“I think it’d be great for the University of Georgia if we were able to make it happen.”

For once, I wholeheartedly agree with you, Greg.  Make it so!

**************************************************************************

UPDATE:  To answer the obvious question,

#UGA AD Greg McGarity tells me that should the #SEC go to 9 league games, that would "absolutely" lessen his desire to play teams like ND

— Anthony Dasher (@AnthonyDasher1) April 8, 2014

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Amateurism and the romance of the status quo

Yesterday’s post about amateurism drew a lot of impassioned commentary in support of Bob Bowlsby’s argument that equal effort by student-athletes requires equal treatment by the schools and the NCAA.  The best example of that:

FYI, I asked multiple womens golfers from 16 of the top 25 teams @ a tournament in Hilton Head, SC last month how much time they practice & spend competing. Every one said 4-5 hours a day 7 days a week except when playing in a tournament. Last week, I ran into the U of Illinois womens golf team @ my neighborhood course practicing after competing in a tournament the prior 3 days. This was during spring break. Most of these girls were business, psychology, public relations, biology, spanish, early child development, etc majors and were earning good grades. These girls bust their asses for UGA just like the football & basketball players but don’t get the same “star” treatment & bennies. Heck yes the $ from football & basketball should be spread around to support the other sports. I don’t care how much $ the school/AD earns off of any sport. If you are not there for the education via a free scholarship, go earn your keep on your athletic talent in some minor league. Unhappy with the NFL rules, go sue them for the right to earn a job

I don’t doubt the sincerity of that statement.  Nor do I doubt the effort that every one of those golfers gives.  But even starting with the assumption that each NCAA student-athlete busts as much ass as the next one, ultimately I don’t find the argument convincing.  The problem with the argument is that it romanticizes college athletics to an unrealistic extent.  The reality is that the playing field for student-athletes isn’t level right now.

First of all, as much as we’d like to think otherwise, equal effort isn’t rewarded equally.  I’m guessing that those lady golfers have scholarships from Georgia as a result of Title IX requirements, but their male counterparts (along with other male student-athletes participating in non-revenue sports) don’t fare as well in that department.  Again, if it’s all about equal effort, why should that be the case?  And taking Bowlsby’s line of reasoning out to its full extent, how can you justify a failure to treat every kid playing Division III sports to the same scholarship opportunities?  They work just as hard, right?

The answer is that they don’t make any money for their schools.  Hard work only goes so far when it comes to getting a piece of the pie.

Second, it’s a fool’s errand to pretend Emmert and Bowlsby aren’t aware of that.  Emmert and the power conference commissioners are pushing a stipend – hell, call that for what it is, player payment – for football and basketball student-athletes.  Why are they advocating different treatment for those student-athletes than for the rest of the 400,000+ they claim to represent?  Again, it’s not about the effort.  It’s about the revenue stream.

Third, the irony of the last two sentences of that comment doesn’t escape me.  Those women golfers have an avenue available to them that is denied to the players bringing in the money.  They can turn pro any time they want.  Indeed, they don’t even have to go to college to pursue a professional golf career if they’re talented enough.

College athletics is hyper-monetized now.  Nobody on the management side advocates going back to a simpler time; they can’t afford to.  So instead they pitch a bifurcated vision in which they claim the players in revenue producing sports must be insulated from the rewards of their efforts, even as they are forced to make greater sacrifices in the name of revenue generation (you think any of those women golfers have ever had to miss as much school as the kids who played for the national title last night did?) and in which any dollar delivered to those players has to come out of the pockets of the rest of the 400,000 student-athletes in some sort of zero-sum game.  Except for that stipend, of course.

Don’t insult my intelligence.

It’s not your father’s status quo anymore.  That didn’t just happen overnight, either, in case you haven’t noticed what an absolute cock-up SEC scheduling has become since Mike Slive decided he needed to revisit the conference’s broadcast deals.  And here’s the last thing to consider: what you’ve got now is nothing compared to what’s going to happen if and when the NCAA starts losing some of those antitrust suits.

Now, what we think doesn’t matter in the vast scheme of things.  But Bob Bowlsby?  Different story there.  Either the suits need to start smelling what they’re trying to sell to us and adapt to the times, or wait to get run over and lose the opportunity to direct where college athletics goes.  In any event, the rest of us had better get used to accepting the limited value of equal effort.

“I don’t care about what the perception is.”

Except Mark Emmert does.

The NCAA trotted out the same stunt in San Diego at its convention in January. After Emmert’s countless public missteps, the organization surrounded him with Division II and Division III leaders in an attempt to take the focus off of Emmert. And perhaps the most hilarious sight on Sunday morning was the NCAA public relations staffers incessantly refreshing Twitter to see if their ploy worked.

