Saturday, February 7, 2009

The state of NCAA sports.

College sports are big time business! If you question that, consider yourself uninformed! Colleges are chartering jets around the country, building new and always bigger stadiums, athletic centers, dormitories, student centers etc. with the guise used being that it will benefit, "not only" the student athlete, but the entire student body and community as well. Along with the underlying philosophy from Field of Dreams of "If you build it, they will come."

And people clap and cheer and like a goof ball at a political campaign rally while believing what they're told. The real reason is winning. Everyone wants to win! Winning is fun. Winning begets winning. Winner's are cool. Winner's are what everyone wants to be!

Why?

Because winning is like life and death, it's like being pregnant or not.....

You are either a WINNER! Or you are a loser! There's no in between.

However, besides the fun that is winning, there's something else winning brings.... money! For NCAA teams playoffs, or in the case of football the BCS means money for the school. The bigger the bowl game, the bigger the money; the bigger the money, the bigger the city, the nicer the hotel, the nicer the restaurants, the bigger the payday, for the winner and the loser. Also, the more exposure. Free advertisement for the universities.

Every year, NCAA champions in basketball and football show an increase in enrollment the following fall semester. Everyone likes to be a winner.

But at what cost?

Student athletes all over the country every year are handed useless degrees. Schools all over the country are building facilities they cannot afford or fill with fans. Schools all over the country are not being held accountable for their actions.

What's more, many schools are holding coaches accountable for things in which they have no control over.

A few weeks ago, Dennis Felton was fired as the head coach of the University of Georgia Men's Basketball program. Felton was a very successful coach at the University of Western Kentucky. He took the Hilltoppers to multiple NCAA tournaments by winning regular season and tournament championships in the Sun Belt conference. He was hired at Georgia after Jim Harrick was found to be in violation of numerous NCAA regulations.

Felton had been successful, and had run a clean program. However, he faced a steep uphill battle at a school with very little previous basketball success, even during the days of it's best player, Dominique Wilkins. But despite scholarship restrictions, Felton began the arduous task of rebuilding the program. Having coached against Felton, I could think of few better choices.

Facedwith limited scholarships, old facilities that were not very appealing to new recruits, and a perennially tough SEC conference schedule, Felton made strides. Putting in an entirely new system, playing sometimes no more than 7 players, and last season winning 4 games in 3 days (not a typo they played twice one day) to win the SEC tournament championship advancing to the NCAA tournament.

It appeared as Felton had the program headed the right way. What's more, it looked as if the University was finally making a commitment to the program buy building a new $30 Million dollar practice facility. However, beginning this season Felton had 6 freshmen and 3 more sophomores. That is incredibly young. On top of that, they only had a single 4th year senior. Now, some will argue that because of players leaving for the NBA, the NCAA is younger, and players like Derrick Rose have taken teams to the NCAA Final Four as freshmen.

Well, Georgia doesn't have any recruits like Derrick Rose, the stellar guard from Memphis last season. One reason they don't is they don't have the basketball history or facilities that Memphis does. However, what some of the experts won't realize is that despite the young and gifted Rose, Memphis had a veteran ball club that provided them the necessary leadership to get to the Final Four. When a team has 9 first and second year players, that indicates a lack of leadership unless they have a very good upper class, which Georgia does not. The reason they don't can be traced back to the Harrick caused NCAA sanctions.

Because of their youth, Georgia was struggling this year. At 9-11 and 0-5 in the SEC, Georgia athletic administration decided to terminate Dennis Felton mid season. That was a terrible mistake that was based more on the emotions of a small, but financially generous fan base, and not on someone knowledgeable about the collegiate sport environment. Coach Felton was not given the opportunity to make this team better over the course of the season and defend his SEC tournament championship. Last year, they got better over the course of the year, and ended up being winners. They were not given the chance this year, and that makes no sense.

Firing an NCAA coach in the middle of the season is indefensible unless the coach is found guilty of breaking NCAA rules of a serious nature or he is guilty of behavior unbecoming to the University. Otherwise terminating a coach before the end of the season only serves to hurt the program and more importantly the players. One of the assistants obviously has to take over. An assistant who's input and ideas was used in the program that was deemed not adequate by the administration. Therefore, when the Athletic Director states that they are moving the program in the right direction, be clear that that is a nonsensical stereotypical catchphrase they are using because they are not articulate enough to explain or defend their decision, which again is really made by a handful of financially influential boosters.

Firing Felton before he had a chance to significantly improve the program was a terrible mistake, firing him or any other coach mid-season is inexcusable! Mike Gottfried Of the University of Alabama was fired a few weeks ago as well. He had been at Alabama 11 years, and frankly, the program was not improving. I don't have a problem with Alabama's decision to fire him as, but again, doing it mid-season does not accomplish any significant objective that will improve the program.

Despite the timing of the termination however, a greater number of schools are making coaching changes with very little in the way of prudent decision making. Athletic directors, who are rarely held accountable are making decisions that coaches cannot control, and often disagree with, put the specific programs into difficult situations with regards to being consistently competitive.

The University of Southern Mississippi fired Jeff Bower after last season. Bower had been the most successful coach at a single school, over the same period of time, for longer than any football coach in the NCAA other than Joe Pa and Bobby Bowden. Yet despite poor facilities, low budget, and a non-BCS conference, Bower was apparently suppose to compete annually for a BCS bowl. The ignorance of fans and administration combined with expectations based on that ignorance has gotten out of hand. It's more out of hand than the spending. In fact, it's partially driving the spending.

I predict that in collegiate football, after Joe Pa, and Bobby Bowden retire (or die as the case may be) there will be major reform in the NCAA before we see another coach at a school for 20+ years. In basketball it's not much better, coaches are no longer expected to build a winning program that graduates players and is competitive. They are required to get to post season play every season. And the NIT is only acceptable between NCAA trips. Billy Donovan may be at Florida for the rest of his career, Coach K, Gary Williams, and Roy Williams will be at their respective schools until they retire. Jim Calhoun and of course the venerable Jim Boheim of UCONN and Syracuse out of the Big East, possibly John Thompson III at Georgetown will finish their careers at their current schools. Then you have a handful of lower level division I programs that because they can't afford better coaches, are not committed to the basketball program, or perhaps the AD and coach are close friends have a few coaches that aren't in danger of losing jobs. Those are becoming fewer and fewer every year though. However, for the other 300 Div. I schools in the country, unrealistic expectations and a lack of proper commitment to the program will cause a lot of coaches to have 3-6 year jobs, again until there is reform in the NCAA.

Fans watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament every year and cheer for the yearly Cinderella. It's one of the greatest things annually in sport. We can always count on a Cinderella! And they start wondering why their team can't be one. Well, perhaps they can, but understand, many of those schools are Cinderella after that coach has done a great job at that school for 4-8 years! And that's the best they can be, is a Cinderella. However, after two years of rebuilding from a typically senior laden team that was the Cinderella and not becoming a perennial NCAA team (turning the corner is the catch phrasing often used) over the next two years, that successful coach will typically find himself looking for a job within 2-3 years.

Unreasonable expectations based upon ignorance of reality.

That's the state of the NCAA today, driven by money, and fueled by people in power who have never been on a sideline. Without NCAA reform this trend will continue, student athletes will be the victims, rivalries will fail, and the quality of the product, in football and basketball will continue to deteriorate to the point not being worth the money that revolves around it.