July 17, 2022
By Jon Fine
GOD BLESS UKRAINE AND THE USA!!!!
JACKET FOOTBALL COMING SOON
Denham Springs HS Football Radio and Internet broadcasts return to the airwaves on Friday, August 26, 5:30 pm, with Sport N Center Yellow Jackets Warmup as we broadcast the Denham Springs vs Walker matchup in the Walker Jamboree. Josh Ward and Mitch Covington are on the call. I’ll be contributing to pre-game, half-time and post-game. Tune in to Family Radio, 91.9 FM, Baton Rouge or on the net at JonFineProductions.com. More details to come in next month's newsletter.
THE WIZARDRY OF OS RETURNS!
Scott Osborne’s popular column is back in JonFineProductions.com Newsletter! Please scroll down below.
DSAA MEETING
The next Denham Springs Athletic Association meeting will be Monday, August 15, at Big Mike’s Sports Bar & Grill, Aspen Square, Denham Springs, at 6:30 pm. The public is invited.
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TODAY’S COLUMNS:
FINE IDEAS tackles some pressing college sports issues in the first of a 2 part series… THE WIZARDRY OF OS offers Scott’s take on conference realignment
Please scroll down below.
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FINE IDEAS
PART 1 OF 2
Title 9’s 50th anniversary…
NIL’s second…
USC and UCLA leave the Pac 12 for the Big 10
The Transfer Portal continues
There is the lingering question of whether athletes should be compensated by their universities and if so, how to do so
I’ll pontificate (lol) on these pressing college sports issues. This will pertain almost exclusively to the Power 5 conferences—SEC, Big 10, ACC, Pac 12 and Big 12. Group of 5, FCS, Division II, Division III, NAIA, Junior Colleges? You’re mostly on your own.
It has been 50 years since Congress passed Title 9, outlawing sex-based discrimination in education in 1972. While the passing of Title 9 gave girls in high school —albeit often unequal--access to sports fairly quickly, it would take another 25 years before we saw increases in the number of women’s programs at the college level.
In 1996, Gender Equity was established by the federal government. This mandated a three-pronged set of criteria for colleges to abide by to ensure that women’s sports were treated equitably. The criterion that was most easily measured was one in which schools would be compliant if women receive scholarships in proportion to their percentages on college campuses. EG, if women comprised 53 percent of students on campus, they would be entitled to 53 percent of all athletic scholarships.
The reason why implementing Gender Equity has been such a challenge is that there had previously been many more men’s sports/scholarships than women’s at the college level. And, since college football had so many scholarships awarded, it would take several women’s sports to match the 103 scholarships big- time college football was awarding when Title 9 came into being. Today, the FBS (larger Division One schools including the Power 5 and Group of 5) offers 85 scholarships in football. The FCS (smaller Division One schools) offers 63.
The biggest effect Gender Equity has had is the creation of numerous sports for college women and the demise of several men’s college sports. To be within the neighborhood of achieving proportionality, you saw women’s programs like volleyball, softball, gymnastics, tennis, golf and track and field proliferate on college campuses. But there also was the discontinuation of men’s sports other than football and basketball. Several men’s hockey, baseball, lacrosse, wrestling, soccer, tennis and golf programs have been eliminated.
Are schools presently in compliance with Gender Equity? A vast majority of schools are not. A recent USA Today Sports expose (readers, please insert an accent egue above the e in expose) showed that many schools manipulate their scholarship numbers to artificially inflate the number of their female sports participants. A good example of schools’ rampant shenanigans is that some schools count non-scholarship men who are brought in to practice against their women’s basketball team in their women’s scholarship numbers.
So, women’s sports opportunities have vastly increased since 1972/1996. Men’s sports options have shown a precipitous decline. Yet, by the true criteria established, women still are not offered the number of sports/scholarships that they should receive based on Title 9/Gender Equity. (And, for that matter, many girls high school sports teams are still second-class citizens.)
How do universities pay for all of these “non-revenue” (mostly non-football or men’s basketball) men’s and women’s sports? In most cases, the profit generated from college football and men’s college basketball pay the freight for much of the rest of the athletic program. What the football and men’s basketball profits don’t cover is shouldered by the universities, often via student activity fees. Whereas most football programs make money and many men’s basketball teams do, most other sports lose money and most athletic departments are in the red.
With all this, there has been the long-term constant outcry that athletes need to be compensated, beyond the scholarships (or partial scholarships) they receive for their athletic participation.
With the financial structure of college sports, there is no possible way that “non-revenue” sport athletes can, nor should receive compensation for their services, beyond their scholarships and other non-monetary benefits they receive. The money just doesn’t exist for remuneration for college athletes across the board. Most athletic departments lose money, as is. If they had to pay their “minor sport” athletes, you’d see colleges incur exponential financial deficits, perhaps even going bankrupt, as there would be no viable way to stay solvent.
