Monday Sips Is Still Suffering Post Army Loss Stress Disorder
by Loretta8 on Sep 19, 2011 12:13 PM CDT
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Print- If you haven't read Taylor Branch in The Atlantic on The Shame of College Sports, do so. Immediately. His brilliant piece details the 100+ year history of cheating in college sports (starting with Walter Camp's $100k slush fund for Yale players at the turn of last century) and the tenuous hold the NCAA has over their member schools (were the conferences to negotiate their own TV contract for basketball's postseason, like they did for football in the early 1980s, the NCAA would no longer make any money and would probably go bankrupt). Most interestingly, though, is the anarchy that could result should the NCAA lose a couple of key cases in court. As Branch explains, if Ed O'Bannon (suing the NCAA for using his image in video games without paying him) and Joseph Agnew (a former Rice player challenging the NCAA's rule limiting scholarships to one year contracts) are successful, the landscape of college athletics will completely change, and the NCAA may cease to exist.
Unfortunately, as John Gasaway explains, Branch does go a bit overboard in comparing the NCAA's exploitation of its athletes to slavery and colonialism.
- Really early bowl projections! CBSsports.com's Jerry Palm has Northwestern missing the postseason entirely. Off Tackle Empire's Bama Hawkeye has Northwestern in the Little Caesar's Bowl against Toledo. ESPN's Big Ten bloggers also says NU is going to Detroit. Joy.
- CBS's Dennis Dodd goes in on conference realignment, ripping apart ACC commissioner John Swofford and Pittsburgh chancellor Mark Nordenberg. Much deserved, but not exactly ground-breaking. It's a good thing for Northwestern Jim Delany created the Big Ten Network so early and kept the Wildcats away from this mess.
- Lake The Posts gives his thoughts on the Army loss. As LTP does so well, he explains the big picture of how the loss combined with Illinois' win over Arizona State puts a serious dent in NU's claim to be Chicago's Big Ten team. Unfortunately, he also gets into some classic hindpsychology (copyright FireJoeMorgan) about how Army "wanted it more" and how NU "lacked drive and spirit". It seemed to me NU played hard and just got beaten by a team that was better that day. If Trevor Siemian leads NU into the end zone on his last drive and the 'Cats win in overtime, no one is questioning Northwestern's effort even though the first 58 minutes played out the exact same way.
- This is a couple weeks old, but Draft Express (by far the best website out there for NBA draft analysis) put together a detailed scouting report of John Shurna. An excerpt:
Shurna brings some clear-cut positive attributes to the table from an NBA perspective, namely his three-point shooting, passing, cutting, ability to play in a team offense, and general basketball IQ. He's clearly caught between positions defensively, but his best chance would appear to be as a reserve stretch-four for a team that plays small ball, where his negative attributes could be somewhat curbed. Maximizing his physical attributes, becoming a more serviceable rebounder, and continuing to improve as a three-point shooter could all help his stock, but he doesn't appear to have a ceiling much higher than what he currently is.
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liability for head trauma
Branch’s article was great, if a bit hyperbolic. Additionally, coming down the pike are class-action lawsuits against major universities for athletes’ brain damage due to repetitive head trauma, both in practices and in games. And, when it becomes apparent that the NCAA actively stymies the ability of universities to compensate players for chronic health problems resulting from football, the clouds will really start to gather. Consider: would the NCAA allow a university to set aside funds, or purchase insurance, to compensate a player later in life if football-related injuries became disabling?
Hypocrisy of the NCAA. Is NU a victim?
I wish Branch wouldn’t have included the slaver analogy in his article – I felt it was peripheral and was an easy way for an opponent to discredit it (e.g. non-severability, “this slavery argument is ridiculous, therefore this article is BS”)
What was particularly eye-opening was the way the NCAA depends on it’s member schools to abide by its enforcements (and its lack of regard or need for due process). If tomorrow USC wanted to schedule a Bowl game with OSU/Miami and say Auburn (if they received harsh penalties) they could go ahead and ignore the NCAA mandates if they thought it made them enough money.
Thus, the NCAA will only punish the offenders who have the least ability to fight back – the athletes and the school employees (minus the coaches who are pulling in 6-7 figures). If too many big schools are punished at once, they will simply give the finger to the NCAA and take their football and play elsewhere.
I take great pride in the fact that NU takes seriously the mandate of educating its students even at the expense of increased athletic success. They seem to live up to some ideal of “sound mind in a sound body”. However, I wonder if this notion of “amateurism” and the “student-athlete” is a mere fiction to which NU adheres. Reading the article I wondered: Is the joke on us? Are we clinging to outdated notions of what college athletics should be thereby inadvertently harming our athletes? Should we be rooting for college athletics at all? Or should there be a semi-pro system league in which universities provide a ‘brand’ to the franchise? Should universities (as tax-exempt organizations) be prevented from making money on athletics (unrealistic and illegal)?
As a fan I want NU to continue to compete at the highest level, but I worry that my support of revenue sports is irreparably harming the players for whom I cheer.
In short, Shame of College Sports = Great Article, but provoked really uncomfortable self-examination.
by wcgrad on Sep 19, 2011 1:08 PM CDT reply actions 3 recs
NU wanting it more
LTP has mentioned Fitz’s concern about energy on the sideline several times over the first two games. If the game turned out differently, its impossible to know whether Fitz would have mentioned this again.
There is the perception though that NU doesn’t have the so-called ‘killer-instinct’. I don’t know whether this is a talent issue or a ‘players focused on whole game instead of single play issue’. Again, absolutely agree about the ‘hindpsychology’ – it’s unquantifiable and unobservable.
FWIW, I might have been too upset over this, but I didn’t like the punt on the first drive. Maybe it was the coaches not putting the players in the best positions to win? This is at least observable, but it’s impossible to de-convolute that mixture with certainty: it boils down to opinionated finger-pointing.
I’ll call it now: NU by 3 over Illinois.
Punting
As a good friend of mine said, you never hear the fans yell “Puuuuuuunt” on 4th and short. However, I can only think of one scenario where it is a good call to punt inside the opponents 40. It is 4th down and LONG, you can’t make a FG and it’s late in the half and you don’t want to make a short field for a 2 minute drive. Otherwise, just line up and go for it. 1st and 10 at the 20 or 1st and 10 at the 35. Big deal. Even if Williams punted and pinned them on the 1. Army was not going to change their approach. Plus, if players know they are going for it they’ll get amped and that might carry over even if it fails (plus the defense can say the coaches trust us, let’s get the ball back).
And I hope you are right about NU over Illinois.
I was at the Army game with a West Point grad
Didn’t want to be a rude guest by sulking afterwards, though I did have the five-hour drive back to DC yesterday to stew. Pretty much everything that’s already been said about the game has already been said, so I won’t pile on.
I do wonder, though, how much Ebert’s and Dunsmore’s draft stock is plummeting without Dan Persa.
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