Leadership Lacking in College Football
Special to GreensboroSports.com from David Rancourt PhD
“There is a function of a quasi-religious nature performed by a few experts but followed in spirit by the whole university world, serving indeed as a symbol to arouse in the students and in the alumni certain congregate and hieratic emotions. I refer, of course, to football.”
— Charles Horton Cooley
Cooley’s words have rung true for over a hundred years. The passion and excitement generated by college football and the rivalries within the game bring out the very best of the competitive spirit of our great nation.
American college football players are modern-day gladiators, embodying great physical strength and mental toughness. The game creates unrivaled team spirit that consumes entire communities, cities, and states. The passion and pageantry, the traditions, fan experience, and the legends the game creates are unlike any other game. Football makes America better and stronger from the lessons learned by the men playing and the experiences lived by the fans.
It is no wonder that this game has captured such a rabid fanbase since it emerged following the Civil War in the 1800’s. From its violent inception where men died playing the game, to the construction of monument-like massive stadiums, to the television era where one could watch a dozen games on a single weekend, college football enjoyed a revered place in the American social fabric. Baseball may have been America’s pastime, but college football was its passion.
The End of the Innocence
Tragically, all that we love about this game has been cast, aside along with the most virtuous aspects of it, for nothing but the love of money. There should be no doubt that sports of all kinds belong on America’s high school and college campuses. Extra-curricular activities that encourage teamwork, leadership, commitment, promote physical fitness, create outlets for stress and conflict management are, and should be, part of our educational system.
However, what college football has become bears little resemblance to the intended purpose of intercollegiate sports. It is the responsibility of our college and university leaders to establish boundaries and limitations on extra-curricular activities, so they are not placed in a position of primacy within education. The significance of the order of the words in the term “student-athlete” has been completely lost.
How this happened is clear.
Coaches who once extolled the virtues of commitment and team, sacrificed their positions of moral high-ground when, selling themselves as character-developers, father-figures even to recruits, later abandoned those same players for better jobs paying millions more. University Presidents, addicted to the riches themselves, were next in line to abandon principle, leaving conferences with historic ties for the riches of those with bigger annual television contract payouts.
It didn’t take long for players, the backbone of this massive economy, to realize it was time for them to fight for their slice of the pie. Players sued for the ability to earn cash payments for the use of name, image and likeness. The O’Bannon decision cleared the way for players to accept cash and was followed by clumsy but aggressive efforts by college supporters to establish affiliated “collectives” to pay athletes to play for a certain college.
Though it is hardly fair to begrudge players the ability to make money in a business where they were making everyone else rich, what has ensued since the O’Bannon decision has crushed the purity and beauty of this game, making it nothing more than a professional sport housed on college campuses. The “Transfer Portal” was the final step in the destruction of the virtue of college football by allowing players to leave a team on a whim and play for a rival the very next season.
Players now play for themselves, their own good, value, and bottom line. Football is no longer an extra-curricular activity; it is a professional purpose unto itself. Colleges are the minor leagues to the NFL and the players treat schools as such. Sure, some camaraderie exists, but it is temporary and lasts only as long as there is enough money to keep everyone on the field happy.
Lost also will be the links that connect players and fans for a lifetime. It is inconceivable that fans will continue to embrace a mercenary model that ignores the development of talent, destroys the spirit of team and devalues education entirely. Fundraising by booster clubs to pay for scholarships for millionaire student-athletes will also soon be relegated to the ash bin of nostalgic history.
End the Arms Race!
As colleges wrestle with how to fund these professional franchises, even with pending salary caps and unionized players, is there not one leader within the Division 1 ranks, the NCAA, the Association of American Universities, or anywhere else with the courage to say “enough, when will this insanity end?”
Anyone who has watched an Ivy League, D2, or D3 football game knows that the games are fantastic, exciting, and fun to watch. These schools tolerate the NIL, but neither pay players nor allow collectives to do so. The benefit of a tremendous education and a chance to play the game they love with their brothers for a few more years is enough for these young men. Is the talent level the same as the Power Five? No, but persevering the value of an education and the reverence of the game is far more important. Insane travel demands, half-year-long schedules, recorded, on-line classes and spoon-fed tutoring is not how higher education was intended to be delivered to students.
It’s time for our nation’s best universities and colleges to get back to the business of educating. End the collectives, end any payment to players conditioned on attending a certain college, end it all and return to four-month seasons, students attending classes alongside their peers with challenging majors in rigorous classes and meaningful standards of admissions that require student-athletes to fit within the norm of each college league’s standards.
If the NFL needs a minor league, let the league develop one like baseball did over a hundred years ago. That model has helped preserve the integrity of college professional baseball where players don’t have to pretend to be student-athletes. It’s time for university. Leaders to end pay-for-play and return their campus to the job of preparing our young men and women to lead the world.
David Rancourt, PhD, is Vice Provost/VP of Enrollment Management at New College of Florida. David captained the 1983/4 Deerfield Academy football and baseball teams, was a walk-on for the 1984 Florida State University Citrus Bowl team, Pop Warner football coach and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the FSU Seminole Boosters in 2015.