The State of The Union Pt. 1
At any other time you might expect the President to come out and tell you how well, he thinks, the Union is doing, but this is a totally different type of State of the Union address. I'm here to talk about the state that we find the world of college sports in, over a couple of posts. After this last weekend there are a couple areas of college sports, football in general, that I would like to approach and tell you what needs to happen. I know many of these posts seem to be "doom and gloom" but at the current state of things I haven't found anything that will paint a pretty picture of how things can or would be turning around for the better.
By now most, if not all, of us have seen video of the fight that took place between Miami(FL) and Florida International University. When the respective AD's for each school decided to get their teams together and play they billed this as a rivalry game, one where "most of the athletes grew up playing against each other." They certainly got the rivalry atmosphere they were looking for and a little more. Jay Mariotti on the ESPN show Around the Horn put it best, "Here are a bunch of guys who couldn't make it into Miami to play for the team so they go to FIU, of course there is going to be bad blood, somehow we shouldn't be surprised by the actions that transpired during the game." The fight certainly brought out the worst in college sports, something that we've been seeing alarmingly a lot of recently, especially from Miami University. Coker's comment about him "[having] control of this program. No doubt about that, no doubt about that," seems to leave more to be desired by many people, something along the lines of him proving that he has control of the team.
And how about these "punishments" handed down by the higher-ups in Miami that have apparently "set a new standard." One ESPN.com writer lables these so call "punishments" as not a "slap on the wrist" but as " a soothing caress and manicure." These 18 one game suspensions show how much The Miami University relies on it's football team and the money it brings in, because if it was really worried about changing the view of the University and making it look appealing for people to come to and make it a place that parents really want their children to go to, they would do what FIU has done. Just what did the do? They did the right thing.
To start off with they dismissed the two players that sparked the whole brawl. Gone, off the team, probably never to return. For the other 16 players on the squad that had one game suspensions? They get to vacation the rest of the year, they won't play another snap this season. They also have to go through 10 hours of anger management classes and do community service hours by talking to kids and telling them the proper way to play team sports. The President of FIU was also quoted as saying "One incident is one incident too many," and they certainly have gone a long way in proving that by taking the actions that they have.
Or they could always go the route of Clemson and U. of South Carolina a coulpe years back. In 2004 when they got into their fracas both teams were heading to bowl games and Lou Holtz was on his way out, his swansong. But instead they decided to get all their fun that day, and both schools responded by say 'no' to bowl game invitations.
But Miami just can't do that. Because as stated earlier the school relies on its football team heavily. And with them not playing in the high name bowls the last couple years bringing the annual windfall from the bowl game pay-outs the school, and the football teams, needs to try to win six games so they can atleast get their money and run.
Miami also doesn't seem to care about changing things. Yes this will be a bitter taste in their mouth for a long time, but at the moment they seem to be attempting to surpress any memory about it by just forgetting about it and moving on. Whereas that would be an appropriate action anyother time, you can't just try to forget about something like this because if you do, the harder you try the harder it will be to try to fix it the next time it happens.
So why is proper punishment so important? It goes back to when I was talking about Little League players and anyother kid that plays sports. They see the fight happen and what goes down? The player only gets a one game suspension? That's like telling a kid he can go into a candy store or Toys R Us and get whatever he wants, that's giving a kid free reign over what he wants to do.
Something needs to happen quickly or our college sports are just going to turn out to be like many of our professional sports, a joke. A guy that I was staying with in Morgantown this weekend said it best "the big schools are only worried about the money" How true that rings in line with how Miami is handling this debacle.
By now most, if not all, of us have seen video of the fight that took place between Miami(FL) and Florida International University. When the respective AD's for each school decided to get their teams together and play they billed this as a rivalry game, one where "most of the athletes grew up playing against each other." They certainly got the rivalry atmosphere they were looking for and a little more. Jay Mariotti on the ESPN show Around the Horn put it best, "Here are a bunch of guys who couldn't make it into Miami to play for the team so they go to FIU, of course there is going to be bad blood, somehow we shouldn't be surprised by the actions that transpired during the game." The fight certainly brought out the worst in college sports, something that we've been seeing alarmingly a lot of recently, especially from Miami University. Coker's comment about him "[having] control of this program. No doubt about that, no doubt about that," seems to leave more to be desired by many people, something along the lines of him proving that he has control of the team.
And how about these "punishments" handed down by the higher-ups in Miami that have apparently "set a new standard." One ESPN.com writer lables these so call "punishments" as not a "slap on the wrist" but as " a soothing caress and manicure." These 18 one game suspensions show how much The Miami University relies on it's football team and the money it brings in, because if it was really worried about changing the view of the University and making it look appealing for people to come to and make it a place that parents really want their children to go to, they would do what FIU has done. Just what did the do? They did the right thing.
To start off with they dismissed the two players that sparked the whole brawl. Gone, off the team, probably never to return. For the other 16 players on the squad that had one game suspensions? They get to vacation the rest of the year, they won't play another snap this season. They also have to go through 10 hours of anger management classes and do community service hours by talking to kids and telling them the proper way to play team sports. The President of FIU was also quoted as saying "One incident is one incident too many," and they certainly have gone a long way in proving that by taking the actions that they have.
Or they could always go the route of Clemson and U. of South Carolina a coulpe years back. In 2004 when they got into their fracas both teams were heading to bowl games and Lou Holtz was on his way out, his swansong. But instead they decided to get all their fun that day, and both schools responded by say 'no' to bowl game invitations.
But Miami just can't do that. Because as stated earlier the school relies on its football team heavily. And with them not playing in the high name bowls the last couple years bringing the annual windfall from the bowl game pay-outs the school, and the football teams, needs to try to win six games so they can atleast get their money and run.
Miami also doesn't seem to care about changing things. Yes this will be a bitter taste in their mouth for a long time, but at the moment they seem to be attempting to surpress any memory about it by just forgetting about it and moving on. Whereas that would be an appropriate action anyother time, you can't just try to forget about something like this because if you do, the harder you try the harder it will be to try to fix it the next time it happens.
So why is proper punishment so important? It goes back to when I was talking about Little League players and anyother kid that plays sports. They see the fight happen and what goes down? The player only gets a one game suspension? That's like telling a kid he can go into a candy store or Toys R Us and get whatever he wants, that's giving a kid free reign over what he wants to do.
Something needs to happen quickly or our college sports are just going to turn out to be like many of our professional sports, a joke. A guy that I was staying with in Morgantown this weekend said it best "the big schools are only worried about the money" How true that rings in line with how Miami is handling this debacle.
posted by The Submariner at 10:44 AM
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