Sunday, April 3, 2016
What Would Anyone Miss About College Sports?
I awoke this morning to the sound of lawn-mowers, the breeze in the
spring air, and the sound of the occasional motorcycle revving down a
nearby road. The sun came up, the grass has started to grow, and people
apparently have things to do and places to go (even I have this blog to
write). And all of these glorious events have managed to happen after
the single worst day of organized basketball in the history of the game.
Since I've been on a diatribe (apparently my natural style) about how awful college basketball has become, I thought, what the hell? Why not keep it going? Whatever I write can't be any worse than than the farce college basketball has become.
What prompted today's disgust, you ask? After all, didn't I get that out of my system last night, eviscerating everything from the poor play to the historical non-competitiveness to the fact Syracuse was in the Final Four arguably because of a terrible officiating call?
ESPN commentator Jay Bilas, who does a fine job doing color commentary for college basketball games, recently posted two articles about college basketball and its problems. Let's start with acknowledging that Bilas recognizes something is wrong with college basketball. Where he and I diverge is that Bilas actually seems to think the game can be "fixed," or at least improved, whereas I argue it is a lost cause, and further tinkering serves no purpose.
First, Jay Bilas, and anyone else who makes a living talking about sports games, is not an "analyst." He is, as I said above, a commentator--that is, he comments (note the etymological connection) about games and the state of the game. An analyst performs tasks of intellectual rigor. Talking about college basketball is not the same thing as--for example--figuring out how to engineer an aircraft carrier.
Bilas' two recommendations for the college game have been that 1) the game would be better if the games were played over four quarters rather than two halves, and 2) players have a right to boycott the Final Four over not being paid despite being the star pieces of a multi-million dollar performance.
If Bilas is somehow impressed by women's college basketball, which has adopted a four quarter system this season, I am confused. Seeing Connecticut lead Mississippi St. 64-11 in the third quarter of a regional final does not seem to contrast yesterday's indescribably bad and non-competitive play in the men's national semi-finals. As for paying the players, that argument has been around for a long time. All that's happened is that coaches' salaries continue to skyrocket, along with that of athletic directors and university presidents. How could the players be paid on par with all of the other people making millions of dollars off of a game that, if you ask me, has become worthless? The better question after yesterday's shitty play: why pay them--or anyone else involved in the operation?
What I find aggravating about articles and proposals like the ones Bilas has made is that they acknowledge major problems with college basketball but insist that the game is essentially in good shape since only minor adjustments are all that's needed to address its problems. How will four 10-minute quarters improve perimeter offense and free-throw shooting? How will that make the two two-thirds of games that are designed blowouts to pump up the win column less boring and predictable?
As for the boycott idea, let's say that happens. Tomorrow (Monday) night Villanova and UNC decide that instead of playing for the national championship they've dreamed about and dedicated themselves to winning, the players will instead march onto the court and hold signs of protest at the financial absurdity of college basketball, form a circle at mid-court, announce they are not going to play, and then walk out, leaving a stadium full of fans and millions of TV viewers with nothing to do for the evening. Game of chess, anyone?
So the games go to four quarters, and some arbitrary, cryptic formula is devised for paying the players. Now what? Suddenly everything is OK?
I wonder, after watching yesterday's carnage of basketball, why anyone cares at this point if another college basketball game were ever played again. If you're good enough to be a professional player, then go for it. If not, join a rec center and show everyone how good you are. You got next, dawg.
The irony is that, of all things, low quality of play and non-competitive games--even at the Final Four--have proven that college basketball is an operation who's time has run out. One would think that the millions of dollars poured into the game, the state-of-the-art facilities, and the "rule" that the few who really are good enough to play in the pros only have to play in college for one year would have made the game better than ever. But rather than get into some complex discussion about why the opposite is true--college basketball has fallen apart--I would simply point out, yet again, the poor quality of play and non-competitive games as more than sufficient evidence that the game serves no purpose. It was bad enough that the coaches, ADs, and presidents raked in millions while the laborers were forbidden a piece of the action. Now the product itself isn't worth anyone's attention, let alone money.
