How Parental Responsibility Will Radically Change
College Football
Every year we have
certainty about three things: death, taxes, and national signing day. Early February annually, virtually every high school football player
dreaming of playing in college on a scholarship signs a national letter of
intent (NLI). His intent is to be one of the greatest in the world at this
uniquely North American job, and it starts with his choice of a school to hone
his craft. This time something was different. Alex Collins decided he wanted to
play at Arkansas. His mother decided he should be closer to home in Florida.
Collins initially verbally committed to Miami.
The NCAA, author of NLI,
requires that any prospective scholarship athlete under 21 must have the signature
of a parent or legal guardian. No financial aid can be received unless there is
the parent signature. On national signing day, when the highly recruited Alex
had his press conference to announce his much anticipated commitment to
Arkansas, his mother appeared, but then left abruptly without signing.
The fact that the father
of Alex has reportedly signed, and the mother has hired a lawyer is not the
story. It may be a momentary media soap opera, but not the real transformative
impactful story. This was just a light
hearted oh-by-the-way story when first reported by the major media. After all,
though he was a prized recruit, Alex was not the top player in the college
“draft”, or even the top running back in the country. And this was just
Arkansas, not Alabama, Notre Dame or some other elite tall cotton program. This was just a family feud about location for
a very good prospect.
But if Ms. McDonald’s reasoning
for her signing strike were for other reasons, I suspect it would be no
laughing matter. What if she remained adamant and it was Alabama or Notre Dame
that lost out on the next Andrew Luck, Cam Newton or pre-sentenced OJ Simpson?
And what if the highly publicized reasons for her holdout were the result of
her doing some homework – homework so sophisticated it is called due diligence?
What if the result of her due diligence about the beggar school (and this is
purely hypothetical) was the following observations, giving new meaning to the
term “Elite Eight”?
1.
During the 5
years of the coach’s tenure, the school elected to withdraw, rather than renew
the scholarships of every single player that had a season-ending or career
threatening injury. This was despite verbal promises when recruiting the
teenager that his scholarship was safe. In fact, each school has the option to offer
multi-year scholarships.
2.
During that
coach’s tenure, every teenager that had the same range of SAT or ACT scores as
her son had 3 times as much football tutoring than classroom tutoring.
3.
During that
coach’s tenure, every teenager in that range of SAT-ACT flunked out of school
before the junior season and the school has worst graduation rates among the
schools her son considered.
4.
For those academically
at-risk teenagers of which her son would join, the school has not initiated any
plan to change the status quo.
5.
Her son is African
American. There are no coaches or
administrators in primary thinking positions, (head coach, offensive or
defensive coordinators, Director of athletics or Assistant Director, etc.)
6.
During that
coach’s tenure, neither the school nor the athletic department had a mandatory training for how teenagers
with a future as instant millionaires should handle their money, or how to
carefully screen for agents, or how the school proactively pre-screened agents
to protect the teenagers from the savvy but unscrupulous.
7.
The
institution did not provide insurance for injured players; make a request to
the NCAA for access to its insurance fund for injured players, never encouraged
or helped NCAA’s own Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, or provided gap funds
for the difference between the scholarship and the true total cost of the
education.
8.
The
institution never contemplated or established a trust fund for players who lost
their scholarship, so they could then upon certain conditions being met,
receive a return on the considerable royalties amassed by the school from the
merchandise sales from the numbers worn by those teenagers.
So imagine the press
conference where Ms. McDonald stands at the podium stoic as Condoleezza Rice,
charismatic as Michelle Obama, and says,
“I have convinced Alex to attend a school that not only promised to take
care of him, but actually did the best job of teenagers much like him. They
earned the opportunity – and here is my list from which I found the right fit.”
She shifts to the other foot and continues in
a near whisper, “My son grew up without a strong father in the home, and he
needs that role model. I don’t see that from the school he chose first.”
Then with a smile she
continues,
“But I see it at school X, from the administration down to the coaches
that will spend more hours with him than I will from this point forward. My
instinct tells me they have the mix of folks who are culturally connected
influencers. And I know, the way only a parent can know, that he needs those
influences more than he needs that little oblong piece of leather everybody wants
him to carry for the next few years.”
Imagine the impact of a
Rice-Obama mother, and those who helped and rallied around her due
diligence. If other similarly situated
parents operated in kind, the paradigm of decision making would change for most
of the impact players in college sports.
The impact would be
profound too because of the underpublicized power of that NLI. The NLI creates
a monopoly. Once a teenager signs it, other
schools must stop recruiting the prized young man. The youngster gains a
guaranteed one year scholarship from his – and his parents – school of
choice. That is why prior to that
fateful date of February 6th, grown men hold up in hotels and
driveways for hours on end, waiting for a return call and opportunity to be an
influencer with a teenager. They want to stay in the hunt in hopes of the
future monopoly.
If the Elite Eight factors
become a reality, I suspect all the top football schools will re-evaluate their
promises and programs. Some schools already
pass the grade. But all would have to
consider their “ranking” in a wholly different way. For many, that new “way” is
what would finally put their student-athlete mission statements in front of BCS
ambitions. Perhaps at last there would be a near-uniform incentive program where
all those who are paid from college football would have to align the best
interests of the teenager with retaining their own salaries. Again, there are
some already on board. And if the morally rich get the fruits, the sporting
industries are better for it.
If the Elite Eight factors
revealed a litany of verifiable facts about every school making promises to
teenagers, and puts those promises under a microscope, it lead to an indictment
against the transgressors that is far more curative than NCAA sanctions. It would serve notice to other parents that
they are indeed empowered to make decisions in what they consider to be the best interests of their child. And that
they are not powerless against sports system in America.
We should remember the
context. On this one day certain each year, the future best of a profession in the world are starting their journey.
The teenagers are matriculating to two related industries, college and
professional sports. Both are multi-billion dollar industries, with a lot of
middle aged wealthy people very intent on exploiting their unique talents for
their own personal profit. Those profiteers and millions of fans care more
about their school, illogical rooting interests, than in what’s best for the gladiators
they watch for fun and money. So who is left to care primarily for the players? Who but the parents have the plasma
called love that makes people sacrifice for their children, and remain more purist
about what is best for their child. It’s the love elixir that makes us say
“I’ll forego that nice new Beemer so you can make ends meet at Yale”, when NW
Nowhere U could do.
The NCAA’s own website
discussion of the NLI warns parents and their children that only 2 percent of
high school athletes get college scholarships. The NCAA therefore makes the
following admonition:
“…high school student-athletes and
their parents need to have realistic expectations about receiving an
athletic scholarship to play sports in college. Academic, not athletic,
achievement is the most reliable path to success in life.”
So the NCAA advocates parental
responsibility. In various political settings we talk about parental
responsibility. But would we still advocate it if it meant we lost the best
high school quarterback in the country?
If the Elite Eight factors dominated decision-making, sports bloggers
and tweet-a-holics would create a social media mania that may bring more death
threats than praise for a Ms. McDonald.
That’s because we have a priority problem in the industry. But that
problem would only be uncovered by some radicalized movement where schools are
actually ranked by a “best interests of the child standard” including an
analysis of a school’s educational and financial support systems. Don’t shoot
me, but I am working on it.
