Friday, September 29, 2017

UBI EST MEA?

                My dictionary defines the word scandal as “an action or event regarded as morally wrong that causes general public outrage,” but one has to strain to see those elements in the latest college-sports episode involving the arrests of 10 men accused of running a ring to bribe basketball recruits. At best, the moral part of the question is, uh, questionable, and the outrage has been muted if there’s been any at all. As has become increasingly clear to anyone who’s been paying attention, it simply describes business as usual in an enterprise that rivals few in this land for corruption and hypocrisy.

               I and others have been railing for years (decades!) about the failings of college sports, to no avail. They only get worse as the money pot grows and our institutions of higher learning twist themselves out of shape to grab their share of it. Coaches and administrators turn blind eyes to the offenses going on under their noses and lie about their knowledge when they’re exposed. It’s part of their jobs.

The main victims are the so-called student-athletes who fuel the beast and, mostly, are discarded when they’re of no further use. The joke in communist Russia was that the people pretended to work and the state pretended to pay them. In college sports the athletes pretend to go to school and the schools pretend to graduate them.

What’s different about the current matter is its scope and specificity.  Scooped up in a federal probe announced last Tuesday in New York were assistant coaches at four top-flight hoops schools—Arizona, Auburn, Oklahoma State and Southern California-- two employees of the international shoe company Adidas, two financial advisers, a players’ agent and (!) a custom tailor. Making a long story short, it’s alleged that Adidas and the other business types funneled money to the coaches to pay basketball prospects to attend their schools and, later, turn their representation over to them when (if) they turned pro. I’m really interested to know how the tailor figured into this. Are new suits that expensive these days?

Prosecutors said the three-year FBI investigation that led to the charges is continuing and that their net probably would widen in the weeks ahead. That was clear from the inclusion in the arrest documents of two more schools that were described but not named, but were named later as the U’s of Louisville and Miami. It was alleged that basketball prospects or their families received upwards of $100,000 each from Adidas, et al, to enroll there. Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach with a long and sordid rap sheet, was placed on “administrative leave” by the school on Wednesday, so there should be more from that quarter. It also was reported that employees of Nike, another big shoe company, have been subpoenaed, opening another avenue of inquiry.

Legally speaking this is serious stuff, with violations of U.S. bribery, conspiracy, honest-services fraud and wire-fraud statutes involved. One piece I read said that if convicted of all charges the coaches could face maximum sentences of 80 years in prison.  For men in their 40s or 50s, as the coaches seem to be, those are life sentences, the fed-max they’d get for murder. If nothing else that should encourage them to make nice with the prosecutors as the case unfolds.

Really, though, it should be asked who the immediate victims are. They certainly don’t seem to be the willing companies, which regard the bribes as seed money. The public universities for which the coaches worked also deserve no pity because their athletics-first practices created the situation that nurtured the mess. In Arizona, where I live, legislative penury long has starved public higher education, causing tuition at Arizona State University to more than triple in the last 15 years, but the school still has found $300 million to renovate its football stadium.

One of the prosecutors interviewed on TV likened the accused conspirators to a pack of coyotes yipping and nipping at befuddled recruits, but the comparison rang false. That gang didn’t want to eat the kids, it wanted to take them out to dinner, and who could blame them for accepting? Remember that an athlete taking money to attend a college might violate NCAA rules but it ain’t against the law. A stigma may attach but basketballers Chris Webber and Marcus Camby and football player Reggie Bush took illicit money and went on to have lucrative pro careers, with all attendant honors.

 The idea that big-time college basketball and football recruiting involves only the kids and their parents, and maybe a high-school coach, is way out of date. Today the scene is a swamp in which agents’ runners, “street” agents, club-team coaches and their sponsors (mainly the shoe companies) and all sorts of hangers on also swim, and the coach that can’t navigate it doesn’t last long. Word travels fast in that milieu and exchanges of money don’t stay secret long.

 The probe is sure to enliven the “just pay ‘em” crowd, which believes that salaries for college athletes would solve all problems. I don’t buy that on a number of grounds. Making the kids employees would further devalue whatever the educational side of their scholarships is worth, and if $100,000 is the going rate to rent a blue-chip hoops recruit for a year or two, the price tag would be very high. Too, making people richer doesn’t make them less greedy, so under-the-table deals would continue.  One of the assistant coaches named in the action, Chuck Person of Auburn, had a 14-season NBA career (1987-2001) in which he earned about $23 million, and his Auburn salary was reported at $240,000 a year, so he’s hardly on the dole.

American college sports are like such other corrupt enterprises as the Olympics and international soccer in that they are inundated with money and poorly prepared to deal with it, either philosophically or organizationally. Billions of dollars are raining in from TV-rights sales, gate receipts and shoe-company largess, and plenty of people have their hands out to get some of it, one way or another.

 Surveying the perennially graft-ridden Chicago political scene, the late newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote that instead of “Urbs in Horto” (meaning “City in a Garden”) Chicago’s Latin motto should be “Ubi Est Mea?”, for “Where’s Mine?” The same goes for our college sports.
 




