BRAY FOR PAY

                An NCAA panel fronted by Condoleezza Rice, the diplomat turned apologist for big-time collegiate sports, a couple of weeks ago came out with some recommendations for reform of same, prompted by last fall’s revelations of the existence of a widespread black market in the signing of top-level basketball prospects. As could have been predicted, the result was a fizzle, emitting a bang closer to that of a BB gun than a cannon.

 The result brought to mind a quote from the red-nosed Mathias “Paddy” Bauler, a saloon keeper and Chicago alderman of the 1940s and ‘50s who, after the 1955 mayoral election of Richard J. Daley, jubilantly (and correctly) cried “Chicago ain’t ready for reform!”

Instead of shaking up an institution whose corruption surpasses that of old-time Chicago politics, the Rice panel called for things like permitting more contact between college athletes and agents, taking closer control over the summer-basketball camps where the avalanche of shoe-company money behind the fall’s bribery allegations begins, and strengthening penalties for rule-violating schools and coaches beyond the present wrist slaps. Big deal, huh?

 It came out against the much-mocked “one-and-done” regime in college hoops, which allows top pro prospects to double-park in college until they’re NBA-eligible at age 19, but the colleges can’t do that without the cooperation of the NBA and its players’ union and that won’t come until 2020 at the earliest, those entities say.  So don’t worry Kentucky and Duke fans, you’re safe for now.

Also predictably, the loudest voices critical of Rice, et al, came from the crowd that thinks that paying college athletes will cure all ills. Anyone who’s given five minutes’ thought to that position can see that it would raise more issues than it answers, including whom to pay (all college athletes male and female or just football and basketballers?); how much should be paid and on what basis (should starters make more than subs or stars more than ordinary starters?);  and whether, as employees, the athletes should have a voice in their terms of employment, such as practice and games’ scheduling and travel.

Further, students of human nature will note that whatever permissible salary levels would be set above the table, another and more-generous one would quickly develop under it. “What they want to pay you is chump change,” procurer A will tell super-prospect B. “We’ll do better than that.”

Missing from the recommendations is anything having to do with the college side of college sports, which by me and others is what really stinks about NCAA World. The only reported mention of academics in the Rice report came in the threat that if the NBA won’t play ball over one-and-done the colleges could unilaterally deal with it by banning freshman eligibility the way they used to, but that makes so much sense it has little likelihood of enactment.

To find strong and reasoned arguments against college sports’ academic status quo one should to go to the website of the Drake Group, an association of college faculty members and other reform advocates founded in 1999 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and now run out of the University of New Haven in Connecticut. It’s founding manifesto leaves no doubt about how it views the current state of affairs.

“The NCAA’s continuing success at professionalizing big-time college athletics puts academic corruption on par with prostitution, illegal gambling and speeding violations as acceptable forms of misconduct in America—it’s okay as long as you don’t get caught” it says. “Athlete are clustered in majors that have easy or no educational content. Most of their course work is phony…masked by grade inflation, outright grade changes and excessive independent study courses.” And you should hear them when they’re really mad.

As any parent of a teen can tell you, a full-ride scholarship to a four-year university is no small thing, worth on its face anywhere from about $100,000 at a public institution to three or four times that amount at a private one. That’s more than adequate compensation for 18-to-22-year-olds and is in addition to the much larger annual income college grads can expect to earn in their professional lives. But for the jock in the so-called “revenue sports,” the bars to getting a degree are high, beginning with the full-time job that team membership entails and including a way-premature dunk into the publicity cauldron that is top-level sports.

  The NCAA contends that its “student-athletes” graduate at a higher rate than students generally, but in an article on the Drake Group website Shaun R. Harper, director of the Center on Race and Equity at the University of Southern California, writes that doesn’t apply to athletes at the 65 universities in the so-called “Power Five” conferences (the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, PAC 12 and ACC), which command almost all the attention and money in college sports. His figures, taken from 2012 through 2016, show that 69.3% of varsity athletes at those schools graduated in six years or fewer compared to 76.3% of all undergraduates, despite their access to easy courses, friendly profs and substantial academic support.

