Fundamentally Broken

 I have been concerned for some time now about college athletics, and those concerns are now largely shared by others. The recent evisceration of the PAC 12 has drawn the attention of people like Jon Chait who note the failure of "market based" libertarianism to create a good solution to what has become a strictly money-making enterprise surrounding football and basketball.

The ridiculous move of schools like Washington and Oregon into the Big-10 creates an obvious problem for, you know, students. As Chait noted, the myth of college athletics was the solve surviving example of the amateur ideal in athletics that was formerly typified by the Olympics and rugby. As those two sports admitted professionals, the pressure on American college sports - at least the ones on television a lot - grew until it created a self-justifying monster of a profit incentive.

As we well know, the best paid "public official" in almost every state is a college coach. The four best paid college coaches, Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Dabo Sweeney and Lincoln Riley will make over $10,000,000 this year. 

Let's take a moment to consider how many high school teachers or college professors or student education initiatives we could fund with that obscene amount of money.

Regardless "market forces" require paying coaches millions of dollars from the funds of nominal educational institutions so that they don't go somewhere else. This has been broken for years. Kudos to the following states whose highest paid public official is not a coach: Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York (!), Delaware, the Dakotas, Nevada, Montana and Alaska. (In four of those states, NY, the Dakotas and Nevada it's the med school dean). 

Now quick, name a powerhouse athletic program from those states. In fact, it's hockey in Maine, Mass and the Dakotas. So if you're a college hockey coach...screw you.

A few years back, college athletes were allowed to profit off their likeness, which again only really helped a handful of football and basketball players.

It should be obvious that the overwhelming majority of college athletes are not playing football and basketball, especially at a level that would bring them money. In football, in particular though it does apply a little bit to basketball, college sports are de facto minor leagues for the NFL and NBA. For other sports like MLB and MLS, players are just as often identified in high school and there are developmental teams and leagues to train them.

So, basketball and football have warped the entire structure of college athletics to create three super leagues. For the volleyball player, the wrestler or the tennis player how in the living hell are you supposed to travel across country to play multiple games and still remain a credible student. Sure, if you're playing football at Alabama or women's basketball at UConn, you might have a shot at making the pros (but that shot is pretty damned small unless you're a star). If you're a swimmer, there's almost no remunerative future for you in swimming. You are in college for the education and swimming was your ticket into a better school.

Recently, the Supreme Court ended affirmative action for racial minorities. Yet college admissions is hopelessly warped by certain schools privileging athletes (and, yes, legacies) over the "best students" whatever that means. 

At this point, the NCAA is such a festering pustule of a joke that it needs to be replaced with an entity - almost certainly governmental - that protects college athletes from the exploitation by the football and basketball profit-driven decision making of people who self-evidently don't give a flying fuck about education. 

Hell, we should probably sever the relationship between the semi-pro sports of basketball, football and perhaps baseball from education entirely. You could still affiliate with the school and athletes could take certain classes, I guess, but the idea that Oregon is going to somehow win a national championship in football by moving to the Big10 is stupid. It's all about the money and the money is poisoning sports.

I coach a team that does not produce college athletes (though I think my son could've wrestled DIII), and that makes me unique at what is supposed to be an elite academic boarding school. The football team has sent kids to Wisconsin and Stanford, lacrosse and hockey funnel kids to the Ivies and ACC schools. We did this because we did this. In other words, we didn't decide to become a clearing house for athletes, we saw that a top lax player could go to Harvard, which allowed us to say we sent X number of kids to Harvard.

However, I really do think that my wrestlers learn important things by competing in sports. It's part of character education that is a model going back to British boarding schools. You played sports to learn about hard work, teamwork, sportsmanship and leadership. Now, you play sports to get into a better school (and sportsmanship be damned). 

How is that educational? How is that augmenting the life of the mind? What the hell is the point here?