Friday, September 15, 2017

NEWS & VIEWS

                NEWS: The Red Sox and Yankees swap charges of sign stealing.
               
                VIEW: I’m shocked. Shocked!

                The New York Yankees accused the Boston Red Sox of stealing their catchers’ hand signals during an August series in Fenway Park. The Red Sox pretty much admitted it but countered that the Yanks have been doing pretty much the same thing—so there!  Baseball is investigating.

                This sort of stuff always makes me laugh because sign-stealing is an integral part of many sports, including baseball and football. Further, it’s okay has long as it’s done manually, as it were, using only eyes and hand signals. Probably the most famous hit in Major League Baseball history—Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” home run for the Giants against the Dodgers in a 1951 playoff game—was abetting by a stolen sign. One guy, Joe Nossek, fashioned a 30-year career (1973-2003) as a coach largely around his ability as a sign thief.

                The rules rub comes when electronics are involved, like the buzzer used by the Giants’ center field spy to relay calls to the dugout in that memorable 1951 contest or, apparently, the Apple watch a Red Sox trainer wore to convey tips to his team’s batters. Electronic devices such as cell phones are barred from baseball dugouts but the Apple thing looks like a regular wrist watch rather than the tiny computer it is. So when the trainer’s watch read “curve ball” instead of 3 p.m., he was busted, or somesuch.

                I have no doubt other teams do what the Red Sox and Yanks are accused of; the standard TV shot from center field shows catchers’ signs on every pitch and it’s too much to expect that someone who can read them isn’t watching and passing them along. Ditto, probably, with lip reading, which is why so many mouths are comically covered during baseball’s many mound meetings. As the Madden 18 ads say, it’s in the game, and if you’re not cheating you’re not trying.

    NEWS: All four singles semifinalists in the recent U.S. Open women’s tennis tournament were Americans.
                
                VIEW: That’s really shocking.
                
                Except for two young women named Williams, American tennis has been in eclipse during the current century, with almost no other representation in the game’s upper reaches. Prior to Sloane Stephens’ victory this month no American woman other than Serena or Venus Williams had won a Grand Slam singles title since Jennifer Capriati did it in Australia in 2002, and no U.S. man has done it since Andy Roddick won in Flushing Meadows in 2003.

                That development coincided with some sea changes in the sport, in which more-powerful rackets largely negated the service edge, wiping out stylistic differences and turning every match into a baseline slog, and rising pro prize money broadened its appeal to prospective players. Time was when tennis (like golf) was a country-club sport in which the need for expensive facilities, equipment and instruction largely limited participation to the children of the well-off families that could afford them. Now tennis stresses the sort of stamina and mental toughness that demands players’ total commitment from age 8 or 9 and makes it a target for lower-income parents who see their athletic offspring as meal tickets.  Non-country-club Europeans have taken over men’s tennis and most of the top women’s ranking spots. Not coincidentally, European men have attained parity with Americans in golf and Asians rule that sport’s female side. The U.S. Open tennis breakthrough shows, at least, that more American women have caught up in the dedication category.

                It also underlines the remarkableness of the Williams sisters, who together have won 30 Grand Slam singles crowns (Serena has 23) since 1999, plus many Olympic medals and countless doubles trophies. Their athleticism may have been inborn but their longevity at the top has been hard earned.

                I was working when the sisters broke onto the tennis scene and, somehow, often found myself being talked at by their mythomaniacal dad, Richard. He delighted in telling me how his daughters’ court success was due soley to the coaching of himself and his rotund (now ex) wife Oracene even though it was well known that they’d attended top-level tennis academies, and how tennis was just a passing fancy for the girls and that they’d soon be off making their marks in fields as diverse as fashion design and computer programming. Now Venus is 37 years old and still at it while Serena, 35, is plotting her return from childbirth. I guess that, like most kids, they tuned out dad early on.

                NEWS: Cohen and Epstein rumble on the gridirons.

                VIEWS: I’m really, really shocked.

                My two favorite football teams are the Chicago Bears and the University of Illinois, so football seasons long have been unhappy for me. This one began as more of the same, with both struggling as usual to attain a mediocrity that appears to be beyond their reach. 

                Lo and behold, however, the leading running back for the Bears to date is a guy named Tarik Cohen, while one Mike Epstein is the same for the Illini. Notable Jewish football players of any kind are rare, but running backs? No way!

                Cohen was a surprise draftee, a little guy for pro football (5-foot-6, 180 pounds) out of a small college in North Carolina, but he’s freakily athletic (check out a Youtube video of him catching footballs with each hand while doing a back flip), very fast and versatile, a pass-catcher as well as a runner.  He’s been compared to Darren Sproles, another little guy who’s carved out a nice career at the position.

  Alas, I’ve checked around, including contacting a sports writer friend in Chicago, and found that despite his Hebraic last name Mr. Cohen probably isn’t Jewish. I expected as much because he’s African-American and has a Muslim-sounding first name.  Who knows, though—maybe he could switch. If he joined my tribe he’d never lack for Friday-night dinner invitations.