Wouldn't it be great if, instead of the one-and-done "rule," universities announced that any students who got a 4.0 for their entire year as a freshman could go ahead and graduate? You think that might get students to buckle down instead of spending their first year at State U. funneling beer, skipping class, and exploiting bullshit policies like "freshman forgiveness" that essentially program young college students to treat their education like their lowest priority?
Or how about if professors automatically got tenure after one-year of excellent student evaluations and classroom observations from colleagues, plus a publication? How long does it take to figure out if someone with a PhD is smart and knows what they're doing?
Yet no doubt such ideas would be rejected as absurd. Students and teachers need to do the hard work and prove their mettle through the euphemistic "endurance test" of higher education. Meanwhile, one successful season as a coach--exceeded expected number of wins, a major upset win in the NCAAs--yields a raise that will be enough to live on for a lifetime. For the players, one season of good basketball means you're ready to be a pro.
College sports in general have become a toxin of the university. Large numbers of students attend universities first and foremost to be immersed in the university sports culture, while those who attend primarily to pursue an education, or possibly an academic career, face an unending number of requirements and critiques no matter how much or how early they excel. The point is, there is zero connection between quality of performance and financial success. Society has already decided before tip-off that the athletes will win and the intellects will lose, even when the athletic events have somehow exceeded the presumed dullness and irrelevance of intellectual pursuits.
Maybe more people would be impressed with the efforts of Aristotle and Plato if there were U-Tube videos of them bricking three-pointers and free-throws in front of a packed house at the Parthenon.
To make it even worse, students who excel academically and pursue graduate degrees are often saddled with debt, while college professors make meager salaries compared to that of coaches. And for what? So we can watch games like the ones played yesterday? It would be impossible to attend a lecture that boring. To extend the ironic comparison, yesterday's games did provide an epiphany: college basketball is no fun, and whatever pretense college sports may have had for existing can no longer prop them up.
It is bad enough to support a system of higher education that so
blatantly promotes sports over education, where large portions of the
student population live for the games, the pre-parties, after-game
parties, all the while bemoaning the fact that next morning's class will
interrupt their hangover. So much for critical thinking as an
essential part of higher education. But such an inverted perspective on
the purpose of universities did have, once-upon-a-time, well-played,
competitive, exciting games to mask the hypocrisy and intellectual
sabotage that was at the root of their business. Now, a pickup game
between faculty and staff would be more interesting to watch than
yesterday's national semi-finals.
Even President Obama, a Harvard-educated, well-spoken, professorial figure, feeds this archaic and toxic sideshow by making it a point to fill out a March Madness bracket on national TV. At least that is one thing he has been able to do without Congress getting in his way.
Even more demoralizing is that the combination of inattention to education and bad basketball result in a scenario where the college students, who camp out for days to get tickets and go ape-shit over the introduction of players are so poorly educated they don't even realize how bad the basketball they are watching really is. Never mind their apathy about anything academic or intellectual; even the thing that they think is worthwhile isn't worth knowing anything about.
The financial hypocrisy, greed, and warped priorities that college sports cast on the university have been major problems that have gone on way too long. But with the horrendous quality of play on display at yesterday's final four, along with the undeniable reality that most games are rigged to be boring, non-competitive wastes of time played in packed stadiums for national TV audiences, one has to wonder why the glaring question instead isn't why do people still think college sports have any appeal--rather than the long-standing criticisms of college sports that have always run into the obstacle of their entertainment value in spite of their ethical and intellectual validity.
There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But a basic truth is that lots of broken things either get replaced or simply thrown away. Their value and duration is finite, as tends to be the human condition, save for the unending bullshit of everyday life, which doesn't need any deliberate reinforcement on the part of humans themselves.
Given all the problems of college basketball and college sports in general, there is no good reason to keep them going. Young people who excelled in sports in high school but aren't good enough to be pros--and that's most of them--need to figure out what life has to offer besides doing something with a ball. The college sports system serves as a cakewalk to lucrative financial success that is neither legitimate nor beneficial to society. But the real source of bewilderment for me after yesterday, when basketball undeniably turned into something too boring and poorly performed to offer any excitement or entertainment, is why all of the fans behave as though there is anything of value in it for them.
