaches. Clearly what was said about Greenberg and his reaction to his team missing out on the Big Dance could easily have been said of myriad coaches around the nation.

However, and this speaks to the big picture of the NCAA Tournament expanding from 65 teams to 68 staring with the 2011 tournament, and the even bigger picture of the greater acceptance of a society becoming more and more mired in a culture of mediocrity.

Make no mistake, expanding the tournament to 68 teams is merely a slippery slope to what some in the sport and more in the media want – a 96-team behemoth which would also sound the death knell for the NIT (National Invitation Tournament) the original college basketball post-season tournament that currently features 32 teams and culminates with its final four at Madison Square Garden.

While a 96-team tournament simply adds but one game to the current set up for all but the top 32 teams, as they would be given a first round bye, (to which most teams would object) there’s something more sinister at play here other than scheduling logistics. First and foremost, is the money. While I believe greed is good as long as there is a demand for what is being supplied, if one overworks the golden goose, eventually all that comes out of her is crap – and that is what a 96-team NCAA Tournament will provide.

More and more money is pumped into a tournament that is already an adman’s dream with longer halftimes, more timeouts and more commercial breaks, and, oh, there is even some basketball being played. Then there’s the merchandising, which of course, I play my own part as I don the sweatshirt of my alma maters and other favorite schools throughout the three week extravaganza.

And let’s not forget the office pools generating more “unofficial” money than one wants to imagine or even admit. More people who couldn’t tell the difference between an Ohio Bobcat and a Cincinnati Bearcat or a Central Michigan Chippewa from an Eastern Michigan Eagle are willing to plunk down five, 10, 20 or more dollars to fill out a bracket. And of course the man hours lost to productive work not taking place during the first four days of the tournament as 48 of the 63 tournament games are played.

While I vociferously object to a 96-team tournament, I neither endorse the 68-team, or even the current 65-team format due to the aforementioned slippery slope. For the sake of the uninitiated, the NCAA Tournament has grown from a mere eight teams in its inception in 1939 to 64 teams in 1985 and then to 65 in 2001. The 64-team format is both manageable and the most credible by rewarding a mandatory spot to each conference tournament champion and filling out the remaining at-large positions with the most “worthy” teams.

I do take issue with the notion of conference tournament champions being rewarded an automatic bid, however, when a sub-.500 team manages to get hot and win three or four games in a row over a weekend following a less than stellar regular season lasting from mid-November through early March. The conference tournaments are also mostly about money, but for the smaller conferences, yes, they are a showcase for the nation to see their better teams and players for three or four days. I would still grant the automatic bid to the teams who perform well all season long and win their conference regular season title.

In spite of my taking issue with the distribution of the automatic bids, the 64-team format works best. Consider, for example in 1974 the last year only one team per conference received an invitation to the Big Dance, the ACC Tournament final featured Maryland and North Carolina State – two of the top four teams in the country – not just the conference. My Terrapins lost a heartbreaking 103-100 game in overtime, that has been labeled by many one of the greatest games played in college basketball. Yet, with that loss, the Terps ended a season with a record of 23-5 that did not include any post-season tournament as they turned down an opportunity to play in the NIT.

Between 1974 and 1985 the NCAA Tournament grew to the 64-team March Madness many have come to love and revere. Expanding to 96 teams does speak volumes about the level of competition being watered down and the acceptance of mediocre programs being rewarded with post-season play.

The epidemic of mediocrity is already poisoning the well starting with children in elementary school as they are given trophies not for winning, but merely for showing up and participating. Schools are banning more forms of competitive activities in favor of ones where no winners or losers are declared. Or worse, when competitive games are played sans scorekeeping. Not to mention grading on curves and the dumbing down of far too much curriculum.

This is deleterious on so many levels. Children must learn about the importance of competition. This is a competitive world and the sooner children learn that, the less they will be disappointed later in life when they are not handed jobs, contracts or other gains or promotions due to a lack of merit and not just for showing up.

Playing by the rules and a moral sense of fair play are not at stake regarding the notion of competition; they are not mutually exclusive. They are all important lessons for children to learn, as sadly, far too many adults have forgotten them.

It is some of these same adults who, in endorsing a 96-team tournament, have likened it to the college football bowl season that rewards 6-6 teams with post-season play, because, once again, we all know there are 34 bowl games due to the almighty dollar, or more accurately, the almighty millions.

Not only is it an obscenity to reward a mediocre .500 team with a bowl game, but there is little demand. Just watch some of those games where thousands of empty seats masquerade as fans. Who really gives a crap about Temple against UCLA in the EagleBank Bowl on a frigid December afternoon in the windy and filthy RFK Stadium in Washington, DC?

Let’s not see March Madness become March Sadness with the inclusion of the Prairie View’s of the world. If teams are worried about not earning their way into the Big Dance, they should work harder – and that especially includes working to make more than 60 percent of their free throws, but that’s a column for another day. For now, 86 the 68-team tournament as it is much ado about money and mediocrity.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and political consultant living in Alexandria, VA. He is also a member of the University of Maryland Terrapin Club and a football season ticket holder.