Professional College Football

Selena Roberts' column($) about big-time college football in the NYTimes yesterday echoes a piece George Will wrote last week, each relying heavily on a recent letter from Rep. Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to the president of the NCAA. Thomas wants to know why, exactly, it's okay for tax-exempt colleges and universities to be running massive, for-profit professional sports leagues. It's a good question.

I have nothing against pro sports. Like lots of people, I'm a big fan, particularly of the professional football team owned and operated by my grad school alma mater, Ohio State. The Buckeyes are kicking eleven kinds of butt this year and I'm enjoying every minute of it. When we spank Michigan next month on our way to the national title game, it will be a great day for all right-thinking Americans.

At the same time, in the 11 years since I left Columbus I've been treated to a regular diet of scandals and unsavory reports of how the university has consistently bent and broken its policies and values in support of the franchise. Academic misconduct, grading scandals, riots led by drunken fans, ex-players arrested upon being found driving erratically in a truck loaded with a bullet-proof vest, a loaded AK-47 type assault rifle, three loaded handguns, a hatchet, and an open, half-drunk bottle of vodka--the list goes on.

Every one of these incidents embarrasses the university and stains its good name. And if could trade them in for fewer wins on the field--if a clean program meant more Saturdays on the receiving end of the 44-0 drubbing OSU gave Minnesota last weekend--I'd do it in a minute.
There's a place for pro football teams that put winning above all else: the NFL.

The real question is why universities don't see things the same way, why they routinely sell their higher ideals and institutional values for the fame, money, and thrills that go with big-time sports. In one sense the question answers itself -- fame, money, and thrills have always tempted people, and some people are always too weak to resist. But the answer also lies with the complex, insular nature of the institutions themselves.

Colleges and universities do much more than teach. They provide community and a powerful sense of shared identity in a world where those things can hard to come by. Sports augment and focus that process. There's something undeniably great about sitting in a stadium with a 100,000 other people that all want what you want, that for at least a few hours see the world just like you. The problem is when those shared desires are so in conflict with the basic mission of education that we all end up coming together to support something that shames us in the end. As long as colleges continue own pro sports franchises, the danger of that will be hard to avoid.