I rarely comment on any of the TB posts but somehow on this one, I feel
uniquely qualified. In my ancient history I have been both an NCAA Division
I scholarship athlete and worked in Environmental Compliance in the oil
industry. How are those related you may ask? The first needs no explanation
while the second is an industry that is well known for regulations and the
effectiveness or ineffectiveness of fines or sanctions.



First off I should admit that I only made it through page 3 of the document
before I fell asleep. The last half of the document was a blur. The problem
with college athletics is the fault of both the schools themselves and the
NCAA. I learned about the money game in college sports when I was being
recruited to play Volleyball. I know that’s a sport that those of you east
of the California Nevada border are not familiar with, but in California
it’s a big deal. Before I ever played the sport I was a little egghead,
bouncing my way around the gifted and talented programs in school. I had no
idea of what I wanted to do when I “grew up” and so what school I would want
to attend or what major I would pursue was totally unclear. I applied to
many California institutions and received scholarships to UCLA, USC, and
Stanford among others. These scholarships were referred to as “full rides”.
Everything was paid for including tuition, books and fees and room and
board. I chose instead to change course and follow in the footsteps of Ansel
Adams. I enrolled at the Brooks Institute of Photography but they had a two
year waiting list for enrollment so in the meantime, I enrolled in the local
Junior College to take courses while I awaited my turn. It was there that I
was introduced to volleyball and suddenly discovered that I was the top
recruit for all the schools that seriously played the sport. Once again I
was offered “full rides” but this time as an athlete rather than as a
student with academic pursuits. The curious things was that when the
financial details of the scholarships arrived for each of these schools, the
bottom line of each was almost double the amount that the academic “full
ride” had included. I decided that maybe they assumed that athletes were
taller or bigger and needed larger housing and therefore higher rent.
Clearly the meal plan allotment had to go up because of the huge caloric
intake of an athlete in training. I could only guess that the reason the
books and fees were higher was because all of my textbooks would be picture
books and therefore more expensive than the typical physics text. Same
schools, double the scholarships, only difference, one was for academics the
other was for athletics. I should also mention that not one of the schools
offered to pay my way to visit their campus when I applied as a regular
student. By the way, the Bonaventure hotel in L.A. is very comfortable.



I chose the University of Hawaii and I must say that when it came to
volleyball, they were in strict compliance with all NCAA regulations. The
rules I believe were the responsibility of the coach to comply with and I
don’t think the school honestly had much to do with it. I did however notice
a lot of strange things going on with the football team and its members.
Things like players being enrolled in the same class I was in and never
attending or in one bizarre case, a football player who seemed to be able to
change gender along with a tremendous transformation in physical size when
it came time to take the final exam. A large Hawaiian suddenly became a
short Japanese girl during the test, amazing. I do believe that a few perks
were thrown my way that probably would not have occurred if I were not the
volleyball star. On the day of registration, I went with the herd of
students to the gym to pick my classes. By the time my turn came up there
were no classes left that I wanted at all. I decided to head for the exit
and go to UCLA. In my mind, I was on my way out the door and on my way to
the airport. A school official saw me trying to exit the “in” door and
stopped me, when I told them what my plan was, suddenly every course I
needed had an open seat. I don’t think that would have happened to the
typical student.



When it comes to NCAA rules and enforcement, the problem is they are going
about it the wrong way. The stakes are very high, millions of dollars. If we
had a football program bringing in 80 million dollars, our budget would not
be near so bleak. Therefore many of the programs are willing to take risks.
It all comes down to risk assessment. If the gain is much greater than the
penalty or the chance of being caught is slim, the chances for abuse are
higher. The problem with the current system is the wrong people get the
sanctions.



When I worked in the oil industry, the EPA started enforcing rules and
regulations through their regulatory agents. In my case it was the South
Coast Air Quality Management District or SCAQMD. They came up with rules and
enforced them by attaching large fines for violators. When a project is
going to generate 16 million dollars of income, a one million dollar fine is
seen as the cost of doing business and just a minor hindrance. It was not
until they included wording that said the CEO would spend some time in jail
that they got their attention. The company didn’t care about a cash fine
because they were going to make a boatload of cash regardless. The penalty
must be related to the crime and be assessed on the person or persons
responsible.



