Brown Holds Key to Football Program
Handcuffed by Arrests

EDITORIAL BOARD [Austin American-Statesman]

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Football practice opened last night for the Texas Longhorns, and, as always, anticipation is high for a team ranked fourth in the nation in one preseason poll.

But befitting one of the rainiest summers on record in Central Texas, Texas football opens under a cloud. One previously suspended player and one newly suspended were in jail on robbery charges as the team arrived for practice, and two others have been suspended for the first three games for alcohol-related misdemeanors.

Texas Coach Mack Brown does not have a reputation for running an outlaw program or for repeated recruiting violations. But his reputation, and that of the university and the football team, have been sullied by the arrests of numerous players since winning the national championship in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

Eight players have been arrested over the past 19 months on charges ranging from drug possession and robbery to driving while intoxicated. The team's problems have fans wondering aloud if the first practice will be in the recreation yard at the county jail. The Longhorn faithful have been embarrassed by this spate of criminal activity. [Have they? The editorial board will seem to deny that in a moment.]

Recruiting top football talent is a high-wire act, and every mistake is quickly known and widely circulated. Coaches have only so much control over their young players, so recruiting, mentoring and monitoring them are vitally important in a high-profile program like UT's. [How high-wire is it? I mean, how many of these guys present at admissions time with major criminal records? And then how much time and money has, predictably, to be spent monitoring them?]

Texas fans will argue that UT's program is no worse than those at other top football schools and better than most. [Now they don't sound embarrassed.] That may be true, but something is missing at UT when a top recruit is hanging out with a player already kicked off the team after a burglary arrest. Brown clearly has work to do to improve the situation and restore his, and the school's, image. [It's encouraging to see a local booster paper acknowledge that rancid sports teams damage the reputation of the universities that house them, not merely the sports programs that cynically take them on.]

Brown is among the highest-paid coaches in the country, making more than $2 million a year. His contract includes financial incentives for winning the Big 12 Conference, going to a prestigious bowl game or finishing in the top 10. Most head coaches at universities with powerhouse football teams have similar contracts that reward victory handsomely.

It is one of the problems in big-time college football that coaches don't have the same financial incentives for running a clean program, keeping players on the straight and narrow and seeing that they graduate. Brown can earn a $20,000 bonus if half his players graduate. He wins a $75,000 bonus if his team finishes among the top three in the country. [20 thou. That's how much it takes to light up the stadium's Adzillatron screen for ten minutes.]

Brown and the Longhorns have been great ambassadors for Austin and Texas. They have demonstrated pride, excellence, commitment and execution in winning conference titles and a national championship. We have confidence that Brown will restore class and integrity to his program, get his players under control and have UT back in the national spotlight for all the right reasons and none of the wrong ones. [Blah blah.]

But the coach knows better than anyone that the problems he's faced this summer cannot continue. [Um, look again at the coach's incentives. They can and will continue. They're simply the cost of doing business.]