Athletic sources of revenue are largely tapped out at present. But if money was somehow found via non-athletic sources—privately or publicly--, a compelling argument would be made that the greater good would be served if these funds were put to better use. Fixing the leaking roof in the library, offering more academic scholarships, increasing and enhancing academic programs, providing greater pay for professors, having more potentially life-saving college research, etc. should take precedence over paying scholarship players on the athletic department profit-draining lacrosse or beach volleyball programs.
Football and men’s basketball are a completely different story. Particularly at Power 5 conference schools, college coaches receive enormous salaries throughout the athletic department, but especially in the revenue sports of football and men’s basketball. In addition, several athletic administrators (numbering in the low hundreds at some big schools) are making healthy salaries, many in high 6 figures. This is largely on the back of the blood, sweat and tears (and future CTE issues?) of football players, with men’s basketball absorbing some of the burden So, shouldn’t the athletes that are producing all of this revenue for their universities receive their fair share of the pie? A resounding YES!
Along comes NIL. College athletes now have the opportunity to sell their Name, Image and Likeness to individuals/businesses/collectives. Some of the smaller sport athletes—often women-- have legitimately capitalized—largely via their social media savvy.
PART 2 COMING IN MID-AUGUST
Brian’s Song made an indelible impression on me. Its theme song is beautifully haunting. This movie explored the relationship of a Chicago Bears black superstar athlete (Gale Sayers played by Billy Dee Williams) and his goofy white teammate (Brian Piccolo played by James Caan), with Piccolo courageously battling cancer, was one for the ages. As are the opening lines narrated in the movie—“… Ernest Hemingway said that true stories always end in death. Well, this is a true story.” Rest in peace, James Caan.
THE WIZARDRY OF OS
BY SCOTT OSBORNE, Head Basketball Coach, Central HS
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” Though Jon Fine’s tactics don’t quite live up to the Godfather, the quote still applies to my return to the column. And I am excited about the opportunity.
Actually, the Godfather metaphor is not too far off from the topic I am going to write about and that is conference realignment. Dale Brown famously compared the NCAA to the Gestapo, and we saw it again with their tactics regarding Will Wade and LSU basketball.
WIth conference realignment, though, the situation has more of a mafia feel. The most powerful families are the Big 10 and the SEC. While I am not a fan of the NCAA and what is happening is a result of failed leadership, I am also not confident the future will be any better.
I have heard people throw out some scenarios that I could see work. The one I like the most is where the SEC and Big 10 become more like conferences in professional leagues. That thought leads to more questions than answers. Would there be interleague play? What about all the other sports? What happens to the teams who do not make it into the two “superconferences?”
The question I will focus on is how this can work without some governing body looking out for the interest of all conferences, all universities, all sports? I simply cannot imagine a scenario where college football thrives that does not include, at some point, a competent governing body. I am all for dissolving the NCAA and starting over, but something would have to take its place.
It would be a wonderful development if the college football season consisted of all games where the teams involved were competitive. Being a person that wants all college athletics to be successful, here is my proposal. Move the “rent-a-win” games to a preseason and still give the teams from the smaller conferences (divisions) their pay day.
In other words, LSU is scheduled to play Southern this year and Southern will get paid around 400,000 dollars for a game that will not be competitive. Everyone can play two of those games, but let’s all agree they do not count and allow teams to get ready for the regular season. Just like in the NFL, the top players for the SEC teams can play a quarter, and the second and third team players can get valuable experience the rest of the game.
Once those exhibition games are out of the way, the regular season would consist of 10 superconference games with a bye somewhere in the middle. The conferences would then be in charge of selecting their champion, likely with a conference tournament (semi-finals and finals). Then the conference champions would play for the national championship.
The bowls could still exist as they are already predetermined matchups between teams from different conferences. I am sure we would still have the same problem of players opting out of playing in these games, but that situation might already improve with the ability for athletes to earn money for playing in the bowls through NIL.
None of these developments is the college football we grew up watching. But, the reality is that is how life works. The NCAA tournament in basketball and baseball are drastically different than they were 40 years ago. In the 1990s, college football was very different than it was in the 1950s. Time, evolution, change, and growth are things that just happen.
I started with a quote and I will end with a quote, except I am not sure who said this one. Still, it fits. “Evolve or die.”
DENHAM SPRINGS HS FOOTBALL RADIO BROADCASTS ARE A JON FINE PRODUCTION ON FAMILY RADIO, 91.9 FM, BATON ROUGE and JonFineProductions.com.
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