Many years ago, Cal State University, Long Beach had a powerhouse basketball
team. They got in trouble with the NCAA for some major violations in their
dealings with their star player Ed Ratliff among others. The sanctions
levied by the NCAA obliterated the schools basketball program for decades.
The coach, the person who was guilty of the violations, was Jerry Tarkanian.
With the program hindered by the NCAA sanctions, Jerry moved on to UNLV
where he was eventually found guilty of the same violations.  In each case,
the schools and the players/programs were hurt. The coach has a
multi-million dollar contract and can pack his bags and go to another school
that will accept them with open arms. The players in the meantime would have
to give up a year of eligibility to play at another school and so most of
them are marginalized because the school becomes invisible during the
sanctions. In most situations the coach is the one responsible for following
the rules. The university president has little to do, if anything, with the
recruiting activities of the athletic program. If the sanctions went with
the coaches along with the schools, rule violations would drop.



What needs to happen is sanity. The amount of cash involved with both
professional and college athletics is out of control. I don’t think a
college athlete should get paid like some are proposing, but what’s the
difference between an English major that has a work study position working
in a department office and an athlete that spends even more hours a day on
the practice field or in training. Both are doing things for the school. I
can take one of my students to lunch but not if they are an athlete.



Schools need to come clean. What I mean by this is in terms of how they
recognize their own athletic programs. The University of Oklahoma should
have a degree in Football or Professional Athletics. This program would have
courses in everything from sports strategy and physical fitness or
kinesiology to finance and ethics. Some would argue that graduating with
such a degree does not guarantee success in the field, but when has a degree
in any other discipline done that? Instead, the academic advisor for the
athletic program signs their athletes up for what they believe will be the
easiest major that they think their players can handle. My advisor picked
the major that had the least required hours to graduate. His choice had
nothing to do with what I wanted to do in life. The schools are pretending
that they are doing something else. The athletes should meet the criteria
that the school sets for its incoming students. It should be noted that many
schools curve the requirements based on the major. For instance, you had
better do well on the math portion of the SAT and have a high academic
ranking if you plan on attending Berkeley in the Physics department. A
student planning on studying Art may not have to ace the SAT math portion,
but have a great portfolio. (I’m sure a reader out there will inform me that
Berkeley uses the same standard across the board of all majors, so I
pre-apologize, but I think you get my drift). So maybe an athlete should not
necessarily meet the same qualifications as every student but it should be
similar to requirements of other departments.



The rules need to be applied evenly and penalties need to be appropriate to
the crime and applied to the violator. Reggie Bush gave up a Heisman trophy
for violating the same rules that probably most previous Heisman winners
were guilty of. The younger members of his team that were not involved are
now banished from being in any post season bowl game and are out of the hunt
for a national championship. In other words they are off the radar. This
will impact them when it comes time for the NFL draft. The guilty parties
got to move on. My alma mater had to give up its first NCAA Men’s volleyball
trophy because it was discovered after it was all over that one of the
players had played on a professional team in Greece years before. He did not
get paid or even have a contract but the NCAA rules disallow playing in
anything professional regardless of being paid. The coach and other team
members were totally unaware of it and the player had no idea it was a
violation of NCAA rules. For the players it was the loss of everything.
There is no NVBA to aspire to. In the meantime, other schools could have
players winning large cash prizes in beach volleyball but retaining their
eligibility because it was not a professional sport. The NCAA is not the
only one with this problem, just look at the Jim Thorpe story and his
Olympic medals.



If you made it this far, you know why I was an Art major and not an English
major or Philosophy, Communications, etc…………………….

Thanks for reading, I’ll stop rambling now.




On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 7:33 AM, Greenberg, James ([log in to unmask]) <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> TBers,
>
> This has little to do with the purpose of this group, but I found it so
> well done, I had to send it along.
>
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/8643
> /
>
>
> Mr. James B. Greenberg
> Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
> Milne Library
> SUNY College at Oneonta
> Oneonta, New York 13820
>
> email: [log in to unmask]
> phone: 607-436-2701
> fax:   607-436-3677
> Twitter: greenbjb
>
> "Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"
>