The fault lies not in our stars

The University of Cincinnati/Xavier basketball game ended in a brawl, sending all kinds of officials scurrying to place blame and address that situation. You solve a problem by identifying and dealing with it, not a symptom. And, be assured, the fight is symptom. Having the athletes stand up and apologize is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

So where does the responsibility lie? It’s at the top and I place the turn of the tide in 1986 with the NCAA’s passage of proposition 48 that lowered the standards for admission of college athletes. They, of course, did this at the bidding of the administrations of the member schools. When the leadership of academic institutions states that academic performance isn’t that important, “Houston, we have a problem.”

The proposition was passed under the guise of providing equal or better education opportunity, but one would have to be exceptionally naïve to miss that the objective was to optimize prestige and revenues from the athletic departments. Review the majors of the players on the rosters of the Division I schools and the graduation rates if you harbor the notion it’s about education. And, was it really an endorsement of “All men are created equal” to say that you aren’t capable of learning so we’ll lower the bar? All races, genders, etc. are capable of academic achievement, so why not bestow the scholarships on those willing to make the effort? They’re the ones who deserve the help and will benefit from it.

If you want to blame someone, put the spotlight on the boards of regents. Ohio State has a history of bad actors on their teams and was recently rocked by disclosures of shenanigans that led to the dismissal of the football coach. The leadership of the university was so affected by that that they went right out and hired a replacement who had 30 player incidents in his previous program. On the heels of that travesty, the board of regents awarded the president of the university a six-figure bonus and a raise. What do you think their priority is? Surely, not player standards and behavior.

Getting back to the University of Cincinnati, there’s another Ohio school with player (and coach) quality issues, with the brawl being the most recent example. Its president also received a six-figure bonus and healthy raise. You get what you incentivize.

So, if you’re into the blame game, the fault lies not in our stars (star players), but in ourselves.