What do you think would have to happen for the presidents and chancellors of universities and colleges across the country to pull the plug on inter-collegiate sports? I would say it’s been a bad couple of weeks for campus athletic programs, with the firing of Michigan Football Head Coach Sharone Moore just hours before he allegedly forced his way into the residence of the female football program employee that he was having an affair with–and funded an abortion for–and threatening to kill her and himself. But that would be greatly minimizing what has been a bad couple of decades for collegiate sports programs.
If you just want to limit it to Michigan football, their national championship winning coach Jim Harbaugh is effectively banned from coaching in college due to recruiting violations, and one of his other assistant coaches–Matt Weiss–is facing federal criminal charges for allegedly using an on-line recruiting database to hack into athlete’s social media accounts and access intimate images of more than 3,000 young women. And then there is former football staffer Connor Stalions, who organized a group of spies to attend games featuring future Michigan opponents and videotape their sideline signals for plays–sometimes dressing in disguise to do so. If you want to stay on the Ann Arbor campus, former Michigan Men’s Basketball Coach Juwan Howard was suspended after famously threatening to kill Wisconsin Head Coach Greg Gard in the post-game handshake line and hitting a Badgers’ assistant coach in the face.
If you just want to keep things in the Big Ten, we could mention systematic sexual abuse of female gymnasts at Michigan State, lawsuits alleging hazing and degradation at Northwestern, illegal payments to players in the men’s hockey and basketball programs at Minnesota, Ohio State football players selling school-issued items to get tattoos, the coverup of sexual assault of boys by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky (where fans lambasted a former player that testified against Sandusky after personally witnessing an assault in a team shower), USC running back Reggie Bush having to surrender his Heisman Trophy after receiving a free house and other improper benefits, and accusations of psychological abuse against former Wisconsin Women’s Basketball Coach Marissa Mosely–which has led to more lawsuits.
That would be on top of teammates killing teammates in the Baylor men’s basketball program, Louisville basketball coaches hiring strippers for team parties, Louisville’s former coach Rick Pitino being accused of forcing a woman to have sex with him at a restaurant, Texas Christian University athletes being involved in a large-scale drug sales ring, Ohio football coach Brian Smith being fired days after the Sharone Moore incident because he too was involved in an affair with a program staffer, former Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino losing his job after getting into a motorcycle crash where the young staffer he was having an affair with was also injured, and the multitude of point-shaving and statistics manipulation accusations that have surfaced in the era of legalized on-line sports betting.
I could go on for the better part of the entire show on incidents like this from the largest, most-successful athletics programs in the country to some of the smallest schools competing at lower levels, but I thing I’m getting my point across to you. If the University of Michigan had to deal with all of the same incidents in just its football program alone in another on-campus department like Physics or Economics, there would be calls across that state for some serious investigation into institutional control. But as of today, the Athletic Director overseeing that entire mess is still gainfully employed, and no one is calling for the firing of the University President.
In 2001, I had the opportunity to interview Murray Sperber. He was an Indiana University professor that had just written a book entitled Beer and Circus–which detailed his arguments that intercollegiate sports was degrading the academic quality of American universities and colleges. Sperber was also gaining national attention for being a leading critic of former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight–who had just been fired when video of him choking a player during practice surfaced.
In his book, Sperber made the case that big-time college sports drained resources away from other programs on the campus and fostered a spirit of debauchery, not just among the athletes but also the student body at large, some faculty, and administrators–whom he believed cared only about winning at any cost. Now at the time of the interview, I thought Sperber was just another nerd that never played a sport, was always the last one picked for games during recess, and harbored a grudge toward jocks and the glorification of sports. Plus, I would have given up a duplicative body part to have played hoops for Bob Knight, so I thought Sperber was a loser for telling anyone and everyone that the coach should be fired. But now, nearly 25-years out, I’m beginning to see Murray Sperber as something of a prophet, who back then was something of a lone voice in the desert forecasting the disaster that now unfolds around us.
