When I was in Las Vegas last year, I spent 10 bucks on a futures bet on the Warriors (they will never be the Golden Eagles to me) to win the NCAA championship to be played tonight between Connecticut and Kentucky High School. I didn’t think Marquette had a prayer but I figured they’d at least get invited. Besides, the wager paid 60:1. So the 600 smackers I could’ve won would be reimbursement for a couple semesters’ of textbooks I had to buy.
Anyway, my alma mater had a disappointing .500-ish season. They weren’t even approached for the NIT, aka the Not Important Tournament. The flashy coach Buzz Williams fled to a school with fewer scruples, I think West Virginia, after having five previous years of great success. Meaning his questionable decisions didn’t get his employer suspended by the NCAA’s toothless disciplinarians.
This leads to the recent NLRB’s decision allowing the Northwestern football players to unionize. To this I say finally!
Let’s face reality. Who the hell are we kidding other than ourselves with this student-athlete crap? NCAA Division I football and basketball are truly the farm leagues for the NFL and NBA respectively. American universities also serve this purpose for MLB and the NHL to a lesser extent but the latter league has a more well-established junior system all over Canada. These athletes are hardly students. Trust me, whenever a basketball player was spotted in a class you were taking, you knew it was relatively easy. It didn’t matter if this were true, the perception and cynicism were the problem; why would a university jeopardize its viability as a winner by making the players take courses these (mostly) morons could fail?
The NCAA and its accomplices continue to perpetuate the myth purported by the Victorian Era. Athletics were the pursuit of the wealthy-learned classes. Professionals were vulgar mercenaries. Ergo, the children of privilege attended universities and played on the teams because they didn’t need to worry about tuition, living expenses and spending money. This same flawed logic continues with the Olympics too. The average American family can’t easily relocate to Colorado to assist a promising child become a star gymnast, ice skater, etc. Instead, our nation is often represented by the wealthy elite or gamblers.
I say let the college players organize and be paid to play. Then the schools can make them pay tuition like the rest of us stiffs had to. More scholarships can be freed up to the people who truly deserve them…the poor with potential and those with awesome grades.
Personally I wouldn’t mind the other possible outcome happening. Numerous institutions abandon their ridiculously bloated athletic programs, forcing them to focus on their original mission of educating young people. Some will continue like Texas because football is the state religion and there’s a legion of alumni who are hellbent on such a futile pursuit, never mind China and India’s advancement in space exploration.
It will also destroy the stupid argument about sports being a major recruiting/enrollment tool. I’ve always felt that if your kid picks a college based upon how well the team performs. You need to reconsider sending them in the first place.