Golson Situation Reveals NCAA Problems
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Mark [email protected]
Notre Dame graduating senior quarterback Everett Golson wants to transfer from Notre Dame. Seems simple enough, but evidently the Irish get some input as to where he can go play his final year of eligibility.
I’ve not heard a lot about football players transferring after graduating; sadly the extent of my observation was with Charlie Weis at Kansas, who brought in Dayne Crist for a season in Lawrence.
That’s what convinced me the NCAA needs to have its own set of people for each sport: football people running football, people who know basketball, and so on.
I have no idea what made Crist think he could be successful in Lawrence. There was no way the Jayhawks were going to have the talent level of the Irish in Weis’ first year, and in some ways it seems unlikely to ever happen.
In basketball, sure, there are various systems that are run, and plenty of all of them to choose from in selecting a place for a college experience. It’s possible for one player to impact a team without a great deal of help from teammates in basketball, and I think that’s less true in football.
On the gridiron, (and Golson may be a good example) a transferring senior may have a shot at playing professionally. In basketball, if a player has the talent to be drafted by an NBA team, odds are that player won’t see a senior year, and if graduation will be pursued it’ll be as someone who travels the country extensively.
But basketball provides opportunity for Americans to play overseas and make seven-figure salaries. Football’s only real professional alternative is in Canada, and I’m certain the Canadian Football League produces few millionaires.
All this is to say football and basketball are like men and women; it’s good to have both of them around, and each has different needs and wants. In many ways you can treat both of them the same, but in key areas they are different.
In the NCAA’s case, those differences are enough to need separate rules for each sport.
Why not assemble a group of people, experts who know a specific sport inside and out, on and off the field, and have them make and enforce the rules for their sport?
Now, the drawback to such a plan is revenue. Football and men’s basketball finance college sports, there’s no escaping that reality. Few women’s college basketball or baseball programs are financially independent. Everything else requires funding to exist.
Sooner or later, student-athletes will be compensated financially for their skills and talents. Yes, a scholarship is significant, but it’s chump change in comparison to the dollars generated by those with the skills and talents.
When that day comes, having sport-specific people monitoring the situation allows for better enforcement of the rules in place.
I also think it’d help clear up a lot of the red tape that comes with players and eligibility.
There’s no way to fully develop a case like this in the space I have today. But the NCAA in its current form is obsolete, and the house can’t be remodeled – the foundation is weak, the walls have been torn out and replaced too often already, and it’s not wired to handle the 21st century college sports landscape.
It’s time for reconstruction. It’s time to tear the sucker down and start clean. And like any construction, the longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost.
Other things I wonder about: Last week I mentioned how hot the Houston Astros were, and they turned around and made me look good by losing three in a row and five out of seven. But, they split a four-game set with their nearest competitor in the American League West, the Angels, and remain in first place by five games.
So it’s good to know this column isn’t the kiss of death to professional sports teams.
Is it just me, or is there plenty of blame to go around in the New England Patriots’ deflated ball scandal, (I will steadfastly decline to use suffix “-gate” when describing a scandal, but I am old enough to remember Watergate.)
All superstars will do well to remember the gratituities they give locker room personnel may be chump change to the athlete, but could be a couple of weeks worth of groceries to the attendant.
And the locker room people know they are fortunate to work in a peofessional sports setting, and likely get a bit of status from it. They will do whatever it takes to keep that job for as long as they can afford to stay. Even if that means taking some air our of the footballs before a big game.
It would be nice if the 24-7 coverage of this incident would tone down a few notches. But then again I just perpetuated it, didn’t I?
Yes, the last few NBA playoff games have been pretty exciting. The hard part is enduring an 82-game regular season to eliminate less than half the teams in the league.[[In-content Ad]]
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Notre Dame graduating senior quarterback Everett Golson wants to transfer from Notre Dame. Seems simple enough, but evidently the Irish get some input as to where he can go play his final year of eligibility.
I’ve not heard a lot about football players transferring after graduating; sadly the extent of my observation was with Charlie Weis at Kansas, who brought in Dayne Crist for a season in Lawrence.
That’s what convinced me the NCAA needs to have its own set of people for each sport: football people running football, people who know basketball, and so on.
I have no idea what made Crist think he could be successful in Lawrence. There was no way the Jayhawks were going to have the talent level of the Irish in Weis’ first year, and in some ways it seems unlikely to ever happen.
In basketball, sure, there are various systems that are run, and plenty of all of them to choose from in selecting a place for a college experience. It’s possible for one player to impact a team without a great deal of help from teammates in basketball, and I think that’s less true in football.
On the gridiron, (and Golson may be a good example) a transferring senior may have a shot at playing professionally. In basketball, if a player has the talent to be drafted by an NBA team, odds are that player won’t see a senior year, and if graduation will be pursued it’ll be as someone who travels the country extensively.
But basketball provides opportunity for Americans to play overseas and make seven-figure salaries. Football’s only real professional alternative is in Canada, and I’m certain the Canadian Football League produces few millionaires.
All this is to say football and basketball are like men and women; it’s good to have both of them around, and each has different needs and wants. In many ways you can treat both of them the same, but in key areas they are different.
In the NCAA’s case, those differences are enough to need separate rules for each sport.
Why not assemble a group of people, experts who know a specific sport inside and out, on and off the field, and have them make and enforce the rules for their sport?
Now, the drawback to such a plan is revenue. Football and men’s basketball finance college sports, there’s no escaping that reality. Few women’s college basketball or baseball programs are financially independent. Everything else requires funding to exist.
Sooner or later, student-athletes will be compensated financially for their skills and talents. Yes, a scholarship is significant, but it’s chump change in comparison to the dollars generated by those with the skills and talents.
When that day comes, having sport-specific people monitoring the situation allows for better enforcement of the rules in place.
I also think it’d help clear up a lot of the red tape that comes with players and eligibility.
There’s no way to fully develop a case like this in the space I have today. But the NCAA in its current form is obsolete, and the house can’t be remodeled – the foundation is weak, the walls have been torn out and replaced too often already, and it’s not wired to handle the 21st century college sports landscape.
It’s time for reconstruction. It’s time to tear the sucker down and start clean. And like any construction, the longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost.
Other things I wonder about: Last week I mentioned how hot the Houston Astros were, and they turned around and made me look good by losing three in a row and five out of seven. But, they split a four-game set with their nearest competitor in the American League West, the Angels, and remain in first place by five games.
So it’s good to know this column isn’t the kiss of death to professional sports teams.
Is it just me, or is there plenty of blame to go around in the New England Patriots’ deflated ball scandal, (I will steadfastly decline to use suffix “-gate” when describing a scandal, but I am old enough to remember Watergate.)
All superstars will do well to remember the gratituities they give locker room personnel may be chump change to the athlete, but could be a couple of weeks worth of groceries to the attendant.
And the locker room people know they are fortunate to work in a peofessional sports setting, and likely get a bit of status from it. They will do whatever it takes to keep that job for as long as they can afford to stay. Even if that means taking some air our of the footballs before a big game.
It would be nice if the 24-7 coverage of this incident would tone down a few notches. But then again I just perpetuated it, didn’t I?
Yes, the last few NBA playoff games have been pretty exciting. The hard part is enduring an 82-game regular season to eliminate less than half the teams in the league.[[In-content Ad]]
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