The lowering of standards–both academic and behavioral–that Sperber first warned about back then have accelerated since. When was the last time you heard about a player having to miss college games because they are academically ineligible? Freshman used to have to meet minimum academic standards to be eligible to play in their first year (Proposition 48), now–despite lower reading comprehension and math scores across all demographics in nearly all states–no one ever misses games their first year. The transfer portal for athletes makes them not just free agents after every season, but literally after every game–with players walking away from their teams and their classwork in the middle of seasons and semesters–only to pop up on another college team the next season. How many credits are these vagabonds actually accruing toward some sort of degree? Earlier this week I joked about a quarterback at Georgia State that has played for five schools and wants to transfer to a sixth–while also petitioning to play a seventh season of college football. Shouldn’t he have at least two degrees by now if he’s been in good standing at all of these colleges for so long?
An increasing number of athletes are suing the NCAA challenging the legality of its current “five years to play four seasons” eligibility limit. This became complicated during the pandemic, when anyone playing sports in 2020 and 2021 basically had those years “not count” due to reduced playing opportunities. Add to that the ability for players to not only benefit from scholarships and free room and board by getting paid directly through name, image, and likeness contracts and revenue-sharing programs launched by the schools themselves, and we are now on the precipice of having “career” college athletes. Players that may never “turn pro”, but just keep playing on whatever campuses will pay them, flaunting the idea of a “student-athlete”.
For decades, the Green Bay Packers and their fans would always claim to be unique, as it was the “only community-owned major sports franchise”. But that is no longer the truth. Every state-funded university and college in this country with a sports program now has its own “professional franchise” with teams in multiple sports and leagues that are owned by the taxpayers. Camp Randall Stadium, the Kohl Center, the Fieldhouse, and the McClain Center in Madison, the Kress Center in Green Bay, those are all taxpayer-owned facilities. The people coaching those teams, those serving as trainers, and all of the support staff are state employees. Find a state where the highest paid municipal employee isn’t a college football or men’s basketball coach. And now, those athletes are state employees as well.
The time has come for everyone to ask “Is this really the purpose of our university and college systems to operate professional sports teams?” “Does operating these franchise both meet and advance the system’s directive to further the education of the populace?” And as Murray Sperber first asked in 2000: “Is the operation of these professional sports teams taking away resources from the academic foundation of the schools?”
Those who have lobbied for the payment of players and their free movement to any school they wish to play for have argued that the colleges and universities have “unjustly profited for years on the labor of previously ‘uncompensated’ employees”. And while it is true there would be no Big Ten Network, no SEC Network, no Big 12 Network, and no ESPN U or ESPN+ without the nearly endless supply of college sports contests featuring those athletes, it remains the schools themselves that are ultimately the “product” that drives the viewership and sponsorship.
If the members of the 2014 and 2015 Final Four Wisconsin men’s basketball teams: Sam Dekker, Frank Kaminsky, Nigel Hayes, Bronson Koenig, Josh Gasser all played on an NBA G League team named the Madison Mudbugs instead of for the Badgers–and they played just as well and made it to the league championship series in back-to back seasons how many people do you think would have bothered to go to their games on a regular basis? How often would they have been on TV? How much Mudbug merchandise would you have bought to commemorate that amazing run? Again, same guys, same on-the-court success, playing in the same city and state. I know the answer to that. It would “none”. And that is because the attention from fans, viewers, listeners, donors, and sponsors all come from the value of “Wisconsin sports”–not necessarily the individual players.
Miracle on Ice Head Coach Herb Brooks coined a phrase that I use every time someone tries to argue that players are more important than the school: “The name on the front of the jersey is a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back of the jersey!” And those responsible for what makes the name of the front of those jerseys have come to a point where they need to decide if that value is worth the price that the future of intercollegiate sports will cost.
