What’s interesting is to see the OSU apologists jump on the Sports Illustrated article, claiming that things are made up, or people have axes to grind, or that they don’t like the school. What a load of bullshit. ANYONE who has a nodding acquaintance with college sports knows that what SI reported is business as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. I attended University of San Francisco while they were on probation for violations of their basketball program. Being a recruited athlete, I knew of what was offered by other schools, which schools paid better, gave you better benefits, etc. This was back in the 80’s, I knew some of the USF bballers, as well as some of the bballers at both CAL and Stanford. The sex recruiting was a major tool at that time, guys would tell me that they would get phone calls from coeds telling them how in love they were with so and so, all of that, along with the monetary and in kind compensation.
I would recommend the book, “Shake Down the Thunder” if anyone wants a fascinating chronicle of the attitudes that dominated college football from the time of its inception, 1890’s, till the 1930’s. Football was so lucrative that, for example, players at the University of Pittsburgh could afford to get married and start families with the money they received. Army was involved with a wandering football player program, which meant that guys, who were past their eligibility, would simply change their names, or be commissioned as officers, in order to stretch their playing careers until their late 20’s, very early 30’s. This is the sport’s legacy, why would anyone think that changes would take place, when billions have been spent on broadcast rights, meaning that networks are going to demand that the best players, eligible or not, literate or not, will perform on the field. Any why wouldn’t a university or conference adhere to an ethical code, when those unis/conference have hundreds of millions on the table, waiting to be devoured? Note that the most lucrative football conference is the Southeast Conference, made up of less that stellar universities. They sure as hell ain’t gonna get their students pouring into their schools based on their humanities or engineering schools. Football is what drives the name recognition for these joints, nothing else…
charlie: I think all of that’s true, especially the key element of insane amounts of money being on the line. While I actually think that quite a few schools aren’t all that corrupt (these are the schools that lose their games of course), it’s clear that many are, and for various reasons it’s just OSU’s turn.
September 11th, 2013 at 12:09PM
What’s interesting is to see the OSU apologists jump on the Sports Illustrated article, claiming that things are made up, or people have axes to grind, or that they don’t like the school. What a load of bullshit. ANYONE who has a nodding acquaintance with college sports knows that what SI reported is business as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. I attended University of San Francisco while they were on probation for violations of their basketball program. Being a recruited athlete, I knew of what was offered by other schools, which schools paid better, gave you better benefits, etc. This was back in the 80’s, I knew some of the USF bballers, as well as some of the bballers at both CAL and Stanford. The sex recruiting was a major tool at that time, guys would tell me that they would get phone calls from coeds telling them how in love they were with so and so, all of that, along with the monetary and in kind compensation.
I would recommend the book, “Shake Down the Thunder” if anyone wants a fascinating chronicle of the attitudes that dominated college football from the time of its inception, 1890’s, till the 1930’s. Football was so lucrative that, for example, players at the University of Pittsburgh could afford to get married and start families with the money they received. Army was involved with a wandering football player program, which meant that guys, who were past their eligibility, would simply change their names, or be commissioned as officers, in order to stretch their playing careers until their late 20’s, very early 30’s. This is the sport’s legacy, why would anyone think that changes would take place, when billions have been spent on broadcast rights, meaning that networks are going to demand that the best players, eligible or not, literate or not, will perform on the field. Any why wouldn’t a university or conference adhere to an ethical code, when those unis/conference have hundreds of millions on the table, waiting to be devoured? Note that the most lucrative football conference is the Southeast Conference, made up of less that stellar universities. They sure as hell ain’t gonna get their students pouring into their schools based on their humanities or engineering schools. Football is what drives the name recognition for these joints, nothing else…
September 11th, 2013 at 6:54PM
charlie: I think all of that’s true, especially the key element of insane amounts of money being on the line. While I actually think that quite a few schools aren’t all that corrupt (these are the schools that lose their games of course), it’s clear that many are, and for various reasons it’s just OSU’s turn.
September 12th, 2013 at 12:38PM
The weird thing is that the OSU football team didn’t actually do all that well, in spite of the sleazoid practices.