When you’ve got Twitter, who needs leadership?

“Leonard Floyd is a man.”

I was going to refer to Floyd as today’s Dawg Porn, Chapter two, but upon further reflection after reading this…

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Floyd has embraced his role in the new system. He says he’s dropping into coverage less and spending more time trying to get after the quarterback.

“I love it,” Floyd said. “Don’t have to think as much. All I’ve got to do is think about rushing.”

… I think I’m going to elevate him to the centerfold.

This union aggression will not stand, man.

Never say Ohio’s legislature can’t act quickly in a crisis.

College athletes in Ohio would not be considered employees under state law, under changes to the state’s budget review made by a legislative committee on Monday.

… The Republican-backed amendment, one of dozens made Monday to the state’s mid-biennium review, “clarifies that college athletes are not considered employees under state law,” according to a House GOP synopsis.

Ah, yes, the party of free markets once again steps forward to preserve cheap labor.  And with alacrity!  The Northwestern kids won’t even vote until next month.

“I think this is a statement of what we all thought was obvious, and that is athletes are not employees of their university,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican.

Hey, Ron, get back to us on that in a few years if Corch starts complaining that his hands are tied in recruiting by what you thought was obvious.  I bet the waters get a little murkier for you then.

“I don’t want to put him on a pedestal,” Ball replied with a chuckle, “but he has a skill set.”

Chapter one in today’s Dawg Porn installment:  Jonathan Rumph.

… We’re now to that point with Jonathon Rumph this spring, after a six-catch, 62-yard scrimmage Saturday, where teammates are raving about him, fans are getting excited and coaches, well, they’re still kind of putting the brakes to it. To understand Ball (or Mike Bobo, really) is to know he is a highly demanding coach. There are things receivers have to know and do to play for him, and he has proven that he doesn’t really care if someone is a walk-on, a five-star or a 6-foot-5, 225-pound specimen now entering his senior season. This is a dynamic that will carry into the fall. While Rumph isn’t there yet, there have been signs this spring that he’s getting much closer to being an impact contributor on this offense.

Oh, my.

The lessons of G-Day

I was a little surprised with some of the hostility I saw in the comments to my post about cutting off media access to spring practice.  Unlike some of you, I guess, I see value in what the beat writers are able to glean from their steady observation of the team this time of year.  A good example of what I’m talking about comes from this Seth Emerson post, where he describes a difference in approach to the G-Day game by Grantham and Pruitt:

That doesn’t mean G-Day won’t be worth watching. Most eyes will be on Jeremy Pruitt and the defense, trying to divine the noticeable changes he has wrought. I’ll have a story later in the week focusing more on this, but here’s my early guess on how Pruitt will handle G-Day:

– Plenty of players seeing the field, with playing time distributed fairly evenly. And if the first few weeks of spring practice are any indication, there will be some surprises on the initial first- and second-teams.

– Pruitt will focus less on pure stats and results and more on effort and fundamentals. That’s been his obvious focus the first few weeks, and he doesn’t appear to be in any rush to pick starters.

There could be something else at work here: The last few years of Todd Grantham’s tenure, there seemed an unstated but real competition between Grantham and Bobo. That’s not very unusual for a football team, and not necessarily unhealthy.

Still, it was obvious last year that Grantham and his staff were very happy to do well on G-Day and most of the other scrimmages. But now you have a much different dynamic on staff, which could lend to Pruitt and co. not caring if their defense gives up a few more first downs, as long as it means overall progress, at least in their eyes.

That bit about “an unstated but real competition between Grantham and Bobo”?  Yeah, that.  If that’s gone, how will that color your perception of what comes out of Saturday?

Use of the term “ugay” is optional.

If you’ve got some spare time, they’re looking for a few good bloggers over at From The Rumble Seat.  Qualifications don’t appear to be too daunting:

Our ideal candidate:

• Has strong knowledge about Georgia Tech, both current and historical.
• Possesses strong writing skills.
• Has a nose for news, both in knowing what is important and identifying where to find it.
• Is able to write in line with our best practices for growing an audience.
• Is able to write and publish quickly while remaining accurate.
• Is a self-starter who can work with minimal direction.
• Possesses solid communication skills.
• Is comfortable working in a virtual environment.

I don’t see anything there about institutional loyalty, which means YOU CAN DO THAT!

Not willing to make the commitment? Well, at least you can take to the comments section here and suggest a few topics they might want to explore. Just tryin’ to help a blogger out, man.