Rogue
8/10/2006, 07:32 PM
http://www.comcast.net/sports/vito/
You know it's getting bad when SEC schools start cracking down on players.
Heh!:D
The non-believers in college athletics are pouncing. On the schools. On the coaches. On the players. And the academic year hasn't even started yet.
The series of offenses throughout college football's preseason has provided plenty of fodder for those who loathe the big business that has engulfed big-time athletics. Suspensions and expulsions and violations have dotted the landscape from Coral Gables to the City of Angels.
The tension had already been building on college coaches to control their athletes. Then, Oklahoma's Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn touched off the first major scandal under Sooners coach Bob Stoops and the critics mocked that the college football headlines resembled a police blotter.
Unfortunately, they're right. But why? Why are football players' transgressions on the rise this summer?
Or, are they?
In the last two weeks alone, college football has endured almost daily run-ins with the law. Along with the Oklahoma case, consider:
-- Miami suspended four players for the season opener against Florida State after undisclosed violations of team policy.
-- Ohio State suspended its starting tight end for the season after he violated unspecified team rules.
-- A USC defensive back tested positive for steroids before abruptly leaving the team a week before fall practice began.
-- Air Force handed down an indefinite suspension on its kicker for an unspecified violation of academy rules.
-- South Carolina suspended two players for the first three games of the season after violating university policy.
-- Georgia suspended its star punt returner for breaking team rules, the fifth Bulldog to receive a suspension since the end of last season.
-- Auburn suspended two linebackers for the first three games of the season after separate arrests for drunken driving and underage-drinking charges.
-- Tennessee suspended one player after an arrest for brandishing a toy gun at an off-duty police offer and dismissed another after an arrest for drunken driving--on a sidewalk.
You know it's getting bad when SEC schools start cracking down on players.
The Bomar-Quinn case helped bring some of this disciplinary action to the forefront. The reason: It's akin to the old-school college sports scandals. Stories of players and recruits getting money from boosters always make for a sexy saga. And that's what you had at OU, regardless of the front some boosters used to try to hide it.
Besides, you have to really mess up to be the starting quarterback on a national title contender to get thrown off the team. And, well, Bomar really messed up.
Bomar and Quinn, the starting offensive guard, were permanently dismissed from the team for violating NCAA rules during their employment at a car dealership. The pair apparently received money in excess of time actually worked.
Bomar, who had two prior citations for underage drinking (one was dropped), allegedly filed for 40-hour workweeks despite "working" about five hours per week. He reportedly received about $18,000 for his "work." Making matters laughably worse, some reports claimed that Bomar and Quinn were clocked in at the dealership while they were on the practice field.
But what's going on here? Are "kids these days" really that corrupt? Of course not.
However, I'm not satisfied with many of the explanations for this year's perceived increase in troublemakers.
The arguments that kids will be kids, or that athletes act up because they feel a sense of entitlement, or that increased media scrutiny is placed on programs around the nation can't completely account for all the problems. These factors have been hovering over the game for years.
The difference is that coaches have more to lose--not gain--than ever before. The unyielding pressures--the pressures of multimillion-dollar contracts, the pressures of lucrative endorsement deals, the pressures to win and bring pride to the university, the pressures to keep players from embarrassing the university--have coaches on edge.
And they refuse to let some kid tear them down. Stoops implied as much when announcing the Bomar and Quinn dismissals.
"In the end, the players need to be accountable," he said. "We can't spend every minute with them. Our compliance staff cannot spend every minute with them. When are they held accountable? In the end, ultimately they are."
Talk of accountability and high standards is a refrain we've been hearing from coaches throughout the land.
From Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer: "I have demanded accountability from our players and the team, and these two players have not followed instructions."
From Miami's Larry Coker: "The message is pretty clear--we have high standards here. We're a program of quality kids. And these kids are good kids. They're not bad kids. But we've got to get this message across."
Taking Coker's comments a step further, most of the kids in college football are good kids. But it's those few who go astray that make presidents shudder.
So, instead of coddling players, coaches are treating them more like adults. Make no mistake, this is a good thing.
It's high time that the players are held accountable. It's what college football--and college athletics in general--needs and it's long overdue.
Anyone who attended a sports powerhouse knows that athletes live very different lives from the rest of the student body. The more popular the sport, the more different the lifestyle. And the more successful the team, the more privileged that lifestyle still.
With that reality in tow, and just about everyone sick of it, coaches have little room for error. They have to disclose every wrongdoing. Because if they look the other way when players break the rules, the powers that be will look away when the spotlight of scrutiny comes hunting for them.
For many coaches back in the day, the ultimatum was win big or, at the very least, run a clean program. Now, it's win big and run a clean program. Or, at the very least, give the impression of a clean program.
As a result, the coaches focus on the one thing they can control--and it's not the play on the field by drawing Xs and Os on a white board. It's the molding of outside perceptions by handing down suspensions and dismissals.
Such damage control also has a convenient side effect. It's easier to explain a 7-5 season when your starters are on the bench than account for a mess of problems when the team went only 9-3. That's why you are hearing more and more about trouble on college campuses.
So, before you write-off the new season before it even begins because of another violation, remember: problem players are not what's on the rise in college football; it's the demands to control them that have reached new heights.
