Speaking of credibility:
I love college football. Always have. But there are parts of it that chew at me. This is one of them:
When a student athlete transfers to another program (for whatever reason), that athlete is punished by having to sit out a year, basically losing a year of eligibility at a time when they need it. When a coach does the same thing, however, not only is he not penalized, he is rewarded with a huge contract and the adolation of his new school and fans. It is a double standard that hurts the credibility of the game and the NCAA and the administrations of universities that allow such hypocrisy to happen.
Recently Charlie Weiss was fired from Notre Dame. The Sporting News reported that his contract buyout may be nearly $18 million. Al Groh at Virginia was paid around $4 million to leave after this season. I don’t know a person who, upon getting fired, would not relish the pink slip if it came with millions of dollars attached.
“Terry, I’m sorry old pal, but you haven’t done your job very well. We’re going to have to let you go. Here’s $18 million. Good luck.”
I won’t need luck with a bank account stuffed that fat. I will only need two one-way tickets to Maui or Barbados or the Hamptons. I’m not that picky.
We hear a lot about the loyalty of players who stay at their schools to play their senior year with their team, forgoing NFL riches and risking forfeiture of that cash with just one unlucky hit to the knee (to their credit, Payton Manning did it and so did Tim Tebow). Yet when I read about Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly denying to his players that he was taking the Notre Dame job in an interview minutes after the Bearcats’ awards banquet, when he had clearly taken the job, I feel like the whole college football thing is really just pro football with free players. You can say athletes are given special treatment and are on scholarship and you would be right. But considering the billions of dollars reaped by college football from TV contracts, alumni giving, paraphernalia sales and tickets, etc., handing an athlete a scholarship that probably cost the school $4 grand in hard cold cash is a damned bargain. There is a reason why these schools are building 100,000+ seat stadiums with double-tiered luxury boxes – and it ain’t charity. I won’t get into the BCS ranking system while I’m pissing and moaning. That is a whole other bucket of funky gumbo.
As I write this, I am torn by my feelings of attraction and hate because I love to watch the game and read about it and follow it. I love the colors and the passion and the connectedness of teams and the geometry of the painted field. I love the smell of fresh-cut grass mixed with a tinge of bourbon and the aroma of a cigar in the distance and the smoke from tailgaters grilling burgers. I love the stats and I am sucked in by the Game Day hype and I enjoy every minute of watching hours of it on TV, suffering through the same commercials over and over and over. And I am sad when the season ends. I just wish the powers that be were a little more honest with the people who spend so much time involved and pay so much hard-earned money to be suckered in by the excitement. I wish they were more honest with the players who put their health on the line every day to make their schools millions.
In the end, one thing seems to erase all of the shameful underhandedness, lying and misleading press conferences: winning. If you win, you can get away with almost anything – unless you run over a fire plug in Tiger Woods driveway at 3 am after having affairs with more women than will fit in a luxury box at a Florida game. Then all bets are off.
