'Tis the Season

And so it begins.

Last night the first college football games of the season were played around the country. Years of hard work paid off for many young men who played for the first time on the collegiate stage, and for many fans, the sounds, sights, and smells of the season has begun to enchant their lives for yet another year of pageantry.

We love football in this country. It seems we always have. We have found ways to love football that we once might have either deemed impossible or we might have laughed at for their insignificance. We once packed the stadiums around our fair nation, rooted for our beloved teams, screamed our heads off, and then left the games, only to hope for victory in the next week, or in the next season. Players worked construction in the summer, and hoped for jobs in medicine, law, business, education, and the like after graduation.

Things are a bit different now. We have 4 channels of one TV network following every facet of college football from quarterback play to the dietary habits of the defensive linemen, year-round. We follow the twitter accounts of pre-adolescent “phenoms” making college commitments that are, for them, half a lifetime away. Players and coaches are now suggesting that players should be paid.

I don’t mean to intimate that the evolutions in the game are cheap or bad in some way. Although I cannot seem to escape them, and in some small way I pine for a simpler sport, I admit I love being able to read the latest buzz on Notre Dame Football, whether it is in the heart of autumn or in middle of spring. The one thing I do warn against is that it is hard to remove one aspect of the college football experience from another: good or bad. As we build up college football into a powerful “industry,” we run into the same kinds of problems that we encounter with other powers: corruption, greed, and sometimes scandal. Why was a guy like Jerry Sandusky seen as “untouchable” by so many people? OUR love and patronage (bordering on obsession) gave him that influence.

So as we begin this new season of a brilliant, beautiful sport, let’s remind ourselves of the same things we remind our kids of as we drive home from a soccer game: it is just a game. Just because we have followed some recruits since they were still learning state capitals doesn’t make them grown men, equipped to take on aggressive criticism from gridiron pundits. Just because they play under the lights doesn’t mean that they don’t still study for philosophy exams or deal with the pain of being away from home. We will be doing the sport a favor by keeping it in perspective, so as to avoid the trappings of any being that allows power and influence overtake it.

Don’t get me wrong. There can be a happy medium where we can get excited by watching a YouTube video of an 8-year-old express his intent to play for the Fighting Irish, and still maintain a proper level of reality in college football, but begins and ends with US, the fans.

The Best of Sport: Citius, Altius, Fortius

This is the final installment of the series on the Best and Worst of Sports, chronicling the 2012 Olympics and the Scandal at Penn State University.

The 4 X 400m men’s Olympic final was one of the coolest things that I’ve ever seen. No record was set and the country I rooted for didn’t win, but for 3 minutes, such a tremendous display of humanity was put forth on the track at Olympic Stadium in London, nearly leaving me breathless as I watched.

The Bahamas took home the Gold in the relay, a race that is typically the pinnacle event of every track meet. The Bahamas? Really? If it weren’t for the Beach Boys and postcards, I don’t even know if I would know the Bahamas existed! And yet, out of obscurity comes the fastest team on earth at that distance. How beautiful is that—that a country the size of Connecticut, with the population that rivals Bakersfield, California, could defeat the largest, and most talent-filled countries on the planet. And isn’t that a wonderful lesson: Grandeur pales in comparison with hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence.

The second lesson I learned watching the race was learned seeing something that in my lifetime, I hadn’t seen before: the United States not winning the Gold medal in the event. Only five times in the history of the modern Games has this been the case. And yet there was not bitterness or disappointment from the Americans. They were beat in the world’s most objective sport, and they lost. They still WON a silver medal, even after two of their best athletes had been taken out with injury. But they were grateful for the opportunity to compete. How awesome and oft-forgotten is that? Sport is enjoyable, and it’s a joy simply to compete. You could see that, too in the last-place finishers in the race: the South African Team. The much publicized Oscar Pistorius, running on two prosthetic legs, running in his first Olympics, anchored the historic run for the South Africans. The team had only been allowed to run after they had protested their disappointing finish in the semi-final due to a nasty fall. And yet there was such gratitude in their athletes! How often do we pout after we lose a game or we have a call go against us? The 4 X 400 reminded me of yet another important lesson: The joy of competition is not in winning, but in competing.

Most people that compete in the Olympics lose. In fact, almost ALL athletes lose. Many athletes train their whole lives to come to the Olympics and lose in the first heat of a 10 second race. Why do they fly across the world and why do we watch? It’s because the Olympics has more to do with being better than the best. If your focus is self-improvement, it is entirely up to you if you can succeed. In competing, we cannot predict the valor of an opponent, but we can control our pursuit of excellence. We participate because it’s fun, and we continue because there is something in us that pushes us to do the “more.”

After all, the motto of the Olympics is not “Fastest, Highest, Strongest,” because only one person can be that, but we can ALL be Faster, Higher, and Stronger. 

The Worst of Sport: Character Ed and the PSU Scandal

This is an installment in the Best and Worst of Sports Scandal chronicling the Olympic Games and the Sandusky scandal at Penn State.

In the wake of the severe sanctions imposed on Penn State by NCAA President Mark Emmert, commentators have fiercely debated the justification for the NCAA’s intervention in the first place.  Given Sandusky’s conviction and the devastating findings of the Freeh report was the NCAA simply piling on? 

The NCAA typically functions to maintain fairness in college football and is best known for enforcing recruiting violations and academic standards.   In order to avoid NCAA penalties, most colleges now have a staff specifically devoted to compliance.  Yet conventional compliance offices with their focus on the adherence to specific NCAA rules are ill-equipped to address the cultural malaise that overtook Penn State.

The key to understanding why Emmert responded so decisively is in his November 17, 2011 letter of inquiry to Penn State following the allegations of Sandusky’s history of blatant abuse.  Emmert noted that Article 2.4 of the NCAA Constitution holds athletic departments responsible for the “character education” of their participants and that in order to carry out that responsibility, all those involved in athletics should adhere to moral principles in all aspects of their operations.  Emmert went on to point out that because coaches are “teachers of young people,” the NCAA Constitution holds them to a higher ethical standard than most citizens.

In spite of Emmert’s lofty moral vision, the NCAA has yet to require any formal preparation for or credentialing of college coaches.  Yet the rationale for the sanctions clearly broadens Athletic Departments’ responsibility for their coaches. Coaches have extraordinary power and influence over young people.  As such, they have a responsibility to not only protect athletes from exploitation and abuse but to nurture their development. 

In punishing Penn State, Emmert raised the bar for all colleges and sports organizations throughout the country.  Sports organizations from college athletics to knee-high leagues must replace a culture of compliance with a culture of compassion.  Building a culture that protects and nurtures children requires they provide coaches and administrators with the best possible education for their role as moral teachers.