 Freshman Epstein seems to be Jewish, at least by self-identity. He’s from Florida and was highly recruited out of high school. Goodness knows why he picked Illinois, but he’s rushed for 165 yards in the school’s first two games and seems to be the real deal. He’s no immediate Heisman prospect but we old Illini don’t expect that. Pretty good is good enough for us.
               


               

                

Friday, September 1, 2017

KAEPERNICKED

                Would Colin Kaepernick have an National Football League job if he were apolitical?
               
                The answer, in a word, is yes.

                The free agent is 29 years old, in his physical prime, and a six-year-veteran pro quarterback, most of it as a starter. In his first full NFL season (2012) he led his team, the San Francisco 49ers, to the Super Bowl, coming up just short of winning it. The next season the team went 12-4 in the regular season and made it to the conference final. He’s as good a runner as a passer (better, probably), and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. By all accounts he’s been a good and diligent teammate.

                Yeah, his last couple of seasons weren’t great, but he battled injuries and the Niners were in general decline during their course. And we’re talking about a roster spot here—not necessarily a starting job—and backup NFL QBs make big money walking the sidelines wearing baseball caps and holding clipboards on game days. He’s certainly more talented than most of the men slated to do that.

By cultural definition Kaepernick is black, although his birth mother was white and he carries the name of the adoptive white family that raised him. He sports a big afro, which harks back to the days when that was the hairstyle of choice of black militants and still sets some teeth on edge. So, too, did his chosen method of protest, which was to sit or kneel during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the national anthem, before his team’s games.

 His specific issue was the predilection of some policemen to shoot first and ask questions later when dealing with black suspects. A lot of people, whites as well as blacks, also don’t like that, but in messin’ with the anthem he not only changed the subject but also fuzzed his point, which was unfortunate, I think.  Clarity is a virtue in such matters.

If nothing else his plight highlights the unique—and odd—relationship between sports and patriotism in this land. Through the repetition of decades, American sporting events invariably are prefaced by the singing of the anthem, something that obtains in no other kinds of entertainment for which Americans gather. There is no “why” to this custom— it just is—and the lack of sense behind it only increases its force.

If you’d ask around you’d probably be told that the anthem is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but it ain’t.  Indeed, the USA did without an official anthem until 1931, when Congress got around to naming the lyrics the Maryland lawyer Francis Scott Key wrote in 1814 to the tune of an old British drinking song after he’d witnessed the siege of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Before that the tunes “Hail, Columbia” and “America The Beautiful” often sufficed on occasions when patriotic music was desired. Some people still prefer “America The Beautiful” as an anthem choice; among other things it’s a lot easier to sing than “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Knowing a good thing when they see it, American sports organizations have glommed on to patriotic themes and play them for all they’re worth. Giant flag displays mark the pregame ceremonies of many events and fly-overs by Air Force jets are a frequent touch. After 9/11 some Major League Baseball teams began playing the Irving Berlin song “God Bless America” before the seventh-inning stretch. People are asked to rise and remove their hats while it is played, even though the piece lacks any official status.

 As a sports writer I went to one event (can’t remember which) at which the Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA,” also known as the redneck anthem, led things off. The crowd rose for it. That “at least I know I’m free” line grabs ‘em every time, huh?

Federal law mentions the anthem and prescribes a protocol for behavior when it’s played --people should stand, face the flag and put their right hands over their hearts, and men (but not women) should remove their hats—but compliance always is spotty. No penalties are provided for violations, which is a good thing because enforcement would be impossible. It’s not clear whether only people in the stands are supposed to follow the code or folks anywhere on a stadium’s grounds. I’ve seen amusing sights in men’s rooms when the anthem is played.

There’s also no set way to present the anthem. Only opera singers and military bands can be relied upon to play it straight; otherwise, freelance vocal or instrumental shtick is the rule. A good rule of thumb for the correctness of anthem vocal renditions is the number of syllables given to the word “banner.” If it’s four (ba-aa-ner-er) you’re in trouble.
            
              In such a milieu it should be hard to define which anthem violations are worthy of censure, so Kaepernick’s punishment seems unusual at best. During his last-season actions he was joined by teammates from time to time, and none of them were singled out for special condemnation. During the current preseason several individual players (Eric Reid, Marshawn Lynch and Michael Bennett, among them) have mirrored Kaepernick’s actions, and a dozen Cleveland Browns staged a group protest, but as far as I know they’re all still employed.
          
            The day when the dictum “shut up and play” applied to jocks and other entertainers clearly has passed; we’re in a hyper-partisan era when political expression seems more like a duty than a luxury.  A few weeks ago President Trump and wife said they wouldn’t be attending the annual Kennedy Center tribute to outstanding performing artists after it had become clear that no one else would show up if they did.  That’s about as pointed as it gets.


 The NFL employs a variety of miscreants whose offenses make Kaepernick’s seem tame. Any team that hires him can expect some home-fan bounceback, but if the past is any guide it’ll disappear with his first touchdown pass. We fans are funny that way.