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Maury
Allen ...going by the book |
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Its Legacy |
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Book provokes thought
re ethical values in sports
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
ABOUT HALF a century ago
I was a wingback in the single wing formation of the football
team at the City College of New York.
We beat Colby College of Waterville, Maine, by three points and
one of the mathematical wizards on our team figured out by comparative
scores than we would beat Notre Dame by one point.
It was all in fun. That’s what football at CCNY was, a chance
to skip a few tough classes, travel to New England and New Jersey
for our games and earn a CCNY lavender varsity letter.
Basketball carried all the sports programs at CCNY. The team
had won the only double crown the year before, the NIT and NCAA
titles, before the NCAA title meant much with victories in both
tournaments over Bradley Tech of Illinois.
Then came the crash.
The basketball scandal erupted as it was revealed that most of
the team’s stars--Eddie Roman, Irwin Dambrot, Ed Warner,
Al Roth and Floyd Layne--had shaved points at the request of
gamblers. The kids got $500 or a thousand for their efforts and
the gamblers, all dressed in fancy frocks at Madison Square Garden,
made big bucks.
CCNY’s team, under the leadership of Hall of Fame coach
Nat Holman, had humiliated the school as well as themselves.
The administration acted rapidly. They shut down football practice
that spring with no gridiron team forever more at CCNY.
What did the basketball scandal have to do with football? Everything.
Basketball was played before huge crowds in Madison square Garden
and generated enough money to support all the other sports programs
at the school.
Football was played on a rocky field called Lewisohn Stadium,
famed for yearly musical concerts.
It was a bitter sports memory of mine lasting all these years.
Not that I thought I could win a pro contract or even start in
the game against Brooklyn College at Ebbets Field. It was simply
the end of my sports idealism.
I have spent the next 50 years as a sportswriter, often being
a little cynical when players say they did it for Mom, for their
teammates, for God and country. Amateur athletes do it for glory,
enough glory so they might become pros. Professional athletes
do it for money, lots and lots of money. Thank you Alex Rodriguez.
All of the long-ago developed cynicism came rushing back as I
examined Indiana University professor Murray Sperber’s carefully
constructed book on college athletics called “Beer And Circus:
How Big-time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education"
(Henry Holt and Company), a strong case for serious examination
of campus priorities.
Sperber suggests that most colleges and universities with big
time sports programs over value their athletes and under value
their teachers, non-athletes and academic standards. He should
know. He watched Bob Knight abuse a college system for years.
Before she interviewed Congressman Condit, Connie Chung interviewed
Bob Knight. She asked him about basketball coaching pressure
at Indiana. He compared it to rape. “If rape is inevitable,”
Knight told Chung, “relax and enjoy it.”
Sperber points out that Knight had won his third NCAA title at
the time, lived in his own isolated, macho world and answered
to no one, least of all the President of the University or the
women’s movement.
“He had become the emperor of Indiana, living in his high
castle,” Sperber writes.
The book digs deep into the values of athletic success on most
campuses across the country. While high profile students and
computer wiz kids are snickered at as nerds, the non verbal,
low IQ athletes are worshiped on college campuses.
Something has gone terribly wrong in so many colleges when students
care more about the beer and circus surrounding football or basketball
game weekends than they ever could about an exam, a book to read
or a problem to solve intellectually.
It is my intellectual arrogance and ego that forces me to attack
the “dumbing down of America.” Go into any fast food
shop, corner store or neighborhood playground. Count how many
teenagers can’t put an English sentence together, understand
politeness or recognize the names of important American figures.
It is hard for me to blame the evils of the country and the decrease
in accomplishment on big time college athletics. But reading
this book and thinking through the issues, I am forced to admit
the dominance of sports on television and on college campuses
has certainly put America in a catch-up position from the country’s
standards of half a century ago.
Amateur sports used to be about fun and sportsmanship, sharing
and caring. Now it is about professional training and a wealthy
future. The recent Little League final, won by the team from
Japan, was about how many of these kids might become pros. Nobody
spoke about how many might just be having fun.
We played great games of stickball, punch ball and three man
basketball on snowy playgrounds when I was a kid without an adult
in sight.
Now it is all about fancy uniforms, maybe a free ride at college
and the dream of a pro career. Hardly any kid talks about learning
in school so that he might better his life and help his neighbor.
Sperber’s book has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth
about college athletics. Come New Year’s Day, I think I’ll
watch the History Channel all afternoon.
© 2001 by Maury Allen.
You
can comment on this column or contact Maury Allen with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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