Jason Whitlock: Into the Deep End

So I logged onto my computer after getting off from work and noticed this little headline on MSN:

"Expose the NCAA-Not the Athletes" - Jason Whitlock

This may be perhaps the worst thing I have ever read from Whitlock, who I hoenstly find to be a little hit and miss.  There are days when he can actually write some insightful and well thought out articles, and then there is....well, whatever this is.

The article is a response to the recent NCAA investigation of numerous players who may or may not have attended an agents party, a direct violation of NCAA rules.

Look, Jason, I get it.  Race is your thing, your main focus on issues in sports.  However, there is a difference between an article describing race relations and an article that uses race to get attention, and this is the latter.

Whitlock is not a racist, though some will call him that because of this article.  Rather he is a smart writer, which is juxstaposed to the honest one he claims to be.  Let me be clear, he is not a bad journalist, it is unfortunate that we live in a society where sensationlism and entertainment trump information and facts.  Whitlock is certainly not the first, or the last, journalist to use sensationalism to get hits on his web site.  This article is something that will certainly generate buzz (and the fact that I am writing about it should confirm that to some extent).  This type of writing can be entertaining or engaging but the reality is that it neglects the fact.

The crux of Jason's argument is that the NCAA is "enslaving" college athletes by not paying them for their time in college, something he reinforces with allusions to "Roots" among other pop culture sources.  His argument is layed out in one simple sentence, "We know exactly what Byers knows and admitted: amateur athletics is a for-profit scam".  Whitlock also claims that major sports in basketball and football are being used to subsidize "welfare sports".

So let me get this straight, we should pay athletes in sports that make money because they are earning that money?  Sounds reasonable right?  Except that doesn't work. 

Let's start from the bottom and move up.

In sports like women's basketball and wrestling there are a small number of teams that do make money.  Does UConn have to pay their players while Notre Dame and Florida don't?  Do Iowa wrestlers get paychecks while their counterparts at Illinois and Ohio State are left out to dry?  Whitlock is really only saying that football and basketball players should get paid, not all athletes whose teams make money and it really flies in the face of what athletes in other sports have achieved.  While Whitlock may dismiss "welfare" sports , the reality is that they are a great opportunity for athletes to compete for their school and for students who may not have had a shot at a scholarship a free college education.  It is a bit ironic how Whitlock is able to compare the NCAA rulebook to laws that "denied women's suffrage" while simultaneously calling out non-profit teams, which includes nearly every women's sports team in the country.

Furthermore, do you as an athlete get paid if your team is not making money?  The Iowa basketball team hasn't exactly been raking in the dough these past couple of years, how do you justify paying players when they havn't drawn crowds large enough to make the program profitable?
Not only does it create an issue of how players should be payed, it all but destroys the already strained issue of parity in college sports.

Imagine you are a recruit, you have the option of going to Michigan State, Iowa, or Penn State.  All three are fine academic institutions but because Penn State is probably going to get you the most money it should be the obvious choice.  Paying college athletes based on how much they bring in to the school is asking for parity issues in the sport as the best athletes will go to the schools that will earn them the most money. 

And what about conferences?  We heard all summer about how the Big Ten and SEC make grossly larger sums of money than schools in other conferences.  If  athletes in these conferences are earning more money it stands to reason that the best athletes would head to those regions.  What does this do for programs like Missouri or Georgia Tech who would be at a huge recruiting disadvantages to their neighbors?

Look I am not saying the NCAA is perfect.  If this were about basketball athletes not being forced to go to colege for a year, I would be all for it.  However, in the case of football, which make no mistake is highest grossing sport by a wide margin, these athletes require the years of training they receive for their bodies to develop and for them to learn the technique nesscesary to play proffesional ball.  You can't say that athletesaren't already receiving compensation when they are receiving at least three years of intensive training, a free education (if they choose to utilize it), and compensation for room and board (not to mention the numerous gifts they receive from the school in terms of clothes and bowl swag). 

So really, this isn't the media "demonizing black kids for cashing in like white men" as Whitlock describes.  Rather, the players being punished for violating the NCAA's rules on agents is more of a case of individuals breaking a contract.  Frankly, these kids knew taking gifts from agents was against their agreement (you know, the one that pays for pretty much everything they do) and I have no problem for them being punished because they need to have more than their entire present and future payed for.  These kids are not slaves, they are ungrateful college students who think that they deserve more than the already huge compensation they are already receiving.

Whitlock, you are better than this, stop race baiting and start reporting.

Looking at Division Allignment

So the Big Ten has added Nebraska.  Great.


But seriously, how surprised would you really be if Hitler was rooting for Texas?


