Now is a special time in America. The UVA and Michigan grads working in finance flock to the bars in their college colors on crisp fall Saturdays pretending to some solidarity with the young men who do gridiron battle on college's behalf each week. Perhaps more importantly, the spectators, who, unlike the spectated, were forced more or less to attend class as a precondition of collegiate success, can claim solidarity with one another over the weekly toils of their modern-day Spartans, at once revering and celebrating the godlike players for their athletic prowess and exploiting them for the fanfare they generate. It's college football season, baby!
Emerging from the background on occasion at this time of year are the Andy Katzenmoyer stories: tales of college football gods who were drafted to the NFL only to suffer career ending injuries, prompting the fabled 'what the fuck now' moments that come when someone who was enrolled in courses such as 'Golf,' 'AIDS Awareness,' and 'Music' at Ohio State University all of a sudden can't rely on his body to earn him a livable income any longer. The sports pundits had a great laugh about Andy Katzenmoyer's course-load (after which he was barely academically eligible to compete in football), just as they did when reporters discovered that University of Georgia head basketball coach Jim Herrick had enrolled his athletes in a course for credit at UGA called 'Basketball 101,' taught by Herrick himself, whose exams consisted of questions like 'how many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a basketball game?' But this stuff isn't really funny, is it? Should we be laughing at Andy Katzenmoyer, a kid who was told that his only purpose in college was to play football, allowed to slide on everything else, and had is only waking purpose taken away from him in the blink of an eye? What about these Georgia kids enrolled in Basketball 101? Is this the kind of education they deserve? Is basketball all they're good for? And what about the non-athlete students at University of Georgia? Is this what their degree is really worth? How many points does a 3-point field goal account for?
'I see here you're a Georgia grad. Go Bulldogs! But sorry, you need an accredited degree to get a job here.'
It's easy for an educated bear to be snarky about these things, just as it's easy for the sports nuts to have a good laugh about them, and then go back to their frantic coverage of bigtime collegiate sports, as if the guy running a personal training studio in god-knows-where Ohio is just a joke or an aside, nothing to do with the industry that made him. But being snarky isn't really the point.
In its present condition, college football is a bad thing.
The idea of collegiate sports, like a range of other extracurriculars that can build skills and character, and can generally enrich someone's college experience, is a great thing. But the multi-billion dollar industry that is college football is not an extracurricular; so we should stop pretending like that's all it is. While some 'student-athletes' undoubtedly do go to college foremost for an education, and take their *college* responsibilities seriously, it's a widely accepted fact that most bigtime college athletes are on 'scholarship' for football (or basketball) first, and scholarship second. In many cases, these athletes are there for football *only*, and scholarship *never*. Instead of being treated like every other student, they're treated differently, in some ways advantageously, in others disastrously.
Proponents of the current system say bigtime college athletes are given tremendous opportunities that others might not have, like a free college education, for example. They say many of these kids are first-generation college students, and/or come from difficult personal backgrounds. They're usually right. And the idea of giving a disadvantaged, first-generation college student a free education is a fantastic one. Except that this isn't what really happens. There is no education. There is only football.
Proponents of the current system say that far from being exploited, these kids are treated like campus and hometown gods. They live like local celebrities, and in some cases national and international celebrities. They get all the advantages in the world, while Joe Average majoring in math and playing the tuba in the pep band gets nothing of the sort. Again, they're right. Except that the respect and dignity with which these players are treated is wholly contingent upon their athletic success; it rarely encourages strong performance in the classroom; and it rarely lasts beyond college for those who don't go on to play professional sports. Sure, there are success stories, too. The NCAA makes a point in its advertisements to find successful former student-athletes who 'went pro' in something other than sports; but what about the majority at a range of universities in innumerable bigtime sports programs who fail to even graduate?
College football also largely fails to benefit the university that houses the program, and in many cases actually harms the university. After all, it's the university that enables the college football industry to have athletes who generate billions of dollars in merchandise, TV contract, and ticket-sales revenue *work for free*. In fact, it's the governing body of collegiate sports, the NCAA, which specifically places strict limitations on the earning potential of college athletes, making sure they can't legally cash in on their talents and abilities. Sorry Reggie. And where does all the revenue go, if not to the athletes? Well, in many cases college coaches make more than the president of the university. In others state-of-the-art spectator stadiums and company boxes are installed for local supporters and alumni to watch the games luxuriously. In others the athletes themselves are flown from coast to coast for competitions and given professional-caliber training facilities, not so that they can be the best college students they can be, but so they can be the best college football players. Where does the money *not* go? It does *not* go toward hiring top faculty and building better teaching facilities. Nor toward research grants or scholarships for non-football-playing, academic 'stars.' Nor toward libraries or campus-wide WiFi or even nicer dormitories. It usually stays in athletic-department coffers to be spent on the primary expenses of the athletic department: the football and basketball teams.
In this scenario, the bigtime college football industry needs the university to furnish it with a default loyal fanbase and a team full of super-talented athletes who generate massive amounts of money *for free*; yet two or three assistant football coaches will undoubtedly make higher salaries than the most accomplished professor of classics or engineering at a given university, and the academic side (ha!) of the university will be looked upon by coaches and athletic department personnel as a mere nuisance that detracts from their mission of providing the wider world with a great football team.
Here's what needs to be done about this mess:
If a college football program surpasses a set revenue limit, it should be forced to choose between three options. The revenue limit would be like an eligibility clause of the sort imposed on the athletes for their non-acceptance of compensation for their efforts. Options:
A) Forfeit all profit to the university, whose panel of faculty and administrators will decide how much the football team should get, with the vast majority of revenue going back into the university and earmarked specifically for educational pursuits foremost, and then infrastructural improvements secondarily. Adhere to university demands that student-athletes actually be students first. And let these demands be properly enforced.
B) Scale back the program and its assets such that it does not surpass the set revenue limit in the following year.
C) Break off from the university altogether, at which point the program has to fund itself completely, procure its own facilities, and find its own athletes willing to play either for free or for whatever the program can offer them. Athletes will have to choose whether to remain enrolled at the university and not play for the disaffiliated team or to forfeit their place at the university to remain a member of the team. Those who choose to stay on at the university and leave the team would retain their scholarships.
Then, without the university propping up and legitimizing the industry that hangs upon it like a parasite, we would perhaps see how many athletes are willing to work for free, and how many programs are actually serious about this whole student-athlete thing.
