April through February Madness

I was watching Bob Costas' show on HBO earlier this week and he devoted the entire hour to college sports and the problems associated with them.

It was a parade of professors who have moved on - one was from the University of Miami... gasp - because they felt the pressure to pass athletes in their classes, disgruntled athletes and others on both sides of the argument.

The same questions as always came up, from "How many of these ballplayers can't read?" to "Did anyone ever steer you into a jock class or do your homework for you?" The biggest problem I had was that the show was full of the same old answers as well.

I guess I'd never thought too deeply into the problem. I went to a Division III school, where athletes were encouraged to take easy courses while in season and work harder after that. Most of the athletes I knew laughed and blew off this advice, while the ones who did take the bottom feeder classes were laughable and almost pathetic.

The big difference with student athletes at a D-III school is that very few are under the delusion that they'll make it big at the professional level and so sports are a diversion and a chance to compete at a higher level, but no more.

Not to take anything away from the players who made it - I washed out in just over a week in my attempts to play D-III soccer - but most saw it as an opportunity to stay in shape and keep playing sports they'd played for as long as they could remember.

I know that years of distance has made the whole picture a bit rosier, but it just seemed more pure than what I saw at the D-I schools around the Midwest.

The million dollar question that never gets asked in any of these hand-wringing sessions is why are we all so concerned that a few thousand students nationwide get a proper education? Thousands more each year have to flunk out entirely or just not come back after the first semester, and yet no one seems to be very concerned about the educations that they receive.

No one went on CBS and discussed what to do about me when I simply stopped going back to school before I graduated. Why is this such a big issue for everyone?

Given the money on the line, wouldn't it make more sense for everyone to let the players focus on the games while they're in season and maybe even cut them in on the profits to take some of the wind out of the sails of improper booster gifts and players who just want a taste of the big money the school is seeing?

In short, is it really worth all of the hoops the players and programs need to jump through in the name of preserving some antiquated idea of what a "student athlete" is?

Look at it this way - while other kids are going to college to learn to be teachers or writers, what's so wrong with teaching athletes (equally talented as an artist in most cases) to be better athletes?

Forget the cheap gags about Posse Management 101 or Intro to Finance: When to stop asking for lap dances before rent is due, but why is this such a distasteful idea?

Athletes take courses in agriculture and other low-profile majors that do them no good when they move along, yet they are force-fed this crap so that they have a major to declare on their Saturday afternoon head shot as the starting lineup is announced.

Is it too much to ask to treat athletes like athletes, give them comprehensive courses in nutrition, proper workouts, money management, communications and other classwork that might actually prepare them for life in the pros and possibly set them up for the strong possibility that they won't make it?

My college roommate liked to say that college didn't teach you anything except how to think - the point being that all the facts and figures were nice, but the true value of a college education was in the cognitive process and being able to form intelligent opinions, regardless of the subject.

What is so wrong about preparing our athletes like we prepare our doctors, writers or dancers? You take someone with a given talent and work to cultivate that talent, play to strengths and try to give them a fighting chance once they're outside the walls of any given institution.

Isn't that better than seeing a seven-foot center on your TV Saturday announcing proudly that he's majoring in lesuire studies?