The rub really comes with the black athletes who comprise 55% of the varsity football players and 56% of the men’s basketballers at the “Power Five” schools, Harper’s piece says.  That’s despite the fact that black men make up only 2.4% of the undergraduate student bodies of those institutions. Their graduation rate was 55%, 21 percentage points below that of all students.

Five of the 14 members of the Rice panel were African Americans (Ms. Rice, former basketball stars Grant Hill and David Robinson, ex-coach John Thompson and Gene Smith, a vice president at Ohio State University), but the group didn’t address the specific academic problems of the black athlete or the picture their recruitment paints of higher education in the U.S. The discrepancy between the black male athlete and other students of their race is greatest in the SEC schools of the South; at the Universities of Florida, Auburn, Georgia and Alabama black males made up between 2.2% and 3.6% of the student bodies but between 77.7% and 72.5% of the football and basketball squads.  Something’s out of whack there, don’t you think?    

DERBY PICKS

                Do you believe that history affects athletic performances? It’s a good question to ask when the athletes are human but maybe not so good when other creatures do the vying.

                That’s my thought as another Kentucky Derby approaches on Saturday. The two favorites—Justify and Mendelssohn—each would have to overcome historical barriers to win, Justify because no horse unraced as a two-year-old has won the Big Race since 1882 and Mendelssohn because no horse based in Europe ever has turned the trick.

                I suppose that’s interesting but by me it’s irrelevant because horses can’t read and, thus, probably know less history than most Americans, although I’m not entirely sure about that. Both animals will be in my tickets when the starting gate opens at old Churchill Downs.

                The Derby is tough for handicappers because its 1 ¼-mile is longer than any of the three-year-old contestants have run and its field of 19 or 20 is larger, ensuring that some of the runners (we never know which) will be jostled out of their games. The good news is that most years, including this one, an elite field means that very good odds will be available on some very good horses, setting up some lucrative payout possibilities.

                JUSTIFY is 3-1 in the morning line and MENDELSSOHN is 5-1, and you’ll never see odds like those on them again.  Although unraced at two, Santa Anita Derby winner Justify is the fastest horse in the field, with three Beyer speed ratings of 100 or better to show for his three races, all wins. He can’t be overlooked despite his slim credentials. Neither, says me, can UK-based Mendelssohn, who has won on three continents, including last year’s Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf in the U.S.  Both like to run on or near the lead, which is good in a big field. They’ll both be in my two, five-horse, $1 exacta boxes, and if they run 1-2 I’ll about break even. As Joe E. Lewis used to say, that’d be good ‘cause I need the money.

                 

               The horse I’ll really be rooting for is GOOD MAGIC, 12-1 in the morning line. He’s won both the Breeders Cup Juvenile at two and last month’s Blue Grass Stakes, and has logged a 100 Beyer, the gold-standard for top-level Thoroughbreds. Further, and importantly, he beat a field of 15 in the Blue Grass, showing he doesn’t mind a crowd. He’ll also be in both my boxes and will ensure a nice payout if he finishes first or second.

                

                 Barring late scratches or mind changes I’ll round out my boxes with a couple of middle-priced horses and a couple of real longshots, with one in each. The middle-pricers are speedy BOLT D’ORO, who chased but didn’t quite catch Justify in California, and AUDIBLE, a “what’s not to like?” colt who’s won four of five, including the Florida Derby. Both are 8-1 going in. The true longshots, both 30-1, are NOBLE INDY and MY BOY JACK, the latter a Silky Sullivan-style closer. My Derby fantasy has him roaring down the home stretch Saturday, battling Good Magic to the wire. If they go 1-2 I’ll take you out to lunch.

SHOWIN' 'EM

                Victor Oladipo, who plays for the NBA Indiana Pacers, a couple of weeks ago scored 32 points to leads his team to victory in a first-round playoff game with the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Afterward he was reminded that Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cavs, was quoted as saying the Pacers “could have done better” than getting young Oladipo in an off-season trade that involved the established star Paul George going to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

                Asked after the contest if recalling Gilbert’s comment had motivated his performance, Oladipo agreed. “You could say it added fuel to the fire, I guess you could say,” he elliptically told a reporter for the ESPN website.