You know it's getting bad when SEC schools start cracking down on players.
Heh!:D
The non-believers in college athletics are pouncing. On the schools. On the coaches. On the players. And the academic year hasn't even started yet.
The series of offenses throughout college football's preseason has provided plenty of fodder for those who loathe the big business that has engulfed big-time athletics. Suspensions and expulsions and violations have dotted the landscape from Coral Gables to the City of Angels.
The tension had already been building on college coaches to control their athletes. Then, Oklahoma's Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn touched off the first major scandal under Sooners coach Bob Stoops and the critics mocked that the college football headlines resembled a police blotter.
Unfortunately, they're right. But why? Why are football players' transgressions on the rise this summer?
Or, are they?
In the last two weeks alone, college football has endured almost daily run-ins with the law. Along with the Oklahoma case, consider:
-- Miami suspended four players for the season opener against Florida State after undisclosed violations of team policy.
-- Ohio State suspended its starting tight end for the season after he violated unspecified team rules.
-- A USC defensive back tested positive for steroids before abruptly leaving the team a week before fall practice began.
-- Air Force handed down an indefinite suspension on its kicker for an unspecified violation of academy rules.
-- South Carolina suspended two players for the first three games of the season after violating university policy.
-- Georgia suspended its star punt returner for breaking team rules, the fifth Bulldog to receive a suspension since the end of last season.
-- Auburn suspended two linebackers for the first three games of the season after separate arrests for drunken driving and underage-drinking charges.
-- Tennessee suspended one player after an arrest for brandishing a toy gun at an off-duty police offer and dismissed another after an arrest for drunken driving--on a sidewalk.
You know it's getting bad when SEC schools start cracking down on players.
The Bomar-Quinn case helped bring some of this disciplinary action to the forefront. The reason: It's akin to the old-school college sports scandals. Stories of players and recruits getting money from boosters always make for a sexy saga. And that's what you had at OU, regardless of the front some boosters used to try to hide it.
Besides, you have to really mess up to be the starting quarterback on a national title contender to get thrown off the team. And, well, Bomar really messed up.
Bomar and Quinn, the starting offensive guard, were permanently dismissed from the team for violating NCAA rules during their employment at a car dealership. The pair apparently received money in excess of time actually worked.
Bomar, who had two prior citations for underage drinking (one was dropped), allegedly filed for 40-hour workweeks despite "working" about five hours per week. He reportedly received about $18,000 for his "work." Making matters laughably worse, some reports claimed that Bomar and Quinn were clocked in at the dealership while they were on the practice field.
But what's going on here? Are "kids these days" really that corrupt? Of course not.
However, I'm not satisfied with many of the explanations for this year's perceived increase in troublemakers.
The arguments that kids will be kids, or that athletes act up because they feel a sense of entitlement, or that increased media scrutiny is placed on programs around the nation can't completely account for all the problems. These factors have been hovering over the game for years.
The difference is that coaches have more to lose--not gain--than ever before. The unyielding pressures--the pressures of multimillion-dollar contracts, the pressures of lucrative endorsement deals, the pressures to win and bring pride to the university, the pressures to keep players from embarrassing the university--have coaches on edge.
And they refuse to let some kid tear them down. Stoops implied as much when announcing the Bomar and Quinn dismissals.
"In the end, the players need to be accountable," he said. "We can't spend every minute with them. Our compliance staff cannot spend every minute with them. When are they held accountable? In the end, ultimately they are."
Talk of accountability and high standards is a refrain we've been hearing from coaches throughout the land.
From Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer: "I have demanded accountability from our players and the team, and these two players have not followed instructions."
From Miami's Larry Coker: "The message is pretty clear--we have high standards here. We're a program of quality kids. And these kids are good kids. They're not bad kids. But we've got to get this message across."
Taking Coker's comments a step further, most of the kids in college football are good kids. But it's those few who go astray that make presidents shudder.
So, instead of coddling players, coaches are treating them more like adults. Make no mistake, this is a good thing.
It's high time that the players are held accountable. It's what college football--and college athletics in general--needs and it's long overdue.
Anyone who attended a sports powerhouse knows that athletes live very different lives from the rest of the student body. The more popular the sport, the more different the lifestyle. And the more successful the team, the more privileged that lifestyle still.
With that reality in tow, and just about everyone sick of it, coaches have little room for error. They have to disclose every wrongdoing. Because if they look the other way when players break the rules, the powers that be will look away when the spotlight of scrutiny comes hunting for them.
For many coaches back in the day, the ultimatum was win big or, at the very least, run a clean program. Now, it's win big and run a clean program. Or, at the very least, give the impression of a clean program.
As a result, the coaches focus on the one thing they can control--and it's not the play on the field by drawing Xs and Os on a white board. It's the molding of outside perceptions by handing down suspensions and dismissals.
Such damage control also has a convenient side effect. It's easier to explain a 7-5 season when your starters are on the bench than account for a mess of problems when the team went only 9-3. That's why you are hearing more and more about trouble on college campuses.
So, before you write-off the new season before it even begins because of another violation, remember: problem players are not what's on the rise in college football; it's the demands to control them that have reached new heights.