SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/43432
From the Sidelines Eric Schroder Editor eschroder@m2media360.com 717-805-4197 Leaders failing college athletics HERE'S NOTHING IN THE WORLD SO DEMORALIZING AS MONEY," Sophocles wrote long ago, words that could serve as a subtitle to every fresh, tumultuous report of big-boy college football conference hopping and cheating scandal. As I write Pittsburgh and Syracuse have joined the Atlantic Coast Conference, which isn't quite the geographical stretch their former brethren in the Big East Conference made last year when inviting Texas Christian to join it. But heck, Colorado is in the Pacific 12 And Looking for More Conference, Texas A&M is the new western front for the Southeastern Conference (SEC), and Oklahoma and Texas are available to the highest bidder. Who wants Boise State and their fluorescent cleats? University presidents are scrambling in their game of musical conferences and the quiet kid in the room, representing the Soul of College Athletics, is heading for a long stand in the corner. No president can afford to miss out on television deal dollars or other revenue produced by college football and basketball. Last year the SEC cleared $1 billion in athletic revenue and some schools e.g., Florida, Michigan, Penn State, Texas and others earn $40- $80 million in profits a year. These presidents hide behind the NCAA's amateurism principle (no legal definition of "amateur" exists) to justify their actions; they don't want a college football playoff because of concern for "student athletes" (a purposely ambiguous term invented by the NCAA) when in reality they just don't want to share the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) revenue. A re- cent report from an athletes' advocacy group calculated that if college sports shared their revenues the way pro sports do, the average BCS player would be worth $121,000 per year, while the average basketball player at that level would be worth $265,000. Historically the NCAA has controlled, and I use that term loosely, college sports only be- cause the controlees, the schools, have allowed it and they receive lots of money. Then in the mid-1980s the NCAA lost its TV-money cartel in a court case, and Big-Time Football schools no longer had to share revenue with smaller schools. (March Madness basketball money kept the NCAA afloat.) And whatever authority that organization once had is pretty much history as well, as story after story emerges of "cheating" (as defined by the 250-page rulebook that is enforced selectively and subjectively) followed by a charge of "lack of institutional control," a slap on the wrist and then it's back to making dough. I've ridden the "scholarship should be payment enough" bandwagon for a long time but now that the schools are making it clear they are money-obsessed, hiking donor club dues and ticket prices, creating personal seat licenses, and making horrible fashion choices for money (here's looking at you, Terrapins), I now say you have to pay the players something. Tradition may be too important to me; tailgating is just as fun no matter who your team is playing, after all. But something is ailing the soul of college athletics and there is no lead- ership from college presidents or the NCAA. Everyone's too busy counting their money. SportsTurfTu 1030 W. Higgins Road Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 Phone 847-720-5600 Fax 847-720-5601 The Official Publication Of The Sports Turf Managers Association PRESIDENT: Troy Smith, CSFM IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT: Chris Calcaterra, M.Ed., CSFM, CPRP PRESIDENT-ELECT: James Michael Goatley, Jr., PhD SECRETARY/TREASURER: Martin Kaufman, CSFM VICE PRESIDENT-COMMERCIAL: Chad Price, CSFM PROFESSIONAL FACILITIES: Allen Johnson, CSFM HIGHER EDUCATION: Ron Hostick, CSFM K-12: Mike Tarantino PARKS & RECREATION: David Pinsonneault, CSFM, CPRP ACADEMIC: Pamela Sherratt COMMERCIAL: Rene Asprion AT LARGE: Jeff Fowler, AT LARGE: Jeff Salmond, CSFM CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Kim Heck STMA Office 805 New Hampshire Suite E Lawrence, Ks 66044 Phone 800-323-3875 Fax 800-366-0391 Email STMAinfo@STMA.org www.STMA.org Editorial EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Charles Forman EDITOR Eric Schroder TECHNICAL EDITOR Dr. James Brosnan ART DIRECTOR Brian Snook PRODUCTION MANAGER Karen Kalinyak EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Richard Brandes STMA Editorial Communications Committee Jim Cornelius, CSFM, Jason Henderson, PhD, Paul Hollis, Clayton Hubbs, Joshua McPherson, CSFM, Brad Park, David Schlotthauer, & Grant Spear SportsTurf (ISSN 1061-687X) (USPS 000-292) (Reg. U.S. Pat. & T.M. Off.) is published monthly by m2media360, a Bev-Al Communications company at 1030 W. Higgins Road, Suite 230, Park Ridge, IL 60068. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Sportsturf, PO Box 4290, Port Jervis, NY 12771. For subscription information and re- quests, call Subscription Services at (845) 856-2229. Sub- scription rates: 1 year, $40 US & Poss.; 2 years, $65 US & Poss.; 1 year, $65 Canada/Foreign Surface, 1 year, $130 Air- mail. All subscriptions are payable in advance in US funds. Send payments to Sportsturf, PO Box 4290, Port Jervis, NY 12771. Phone: (845) 856-2229. Fax: (845) 856-5822. Single copies or back issues, $8 each US/Canada; $12 For- eign. Periodicals postage paid at Park Ridge, IL and addi- tional mailing offices. COPYRIGHT 2011, SportsTurf. Material may not be reproduced or photocopied in any form without the written permission of the publisher. Member of BPA Worldwide. 6 SportsTurf | October 2011 www.sportsturfonline.com " T