If the financial hypocrisy, greed and warped priorities of college sports weren't enough to get rid of them, the fact that they don't even deliver the fleeting, superficial excitement they are supposed to is plenty of reason to bid them adieu. It's worth it to fix something that still has something to offer; it's a massive waste of time to tinker with something that has never been good for higher education or college life and now is an exercise in poor performance and boredom. In other words, if you would actually miss life without college sports, that is the best reason yet that the time has come to end them altogether.
Since I've been on a diatribe (apparently my natural style) about how awful college basketball has become, I thought, what the hell? Why not keep it going? Whatever I write can't be any worse than than the farce college basketball has become.
What prompted today's disgust, you ask? After all, didn't I get that out of my system last night, eviscerating everything from the poor play to the historical non-competitiveness to the fact Syracuse was in the Final Four arguably because of a terrible officiating call?
ESPN commentator Jay Bilas, who does a fine job doing color commentary for college basketball games, recently posted two articles about college basketball and its problems. Let's start with acknowledging that Bilas recognizes something is wrong with college basketball. Where he and I diverge is that Bilas actually seems to think the game can be "fixed," or at least improved, whereas I argue it is a lost cause, and further tinkering serves no purpose.
First, Jay Bilas, and anyone else who makes a living talking about sports games, is not an "analyst." He is, as I said above, a commentator--that is, he comments (note the etymological connection) about games and the state of the game. An analyst performs tasks of intellectual rigor. Talking about college basketball is not the same thing as--for example--figuring out how to engineer an aircraft carrier.
Bilas' two recommendations for the college game have been that 1) the game would be better if the games were played over four quarters rather than two halves, and 2) players have a right to boycott the Final Four over not being paid despite being the star pieces of a multi-million dollar performance.
If Bilas is somehow impressed by women's college basketball, which has adopted a four quarter system this season, I am confused. Seeing Connecticut lead Mississippi St. 64-11 in the third quarter of a regional final does not seem to contrast yesterday's indescribably bad and non-competitive play in the men's national semi-finals. As for paying the players, that argument has been around for a long time. All that's happened is that coaches' salaries continue to skyrocket, along with that of athletic directors and university presidents. How could the players be paid on par with all of the other people making millions of dollars off of a game that, if you ask me, has become worthless? The better question after yesterday's shitty play: why pay them--or anyone else involved in the operation?
What I find aggravating about articles and proposals like the ones Bilas has made is that they acknowledge major problems with college basketball but insist that the game is essentially in good shape since only minor adjustments are all that's needed to address its problems. How will four 10-minute quarters improve perimeter offense and free-throw shooting? How will that make the two two-thirds of games that are designed blowouts to pump up the win column less boring and predictable?
As for the boycott idea, let's say that happens. Tomorrow (Monday) night Villanova and UNC decide that instead of playing for the national championship they've dreamed about and dedicated themselves to winning, the players will instead march onto the court and hold signs of protest at the financial absurdity of college basketball, form a circle at mid-court, announce they are not going to play, and then walk out, leaving a stadium full of fans and millions of TV viewers with nothing to do for the evening. Game of chess, anyone?
So the games go to four quarters, and some arbitrary, cryptic formula is devised for paying the players. Now what? Suddenly everything is OK?
I wonder, after watching yesterday's carnage of basketball, why anyone cares at this point if another college basketball game were ever played again. If you're good enough to be a professional player, then go for it. If not, join a rec center and show everyone how good you are. You got next, dawg.
The irony is that, of all things, low quality of play and non-competitive games--even at the Final Four--have proven that college basketball is an operation who's time has run out. One would think that the millions of dollars poured into the game, the state-of-the-art facilities, and the "rule" that the few who really are good enough to play in the pros only have to play in college for one year would have made the game better than ever. But rather than get into some complex discussion about why the opposite is true--college basketball has fallen apart--I would simply point out, yet again, the poor quality of play and non-competitive games as more than sufficient evidence that the game serves no purpose. It was bad enough that the coaches, ADs, and presidents raked in millions while the laborers were forbidden a piece of the action. Now the product itself isn't worth anyone's attention, let alone money.