Now we are left to ponder the question of how we divide the conference for a title game?

I have been and always will be against the title game simply because it devalues one of the conference's best teams by handing them a loss.  If you think I am wrong ask Missouri in 2007 how playing the Sooners a  second time in the season worked for them when it came time to be selected for a bowl.  Also the Big XII South struggles in 2008 when three teams finished 11-1 remains one of the biggest disasters that  has occured because of divisional alignment.  Growing up in Big XII country it isn't hard to not like conference championship games since the history of the Big XII is basically a case studies in the negative effect the game has on the teams in the conference.

However, it seems as though the Big Ten is destined for a conference championship game and, inevitably, divisions. 

So how do we do it?

Well Akham's Razor tells us that the simplest answer is the correct one, and I think it applies here.  The league that has had by far and away the most success with a championship game is the SEC.  The guys in the south got it right by ignoring the balance of power at the moment and sticking with traditional rivalries and geographic balance.  When the conference was formed the league hopelessly overpowered by the Eastern schools.  Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee were all national powers and while Alabama was certainly a force out west, the rest of the division was relatively mediocre.  LSU was so-so, Ole Miss was horrible, Auburn was just o.k., and Mississippi State was the second best team in the division behind the Crimson Tide, and it wasn't exactly close.  It just goes to show that whoever is good now is not garaunteed to be good in the future.

Splitting the teams up geographically with one preserved game keeps travel costs to a minnimum while ensuring natural rivalries persist.  Are you really wanting to break up the triumvirate of hate that is OSU-PSU-UM?  How about UW, Minn, and Iowa?  These are some of the oldest and most storied rivalries in the conference and should be treated as such.

These people clearly belong together

I Feel Like I Am Taking Crazy Pills

So I was off for a while with stuff happening but I wanted to respond to this not so recent article by Dan Wetzel over at Yahoo Sports which argues that Jim Delaney moved against a playoff simply because he knew it would make the Big 12 ripe for picking in his future expansion games. The sound you just heard was logic being pushed out a tenth story window.

What's even weirder is that Dennis Dodd is adding his own approval of this argument.  While I can safely say I wouldn't be surprised to hear bad ideas coming from Dodd, I am a little surprised with Wetzel who is usually a much smarter writer than this.  I normally don't break down writer's work but this seems to merit the Sioux City Journal treatment so let's take a look at this/

"Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe all but killed his own conference on April 30, 2008.


That’s when he decided to team up with the Big Ten and Pac-10 to reject a four-team playoff being pushed by the SEC and ACC. If the Big 12 (and/or the Big East) had supported it, the so-called “Plus One” model likely would’ve happened."


First off, Beebe killed his conference long before that point be refusing to think proactively about television deals and by continually alienating the brass up in Lincoln.  His choice to oppose the playoff push was, and as a matter of fact still is, in the best interest of the majority of the schools who play in his conference (more on that later). Second, how are you sure this would have happened?  I mean this is the second paragraph of your article and you have already made several outlandish unsupported statements that we are given no reason to believe.  What's to stop the Big Ten and Pac 10 packing up the Rose Bowl and leaving?  It's not like they haven't threatened to do it before. 

"Even that modest playoff would have meant hundreds of millions of additional revenue for college athletics. It would have then allowed for easy expansion for an even more lucrative 16-team postseason. That would have solved all the monetary concerns that have left the Big 12 on the verge of collapse at the hands of its one-time allies, the Big Ten and Pac-10.
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany admitted to Congress a 16-team playoff could gross four times what the current Bowl Championship Series does – in other words about $900 million annually."

Here is my question, if there really is this great evidence that a playoff would earn more money, where is it?  I mean, wouldn't that be a huge story?  "BCS costing college football millions"?  I mean I don't doubt there is some study out there that says just that but wouldn't it be in a legitimate news source right now if it was from a reliable source?  I mean if I just havn't read it yet feel free to post it in the comments but I have looked and looked for it and cannot find it.  Also, I don't doubt that Delany testified but please let me know where you found that since I again did a search and can't find a word on it anywhere.

Conference expansion is about to forever alter college athletics: destroying traditions, hammering taxpayers and increasing competition. It will leave once-major programs out of the loop, consolidate power and extend the gap between haves and have nots – even within leagues such as the Big Ten.

How does adding Nebraska hurt parity in the Big Ten? By being a more competitive league? By creating more prime matchups that will inevitably drive up already massive television deals? How exactly does this hurt parity in the league? And whose taxpayers are hurt in this? Nebraska's? The state just gained access to long term financial upgrades in addition to massive upticks in a huge swing in prestige in its' flagship university. Even if this does somehow increase their taxes, the long termbenefits are so ridiculously worth it that they would be stupid to complain about it.
"Conference expansion is about to forever alter college athletics: destroying traditions, hammering taxpayers and increasing competition. It will leave once-major programs out of the loop, consolidate power and extend the gap between haves and have nots – even within leagues such as the Big Ten."