                To which I thought, Huh? Here’s a player who excelled in the hectic atmosphere of the NBA playoffs while stewing over an off-hand remark an old-guy team owner had made six months before? If that were true it was a miracle he didn’t trip over his own shoelaces.

                Indeed, of all sports-page clichés, which are far too numerous to begin to recount here, the most irksome to me is the one that portrays an athlete or team as angry over some criticism and striving to succeed in order to “show” the critic—to set things straight, as it were.  Invoking it is a crutch for sportswriters too lazy to seek a better description of what transpired during a game and an easy way for an athlete to get out of an interview. The differences between winning or losing on our most-exalted fields of play are many and complex, often defying explanation.  Those involved seem to agree that it’s better to fob off a quick-and-dirty answer than to explore further.

                The seductive thing about the “showing ‘em” cliché is that it applies to just about every performer. The guy who was picked No. 2 in his sport’s annual draft can be portrayed as seething that he wasn’t No. 1; the No. 6 guy can be pissed off at Nos. 1 through 5. If Joe Jock wasn’t a first-round pick he has a right to be upset with every team in his league for passing him over, including his own.  By that reasoning Tom Brady’s quest for six NFL title rings can be explained by his sixth-round draft position.

                Coaches—or, at least, those lacking in motivational skills—feed the resentment theme by maintaining bulletin boards on which to post every published comment on their team or its players that isn’t fulsome praise.  Champion teams do it, too—hey!, everybody’s got critics. It’s even okay if the naysayers are not only nameless but also unnamable-- they’re “the doubters,” whomever they may be. The sports world seems to be filled by Rodney Dangerfields, straightening their neckties and muttering about how they “don’t get no respect.”

                The late Vince Lombardi, the NFL’s guiding spirit, said “there’s nothing that stokes the fire like hate,” and, certainly, genuine animosity can arise between teams that bump heads often, like his Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. On the collegiate level, ancient rivalries such as Ohio State-Michigan and Alabama-Auburn can stir the blood both on and off the field and hike the victory stakes. But I don’t think St. Vince had remarks like that of the above-mentioned Mr. Gilbert in mind when he spake as he did. Not nearly.

                The springs of athletic motivation begin very simply with the satisfaction of winning and the pain of losing. I daresay that every weekend warrior can attest to this; the guy across the net might be your best friend in the world but when the ball is in play you want to kick his butt. I’m sure it works similarly among elite athletes, with the pain side usually outweighing the elation one; biographies of champions reveal that not wanting to lose is an especially potent motivator.

                Among professional athletes or pros-to-be the lure of fame and riches kick in. In his post-diamond days as a coach Ernie Banks said “I like my players to be married and in debt. That’s the way you motivate them.” Today’s pros pull down salaries so far above the subsistence level that the line about having to “feed the family” is ludicrous, but the principle still holds.  The money that top performers make today is so large that the figures often are abstractions even to their recipients, but athletes know pretty much what their teammates and competitors earn and the desire to move up on this most-basic scoreboard is an excellent reason to run the extra sprint or do more weight-room reps.

              

               The most-telling point to make on this subject is the growing body of knowledge that holds that athletes do their best when they are the least self-conscious, when thoughts of revenge or self-justification disappear and are replaced by a laser-like concentration on the job at hand.

           

               The psychologist Andrew Cooper, who has written extensively about this, coined the phrase “in the zone” to describe it. It’s a Zen-like place where limitations are forgotten, extraneous sights and sounds vanish, time seems to slow and the game takes on a life of its own.

            

             If this sounds like airy-fairy theorizing, it isn’t. Recall if you will the first game of the 1992 NBA finals playoffs pitting the Chicago Bulls against the Portland Trail Blazers, when the Bulls’ Michael Jordan scored 35 first-half points composed mostly of the six-straight three-point shots he sank. After the last of those three-pointers Jordan, who never lacked for ego,  turned toward the scorer’s table, raised his eyebrows and shrugged in genuine dismay, as if to ask “Did I do that?”

The game has been known since as the “Shrug Game.” It stands as Youtube testimony to what an athlete can do when he ain’t hardly tryin’.