Wouldn't it be great if, instead of the one-and-done "rule," universities announced that any students who got a 4.0 for their entire year as a freshman could go ahead and graduate? You think that might get students to buckle down instead of spending their first year at State U. funneling beer, skipping class, and exploiting bullshit policies like "freshman forgiveness" that essentially program young college students to treat their education like their lowest priority?
Or how about if professors automatically got tenure after one-year of excellent student evaluations and classroom observations from colleagues, plus a publication? How long does it take to figure out if someone with a PhD is smart and knows what they're doing?
Yet no doubt such ideas would be rejected as absurd. Students and teachers need to do the hard work and prove their mettle through the euphemistic "endurance test" of higher education. Meanwhile, one successful season as a coach--exceeded expected number of wins, a major upset win in the NCAAs--yields a raise that will be enough to live on for a lifetime. For the players, one season of good basketball means you're ready to be a pro.
College sports in general have become a toxin of the university. Large numbers of students attend universities first and foremost to be immersed in the university sports culture, while those who attend primarily to pursue an education, or possibly an academic career, face an unending number of requirements and critiques no matter how much or how early they excel. The point is, there is zero connection between quality of performance and financial success. Society has already decided before tip-off that the athletes will win and the intellects will lose, even when the athletic events have somehow exceeded the presumed dullness and irrelevance of intellectual pursuits.
Maybe more people would be impressed with the efforts of Aristotle and Plato if there were U-Tube videos of them bricking three-pointers and free-throws in front of a packed house at the Parthenon.
To make it even worse, students who excel academically and pursue graduate degrees are often saddled with debt, while college professors make meager salaries compared to that of coaches. And for what? So we can watch games like the ones played yesterday? It would be impossible to attend a lecture that boring. To extend the ironic comparison, yesterday's games did provide an epiphany: college basketball is no fun, and whatever pretense college sports may have had for existing can no longer prop them up.
Even President Obama, a Harvard-educated, well-spoken, professorial figure, feeds this archaic and toxic sideshow by making it a point to fill out a March Madness bracket on national TV. At least that is one thing he has been able to do without Congress getting in his way.
Even more demoralizing is that the combination of inattention to education and bad basketball result in a scenario where the college students, who camp out for days to get tickets and go ape-shit over the introduction of players are so poorly educated they don't even realize how bad the basketball they are watching really is. Never mind their apathy about anything academic or intellectual; even the thing that they think is worthwhile isn't worth knowing anything about.
The financial hypocrisy, greed, and warped priorities that college sports cast on the university have been major problems that have gone on way too long. But with the horrendous quality of play on display at yesterday's final four, along with the undeniable reality that most games are rigged to be boring, non-competitive wastes of time played in packed stadiums for national TV audiences, one has to wonder why the glaring question instead isn't why do people still think college sports have any appeal--rather than the long-standing criticisms of college sports that have always run into the obstacle of their entertainment value in spite of their ethical and intellectual validity.
There's an old saying: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But a basic truth is that lots of broken things either get replaced or simply thrown away. Their value and duration is finite, as tends to be the human condition, save for the unending bullshit of everyday life, which doesn't need any deliberate reinforcement on the part of humans themselves.
Given all the problems of college basketball and college sports in general, there is no good reason to keep them going. Young people who excelled in sports in high school but aren't good enough to be pros--and that's most of them--need to figure out what life has to offer besides doing something with a ball. The college sports system serves as a cakewalk to lucrative financial success that is neither legitimate nor beneficial to society. But the real source of bewilderment for me after yesterday, when basketball undeniably turned into something too boring and poorly performed to offer any excitement or entertainment, is why all of the fans behave as though there is anything of value in it for them.
If the financial hypocrisy, greed and warped priorities of college sports weren't enough to get rid of them, the fact that they don't even deliver the fleeting, superficial excitement they are supposed to is plenty of reason to bid them adieu. It's worth it to fix something that still has something to offer; it's a massive waste of time to tinker with something that has never been good for higher education or college life and now is an exercise in poor performance and boredom. In other words, if you would actually miss life without college sports, that is the best reason yet that the time has come to end them altogether.
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