How well did that work out?

"It’s clear now that Delany used opposition to a football playoff not to preserve some bit of 'tradition.' His expansion plans clearly indicate he cares nothing about that. It certainly wasn’t done for the sake of aiding Big Ten football, since a playoff with on-campus home games likely would’ve helped his teams."


The goal was to starve out the Big 12, Big East and even the ACC of the hundreds of millions a playoff would’ve given them and thus turn the future of college sports into a battle of television sets.
Here is the main issue with this statement; even with more funding for everybody, there is still a major discrepency between the television deals of the Big Ten and SEC versus everyone else. Assuming you are right about the playoff dolling out more money (which I want to remind you there has yet to be published evidence of) it still doesn't somehow magically change the fact that the Big Ten makes more money through media contracts than the Big 12. So even if Nebraska got moremoney from a playoff system (not a garauntee) they would still be in a conference controlled by Texas, would still have an academic advantage by joining the Big Ten, and would still stand to earn even more money with media deals.

"And let’s forget the ridiculous notion that the presidents are vehemently opposed to a playoff. The presidents will do whatever their commissioner says. It’s always been that case and the expansion chaos proves it. Ohio State’s Gee has been an anti-playoff guy in part because of “missed class time,” even if none would be missed under a playoff that takes place during semester break."

Where to begin on this one? Let's start with the outright falsehood that presidents follow the conference commisioners. Let's assume for a second that Wetzel is right in this assertion, wouldn't that be direct evidence that a playoff would earn more money? I mean conference commisioners are not accountable to people like teachers who have complained that a playoff would move into the academic year, and if Wetzel is right when he says that it is "always about the money" then it makes absolutely no sense why we wouldn't have a playoff. The idea that it was used to make the conference realignment happen obviously doesn't make sense because the discrepencies in funding would exsist regardless.

What does this really mean? Well, the truth is that Commisioners are the busy bodies who do the work that university presidents don't have time to do since they are, wait for it, running a major institution. The amount of work involved in coordinating a conference is best done by a centralized entity. Conference's, and their commisioners, exsist solely to ease the burden of athletic directors and school presidents. If you really need the heirarchy, a conference commisioner is on the same level as the athletic director. They both report to the school president (or presidents) and neither answers to the other in terms of athletics.

So if the president is in charge of everything why is it "ridiculous" to believe they are opposed to a playoff?  They have to accountto the proffesor's and organizations who represent them, and none of those groups are wild about the idea of extending the college football season.  The idea that a playoff should just be held "during break" is idiotic since not all universities share the same breaks oreven academic structure.  Not every University operates on the semester system, and for some shcools a late playoff means that you would be scheduling right smack dab in the middle of the winter session.  I mean the current BCS system already caused problems two yearsago when Florida was forced to miss class time because of the BCS title game. 

But perhaps the greatest indicator of why presidents don't want a playoff then the argument brought forthby SI's Stewart Mandel in his recent mailbag.

"So ask yourself: Of the 67 schools that control the BCS, how many would actually benefit from a playoff? I.e., how many programs realistically compete on a regular basis for national championships? Ten? Maybe 15? At the very most, 20. But if you're at Michigan State, Ole Miss, Oregon State or any other rank-and-file BCS program, the current system is far preferable. You get to mooch financially off the two or three elite teams in your conference while at the same time competing for more realistic goals (an occasional conference title, decent bowl games) that keep your fans engaged and encouraged.

 Reasonable minds may disagree as to whether a playoff would devalue the regular season, but the reality is, a playoff would completely alter fans' standards for success. Just like with any other sport, any season in which your team doesn't qualify for the playoffs would be deemed a failure. Which means, even with a 16-team playoff, roughly 85 percent of the country will be disappointed every season. And if you happen to be a fan of a team that perennially misses the playoff -- which, within some BCS conferences, might be eight out of 12 teams -- it stands to reason that your interest in the sport would wane."

Add the the threat of losing recruiting advantages along with threatsof loss in alumni donations, prospective student interest, and the afformentioned issues with scheduling and it is kind of a no brainer as to why administrators are opposing a playoff.

So in summary, it is good that this article only made it online, since it would have been a bigger waste of paper than the National Inquirer.  Dan Wetzel, you are normally a better writer than this, please start citing sources and stop throwing out conjecture like it is fact.