March Isn't the Only Madness Impacting College Athletics

You know those NCAA commercials about the "400,000 student athletes that are going pro in something other than sports" I always enjoyed those ads but the NCAA better start figuring out how to ensure the issues surrounding the few thousand athletes that are going pro in their sport don't end up destroying the student athlete experience on a whole or better yet someone really anyone other than the NCAA decides the future of college athletics.

If you have been watching any sports channels in the past six months you've likely heard about the FBI probe and daily deepening investigation into College Basketball's supposed "underground market" for top prospects. The most recent developments came last week when Yahoo! Sports published documents detailing the illegal operating of former ASM sports agency. I am not going to review all that information (read the links above if you want more info) suffice to say that money has been trading hands from sports agencies and merchandise sponsors to college athletes, coaches and administrators at various institutions of higher learning. Also is anything that is happening basically everywhere and sometimes blatantly out in the open really considered "underground?"

There are many arguments both for and against the idea of paying college athletes, I’m not going to rehash those either because they all revolve around how things are currently setup and much like our government, the current system is completely broken and in desperate need of an overhaul. I understand there are many college sports but for purposes of this post I'm going to discuss basketball, football and borrow some elements from baseball where valid. There are two major problems creating the unhealthy, unequal, at play as I see it:

1) The NBA and more pressingly the NFL need to stop abusing and misusing the college games as a minor league training ground.

2) The colleges, universities and predominately the NCAA who state they have the students best interest at heart need to either prove that in decisions moving forward or stop lying.

We'll handle the latter of these situations first. I have been a college administrator for nearly 10 years and had the privilege to work with many students some of whom are or were student athletes. While many of them are/were helped in many ways through their college experience as a result of being an athlete none of them received full coverage of their costs for attendance. Many people immediately think this solely applies to tuition and while that makes up the lion's share of a college student's experience it is only one of the many expenses. A full coverage of college expenses would include meals, housing, books, transportation, student fees, tech equipment, possible additional on line course fees, professional attire for internship interviews and later professional positions, the list could go on and on but my point is the typical "these kids get a full education paid for" argument is missing quite a few elements that easily total up in the thousands over the standard four year college experience. Don't get me wrong I am aware of many programs and departments at schools that line students up with job and interview essentials and there are alternative technologies available at many institutions such as library tech centers or media shares of equipment students can rent or sign out at times of need so this is not to say there are not options but if a student's tuition was the sole covered expense they could easily have tens of thousands of dollars in debt accrued just from student fees, books, meals and housing alone.

If all these division one Colleges and Universities truly want their athletes to reap the benefits of living through the popularity boom of collegiate athletics success to date they would immediately do the following:

Ensure the Athletic department can fully operate as an interdependent auxiliary of their sponsoring College or University.

By functioning this way all revenue (TV contracts, sponsorship deals, advertising, bowl game purses, etc.) that is brought in by the athletic teams are able to be budgeting accordingly by that Athletic department. It is in their own best interest to succeed and expand their sports success across the other currently less popular or followed sports as well in this model leading to more money for all programs based on success of the programs. The schools can continue to contribute athletic fees and funds to support the department and sports and in turn continue to reap the benefits of national name recognition and all that comes with it as well as some of those funds championship runs and bowl game invites bring with them. Of course in order for this to be possible we'll need the NCAA to stop "enforcing" antiquated and frankly idiotic rules around finances and recruiting such as believing paying for a student's steak dinner during a visit will create a binding blood oath that he or she now owes that institution a commitment letter and contract. Yes, we'd also all have to be okay with some programs being funded more than others if that is what the athletic departments' budget committee or finance board or whatever group they concoct decides to do. That is what is happening now anyway so that shouldn't be a sticking point.

Drop the charade that student athletes are students first.

If a McDonald's All American, five star recruit chooses a university and his transcript of classes the first year include basket weaving, introduction to typing, three physical education classes, or any combination of the essential blow off courses that a school offers no one is fooling themselves thinking that that particular McDonald's All American, five star recruit is worried about what career prospects his or her B.A. in Liberal Arts Studies is going to offer. Conversely, if a student athlete is a pre-med or chemical engineering major and strapped with demanding and burdensome courses they tend to be expected to do too much and if they cannot stick to a strict format of class and homework at these times and practice, travel and games at the other often getting a majority of sleep in route home from games on nights is a reality and these strains lead to very real burnout and other stress related health and wellness concerns. Ultimately, it does not set students up for success even though many achieve it because right now that's how they would have to do so. To be most successful academically athletes should be able to take a majority of classes when they are in off season and during the season take an amount that won't lead to burnout and overextending themselves.

Additionally, we are all so tired of pretending that many of these recruits or their families are not getting benefits of some kind (the McDonald's inclusion in the title of All American isn't ironic at all by the way).

The NCAA should be removed from the Division I money making machine that college sports at that level have become.

