An Overreaction in College Sports

In recent college sports related news a ten year football coach with a national championship on his resume resigned because of NCAA regulations, an eight year athletic director who has fired two high profile coaches (one considered a legend and another who broke NCAA rules) and hired another who left after one year (and also supposedly broke NCAA rules) resigned, A QB who exchanged memorabilia for tattoos and perhaps received other benefits will abandon his senior year in college and finally, a storied football program will have a national title from nearly a decade ago vacated in addition to ongoing punishments to the current team because the family of one player on that team took benefits.

Certainly college athletics is going through a very interesting time. When news like this breaks en masse over a relatively short period of time it can seem as though there is an intractable mess of things in college athletics and can convey an unflattering image. When considered against hundreds of colleges with sports programs that exist, further examination of NCAA rules and enforcement and uncertainty in regard to the behavior of past college programs that image softens a bit.

There seems to be a conventional wisdom within sports media that an NCAA violation constitutes some malicious deed resulting in a news cycle hate of a person who may have just lost their career or their opportunity for an education or preparation for a future in professional sports. It certainly isn’t easy to find sympathy with someone who broke rules governing their livelihood and the punishments received are justified because those in these positions must understand the consequences of such actions when entering that environment, however, the public condemnation of these people is often over the line and is unnecessary.

Much of the reason lies within NCAA rules and enforcement. Coaches are fired for too much contact with recruits, an arbitrary limit set each time technology provides a new possibility. Coaches are chastised for not knowing the personal lives of a single player of more than a 100 while they work 15 hour days throughout the season. Players are made out to be simpletons who cannot understand the rules and likened to servants because to some their relatively charmed college existence isn’t more like that of a professional’s, a life which very few of them will ever know. Players on a team in 2011 cannot play in the postseason because of the actions of a single player and his family who moved on six years ago.

Sports media opinion when it comes to college sanctions range from the lecturing and judgmental to insane, suggesting prison or outrageous fines for what basically amount to thought crimes and selfishness. Others irresponsibly use it to push for making college sports into basically a minor league, advocating salaries for players while completely ignoring the fact that most programs could never survive such a system and could effectively destroy college sports. What’s missing is a sense of proportion and an ability to step back and contemplate that sports is not a life and death thing and that while these actions are wrong they are not doing real, actual harm to anyone. No one is being literally robbed nor physically harmed. A need for drama and hate objects too often clouds effective reasoning.