A Foundation of Hypocrisy

There's been a Hurricane of discussion about cheating in college athletics following a report, complete with documentation, that the entire city of Coral Gables has been consorting with a professional scumbag and violating NCAA rules -- not to mention the bounds of good taste -- for most of the last decade. 

These allegations are not shocking; they are inevitable. Major Division 1 sports programs make seven- and eight-figure profits on their men's football and basketball teams, not to mention the millions in alumni support that follows. In addition, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of lackeys, hangers-on wannabes and of course TV networks with opportunities to participate in the monetary orgy by spreading their largess advantageously.

That there has been massive cheating recently in revenue sports, that there is now and that there will be in the future is as mundane as old slippers. We'd better not hear any self-righteousness from any other BCS-level sports program. Their time will come.

Sports talk radio has been abuzz with solutions for the NCAA to implement, but they are all about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The NCAA is the problem. 

The simple, underlying truth is this: The entire structure of the student-athlete industrial complex in men's basketball and football is built on a foundation of hypocrisy. Division 1 men's football and basketball programs are not extracurricular activities; they are for-profit minor-league sports arms of their universities. Their sole purpose is to fund other activities at their schools and to drum up alumni support. As long as the NCAA -- or anyone else -- attempts to regulate revenue sports as if they are merely part of the fabric of the schools for which they raise money, they will continue to fail utterly.

In case you doubt that revenue sports are simply for-profit minor league sports franchises whose purpose is to generate profits for their sponsoring institutions -- does anyone still? -- ask yourself these questions: Why are college football and basketball coaches the highest paid state employees in most states? How do college-age athletes who can hardly read, but who make quarterbacks weep, get into some of the great universities in our country? Why do football and basketball seasons overlap into Christmas break, final exams week and even beyond the academic year? If football and basketball players aren't employees of their teams, why can't they hold jobs while they are undergraduates? (They are often the students most in need of paying jobs.)

Like someone in psychotherapy, the first step to change for the NCAA is to admit the problem. The very instant universities acknowledge that they are running for-profit minor league sports franchises their issues go away. The players can work as minor league athletes without falsifying transcripts, attending phony classes, paying stand-ins to take tests or generally acting like the scholars they aren't. The exchange of money will move above the table, draining it of its corruptive abilities. Boosters and other human annoyances will be free to throw around their coercions with reckless abandon and no once will care.

Some complain that under a more honest system, the richest schools will pay the highest wages and get all the best players. Pish. The richest schools already pay the highest wages and get all the best players. The payments are either under the table or in non-monetary form: peak athletic instruction, pipelines to professional sports rosters, TV exposure, bowl game travel, top quality training facilities, shiny new stadiums and arenas, etc. 

Others bemoan the demise of the student athlete. But nothing about this system prevents schools from providing college scholarships as part of the package. Nothing prevents them from agreeing to limit practices to non-class hours. 

The bottom line is that the current system doesn't work because it's a gigantic, steaming pungent pile of lies. Admitting the truth would make all of the corruption disappear. Poof! In revenue sports, as in most of the rest of life, honesty is the best policy.

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