Let's be honest if this FBI probe was given unlimited resources and able to administer truth serum to all college officials and sports agents they're interrogating no school's slate at this level would be clean. This tells me one thing for certain, whatever the NCAA currently says they are doing to enforce their rules is the definition of insanity because they keep doing the same thing (which is nothing) and expecting different results. Time and time again the NCAA has proven to be perfectly content to expect schools to carry out an honor system enforcement of the rules. More recently, they're even happy to let the schools punish themselves too. Then they tack on their supplementary and stupidly pointless "wins vacated" punishment. This must be where they have dedicated all their time and energy - scouring the earth and redacting all the editions of Sports Illustrated and Guinness Sports Records to ink blot out that 2004 National Championship game among others, but you see NCAA we all know who won that game, USC by a mile and it doesn't matter that you made Reggie Bush return his Heisman, he was still the Heisman winner the next year too. That's the thing about history its awful hard to change or erase without a DeLorean, especially years after its happened.

In order to remove the Not Competent at Anything Association from the future of their success these schools need to create a collaborative commission to help govern each other and hold one another accountable to the rules and practices they create and to which they agree.

Of course none of this will be possible or even purposeful unless the professional leagues, namely the NFL and NBA, stop using the college level as the main minor league supplier of talent, stars and roster fodder. Instead these professional organizations should do the right thing and enter an agreement with the Institutions Auxiliary Athletic Departments to help organize and support them as a full functioning minor league. Players can enter contractual agreements with schools based on their overall interest in the school and the team but when doing so they must declare their intent as either degree or draft seeking. If they declare as degree seeking they must attend the school for a minimum of two years (enough time to complete an associate’s degree or an accelerated Bachelor's degree core that schools would/could develop) or until the degree they declare is complete, whichever comes first. The first time they would be eligible for the draft would be following their degree completion.

{This point brings me to a tangent about the dysfunction of the education system on a whole in our country so if you are interested in that read on otherwise skip this bracketed section and keep reading below. As I stated above schools may be encouraged by this athletic department shift to develop in depth two year intensive core major degree programs, this could be the first step to revolutionizing how we should approach education in this country. Who decided it takes four years to earn a bachelor's degree in something? Who decided it should take 13 years to complete K-12 grade learning? Are there neither children who, if properly instructed, could complete that in a shorter time nor children who may still need an additional portion to get to that same point of clarity and understanding? Teachers spend 25-33% of each school year re-educating students on previously taught methods because they are never learned properly the first time or lost due to atrophy of the skill not just over the three month reprieve of summer but when you study anything for a month and then don't utilize it as a building block for another few weeks its bound to atrophy. The teaching and learning experience alike are typically akin to two steps forward one step back year in and year out. Why are wasting time, resources, energy and effort in this roundabout educational drudgery? We need to take a work smarter not pointlessly approach to education in this country all the way from the ground up. Get on this Betsy DeVos! Everyone assumes you're screwing up an already broken system why not just scrap the entire thing and pilot this idea? We would obviously need a good generation of emphasizing teaching as a core value of this country (which we barely give a rats ass about now hence why we are headed toward a quality teacher shortage if we're not already there) in order to prepare a strong population of quality educators who can nurture and educate students in productive ratio groups and by ascertaining student skill levels to determine what level work they should be doing/learning not doing the same fractions they breeze through just because they are in third grade and that's what every does during that month. It’s likely they could work on the higher skill if they are mathematically gifted while in turn they may require more time in another area with which they may struggle. By the time students reach high school level learning they would have a much better understanding of where their strengths and struggles lay and that would help guide them greatly on career mapping/planning. If they choose to enter the higher education system because it should be a choose and no not everyone NEEDS to choose that, everyone should be able to access it if they so choose but not everyone should or would. So if they choose to enter the higher education system they should find awaiting them two main choices: one path for those who are career/major certain and those academic paths should not include more than the pertinent "core courses" that would impact their major directly up until that point they would have been receiving a liberal arts education so if they are declaring it is for good reason and time should not be extended for fundamentals unless they are found to be lacking. This would immediately enable institutions to shrink their bloated four and five and six year degree path programs to almost half that time and if more practical learning is needed "in the field" so to speak then by all means get to it sooner and allow for more time in practicality (this would be specifically helpful to education, medical, sociological fields and others like them). Decreasing the time students need to truly be students at this level helps with the debt issue currently impacting just about everyone who attends college now as well. I know this is not fully fleshed out but I'll save the rest of the details for my education plan when I run for office, end of tangent.}

If an incoming athlete declares a path for draft then that is their priority and they would have the option to engage in course study while there, possibly minoring in a subject of interest during their short time if they so choose. Otherwise they would be solely connected to the institution as an athlete and would audit some useful courses like personal finance management to once again set them up for success as should be an institution's core goal.

Clearly the current system isn't working and has not been for a while so why not try something new? The majority of the pieces are already in place for all of this to happen it’s just a matter of removing the pieces that don't fit the biggest of which is the NCAA, and replacing them with the necessary ones. This would all lead to a functioning minor league and would allow the institutions and the athletes to monetize their industry, competitions, autographs, memorabilia, etc. that would all add to helping support the minor league function too. Fundamentally, this is a house of cards because it would all rely on many corporate entities showing for the first time in their many decades that they care more about the people in their industry than the money they create for them. They would have to be okay sharing the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue they have the potential to make. They would all have to play nice and not break the rules and when someone inevitably does they'd have to be fair and judicious so that when they themselves inevitably break the rules they'd receive the same fair punishment. If they could put all this opportunity and potential ahead of their typical innate selfish nature they could revolutionize not just the sports industry for lifetimes to come but the ripple effect could benefit education and who knows what else in this country and possibly the world and I think we can all agree we're in need of some rippling right now.