Changes Required in College Athletics: Pay for Play and Don’t Be Fine With Title IX.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I write to you today an extremely happy man.  Not because I have turned over a new leaf in 2012 (I am still the same sports curmudgeon that I have always been), and not because Christmas yielded me many gifts.  I am happy because this past week’s The New York Magazine gave everyone the most comprehensive and strongest argument for the payment of the young men playing football and basketball in college.

Look it up.

If you read anything this week, anything at all; read Let’s Start Paying College Athletes in the January 1, 2012 edition of The New York Times Magazine by Joe Nocera.  It’s great.

Nocera puts in bold print through out the short 4 page article the numbers that everyone should be made aware of.

The fact that the 15 colleges that have the highest paid football coaches, the same colleges that “can’t afford” to pay athletes a small amount are paying their football coaches a combined $53.4 million.

The fact that Rick Pitino was paid $5 million as the head coach of the Boston Celtics, and this year he will make $7.5 million as the head coach of the Louisville Cardinals (oh, and Doc Rivers is making $5.5 million as the head coach of the Celtics this year, so its not market inflation).

The fact that the University of Texas awarded its football players a very wonderful $3.1 million in scholarships, but also showered head coach Mack Brown with a ridiculous $5.1 million of salary.

The fact that television revenues for the entire, six-month NBA season total $930 million, and revenue for the entire, 3-week NCAA March Madness tournament total $770 million.

It is time to recognize that men’s college basketball and football are big business and that the veil of amateurism needs to shed.  Nocera made an argument that lays out steps that not only allows, but encourages young men to be actual student-athletes, not just athletes.

The strongest part of Nocera’s concept aside from the 6-year scholarship that must be offered to all athletes, is the notion that you only pay the athletes of the men’s basketball and football teams.

This brings me to a notion that Nocera does not entertain, but one that I believe should be addressed.  I believe it is time to either heavily amend or do away with Title IX.

Title IX is the rule in the NCAA that requires that schools have varsity athletic participation “substantially proportionate” to the undergraduate enrollment.  That is:  if a school is 50% men and 50% women, then its varsity athletes should be 50% men and 50% women.

Now, before you write me off as a misogynistic blowhard, please hear me out.  This rule was implemented with the purpose of giving women equal footing in the world of higher education by giving them equal chances at financial assistance that would allow many people otherwise unable to afford college, a chance to afford it.

Alright so here goes my argument.  First, there is no doubt, as can be seen in the continually increasing cost of tuition at colleges and universities, that the cost of offering higher education to all students (regardless of if they are a varsity athlete or not) is extremely high and going up.  Now that being said, a lot of schools choose to fund athletic programs.  Very few of these programs actually make money for the university and unquestionably two of the sports that have the best chance to make money are men’s basketball and men’s football.

The 2010-2011 season saw the Texas A&M women’s basketball team, the #7 team IN THE COUNTRY, operate at a loss of $2.8 million dollars.  $2.8 million dollars in the red.  Revenues from the Texas A&M football program that year? $41.9 million. $41.9 million.  So the women’s basketball is taking $2.8 million away from the University that could be going to students who otherwise could not afford a higher education.  Is that what Title IX was intended to do?

If schools can make money and thus have more money available for scholarships to men and women alike, then they should do it.  Colleges and universities are supposed to be places of higher education, NOT sports leagues.  Are sports a wonderful part of the atmosphere of colleges and universities? Yes.  They are also wonderful, however, at the intramural level (and much less expensive to operate).

How many more scholarships were offered and how much lower is the tuition at the University of Texas because of the $93.9 million dollars in football revenue in the 2010 season alone?  We may never know; it would take the school doing away with their football program.

There is another reason that Title IX has run its course and is no longer in touch with the times.  The number of women receiving undergraduate and post-graduate degrees is greater than men in the United States of America.  Title IX is no longer necessary to allow for the equal opportunity of women, instead the money that is made by men’s sports is needed to invest in strengthening the academic endeavors of young men and the number young men who strive for academic achievement, and not on money hemorrhaging ventures of women’s sports that are required by an out-of-date law.

Everyone should go and read Joe Nocera’s article Let’s Start Playing College Athletes in the most recent edition of The New York Times Magazine.  I hope that you will be able to read it with an open mind.  I also hope, but I know that it will be very difficult, that you consider my idea that Title IX has run its course as an effective law that has a positive impact on those affected.  There is no doubt that college sports will continue, and there is also no doubt that there must be changes to how they continue.

Cape Cod League and Reclaiming Our “National Pastime”

This week, while on vacation in Cape Cod, I have had the luxury of getting to see numerous Cape Cod League baseball games.  The Cape Cod League is an elite summer league for some of the best collegiate players in the country.  Getting a chance to watch the Bourne Braves the other night, however, brought me to a disturbing revelation, that college baseball may be hurting American baseball players in the long term.

One of the most widely praised aspect of Cape Cod League ball is that they play with wooden bats, instead of the aluminum bats that are solely used in the NCAA conferences.  But does this put them at a disadvantage?

Many American players get used to the aluminum bats for years, often including high school, and then have to go into the minor leagues and acclimate themselves to using wooden bats.  This year in the Cape Cod League there are only 11 players with batting averages over .300, and only 6 with averages over .310.  Seven of the 11 players with averages over .300 have lower batting averages then their most recent college season.

A regression analysis could show that part of this drop in batting averages is due to the use of wooden bats as opposed to the aluminum bats.  And a deeper look at more complex numbers may show the same thing.  The question becomes, how long does it take to become fully accustomed to the use of wooden bats?

I would be wary, as the United States has failed to place higher than fourth in first two World Baseball Classics and has only one gold and two bronze medals to show for their efforts in the Olympics since it became a medal sport in 1992, that American baseball players are lagging behind the rest of the world.  As we try to reclaim dominance in our “National Pastime” colleges and even high schools may want to look to the use of wooden bats to offer players as many advantages as possible and ensure that the list of past Cape Cod League stars reads like a “Who’s Who” in baseball.