I will be watching on TV tonight The University of Miami (FL) versus The Ohio State University, to be formal. This game could be the beginning of a new bowl format---The Hypocrite Bowl.
Both these teams, to understate it. are not exactly bastions of virtue and integrity. In the case of Miami, they have a long history of player suspensions and even arrests. Remember, if you are old enough, back in the early nineties when Miami played Notre Dame, they created t-shirts reading "THE CONVICTS VS. THE CATHOLICS". Ohio State has a more recent record of transgressions. The recent mess was big news of Jim Tressell, the coach fired---or allowed to resign---because of covering up players selling jersey and other memorabilia for tattoos and the like, resulting in five players suspended for the first five games of the current season. O.S.U. also has its businessman/President, Dr. Gordon Gee, he of the darling bow ties, noted for his cute bon mots and for looking the other way.
Both teams are symptomatic of the problems facing college football. College football is by any definition BIG BUSINESS. I saw an article in the papers today on the revenues of various universities for football. Texas edged Ohio State in revenue 86.2 mm to 86.1 mm. That qualifies as big business, and there were many school in the 80-85 mm category.
Some commentators are calling for a reality check and accepting the fact that college athletes should be given some "spending money" or expenses so that they can resist the temptations of unauthorized gifts. Admittedly, it has to be hard for some nineteen year-old athlete who comes from a poor background and is in college on an athletic scholarship to turn down the blandishments of some folded lettuce slipped surreptiously into his palm by a well-heeled alumnus or the use of a brand-new car.
On the other side of the coin, these temptations have been around for years, and you know the ground rules when you enter school and should have been exposed to the caveats of the N.C.A.A.
Tonight will be prime exhibits of this dilemma. THE CONVICTS VS. THE CONVICTS could read the t-shirts or, more gently, THE SUSPENDED VS. THE SUSPENDED, or CANES, CASH, COLUMBUS. Take your pick.
Miami too much for the big Red. Good Game. My team lucked out and barely squeezed through. But the season is underway.
ReplyDeleteThe money is astonishing. And the players, on whose backs the money is made, get suspended for penny ante stuff.
ReplyDelete