National Collegiate Athletic Association |
CommentFebruary 15, 1999
Guest editorial -- BCS connects college football's two seasons
By Roy F. Kramer
The tradition of college football continues to flourish with the bowl season played out during the last week of December and the days surrounding New Year's. This year's bowl season matched or surpassed the exciting regular season with great intersectional match-ups. The average attendance in the 22 postseason contests was up by 3.5 percent, the overall cable television ratings for bowl week increased by 5 percent and the ratings for the four Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowls increased by 6 percent. At the same time, the bowl system permitted 44 teams and more than 4,000 student-athletes to enjoy a postseason experience. Each bowl-eligible team in the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-10 and Southeastern Conferences plus three teams from Conference USA and four teams from the Western Athletic Conference participated in one of these 22 bowl games. I believe it is important for us to remember that the strength of college football, unlike almost all other sports, is the regular season. No other intercollegiate team sport plays as few regular-season games as football. Every game takes on an added importance. The season is filled with great conference and interconference rivalries. The success of the game depends on maintaining those traditions, and we must carefully examine any future changes in postseason play that might have a detrimental effect on those great regular-season games. College football is not and never will be the National Football League. Division I-A is composed of 112 football-playing institutions, not 30. Ninety-five percent of the players will never be professional athletes after their college days are over. As a result, many of the decisions facing those who have leadership responsibilities in inter- collegiate athletics must be made not in the context of simple solutions that attract front-page headlines, but rather in the interest of the institutions of higher education that they represent, the future of the sport and the young men who play the game. The season-ending tradition of bowl games has long been a vital part of the college game. These games have produced great and exciting moments in the history of college football. Today, as we have seen, some 4,000 student athletes have had an opportunity to enjoy that bowl experience. One often reads that there are too many bowls. I have yet to talk with a student-athlete, coach or an institution who participated in one of these bowls who thought there were too many. There continues to be great public interest for some finality to the season with a champion crowned on the field. Thus, in my view, it was critical that college football be able to create some type of all-inclusive national-championship game and yet maintain the maximum number of postseason opportunities for the student-athletes who participate in Division I-A football. Thus the BCS had three primary goals in this inaugural year. The first goal was to enhance interest in the regular season. The second was to match the consensus No. 1 and No. 2 teams in a bowl game. The final objective was to find ways to help maintain the health of the overall bowl system. Did the BCS accomplish those goals? I certainly believe the record previously stated supports a positive response to that question. Was the BCS perfect? Certainly not, and I think all of us who have a great interest in the future of college football will continue to work to find ways to improve it in the future. Roy F. Kramer is the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference. Comment -- Schools should rethink sponsor selections
BY ELLEN J. STAUROWSKY The college football season, arguably the most established public relations mechanism available in higher education, is heralded in with the Playboy Pigskin Preview and ends with the "Hooters Hula Bowl Maui All-Star Football Classic" replete with free bikini contest. How curious. "What are you thinking?" my parents asked frequently through my adolescent and early adult years -- sometimes to gauge my development, sometimes to voice disappointment and disbelief. As the twilight of the college football season descends, I find myself strangely possessed of an impulse to ask, with puzzlement, the very same question of decision makers within higher education. More precisely, as educators that lead institutions where more than half the student body is female, what are you thinking by quietly and regularly accepting sponsorship from companies such as Playboy Enterprises Inc. and Hooters of America that so specifically objectify women? Strong relationships The relationship between corporations like these and intercollegiate athletics programs extends beyond a single postseason football game sponsorship. Playboy contributes $5,000 to the general scholarship fund of the institution of the player who wins the Anson Mount Scholar/Athlete Award, an award for which nominations are solicited from colleges and universities and decided upon by the editors of the magazine. Playboy also is recognized in the College Sports Information Directors of America directory as a sponsor for that organization. In the case of Hooters, a number of colleges and universities have entered into sponsorship deals to support a range of athletics events and programs such as the University of South Florida's "Football Gala," in which Hooters invested $50,000 or more in 1997 to be designated as a "first-team member." In an age when college campuses are embroiled in discussions and debates about gender equity, it seems worthwhile to reflect seriously on the practices in which athletics departments engage and how those connect to institutional understandings about women and men. In this time of concern about political correctness, questioning the appropriateness of intercollegiate athletics programs being sponsored by companies like Hooters and Playboy may be regarded as overly sensitive -- perhaps even prudish. An argument can be made that because the business of eroticism and pornography constitute matters of free speech, free expression and free enterprise, higher educational institutions must not, and in fact cannot, afford either intellectually or financially to exercise exclusionary judgments with regard to their associations with corporations that offer important sources of revenue and public notoriety. To reject such financial offers on selected moral grounds would constitute violations of the First Amendment and would border on the censorship of ideas, beliefs and preferences. After all, in a free society, colleges and universities are entrusted to preserve and protect the free exchange of ideas. What institutional priorities are being reflected in these institutional choices, though, and at what cost? To invoke an expression made popular in the 1960s, I am reminded that "Freedom ain't free." Institutions of higher learning are keenly aware of the distinction between creating public forums for the debate of ideas and the active support of certain corporate entities whose principles are not consistent with those of higher education. The very fact that boards of trustees have been persuaded or eventually compelled to divest in companies located in countries where systems of apartheid existed bears testament to the fact that higher education exerts its moral conscience with a considerable degree of frequency. Other mixed messages Further, colleges and universities in the NCAA have certainly made discerning decisions about products and images that they perceived to project confusing messages to student bodies and to the public about what college athletics is supposed to represent. The NCAA Manuals address the potential for inconsistency between a sponsor's product and the mission of higher education: "Advertising policies of the Association are designed to exclude those advertisements that do not appear to be in the best interest of higher education." Notably, during the past decade, the intercollegiate athletics community has elected to regulate the sponsorship of alcohol, tobacco, professional sport organizations and athletics footwear companies. It behooves higher education decision makers to wonder why sponsorships from alcohol and cigarette companies are largely prohibited by the intercollegiate athletics community and yet businesses that traffic in the objectification of women fail to inspire similar prohibitions. Women as sex objects At the risk of being overly simplistic and too direct, the athletics community, and by extension higher education in general, continue to foster a system of athletics education constructed around the performance of high profile male athletes with females cast in the roles of sex objects. Examples abound: Consider the scene from "He Got Game" in which the rigorously recruited high-school star, Jesus, is treated by one university to an evening of "free love" with two voluptuous female partners. Consider the coaches who refer to events such as the "Hooters Hula Bowl Maui All-Star Football Classic" as just reward for their players. Consider the media relations practitioners who include pictures of beautiful coed "escorts" within recruiting brochures. The wide river that runs through this territory is fraught with mixed messages about women's roles within men's lives; when sounded to the depths, it rings with an element of misogyny. Viewed at a macro-level, is it any wonder that Jeff Benedict's revelations in his recent book, "Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL," chronicle a class of college-educated male athletes conflicted in their relationships with women or that colleges and universities have yet to grasp the essential lesson at the core of Title IX, that being unvarnished respect for women? With the new millennium upon us, there is an opportunity to revisit this terrain with an intent toward substantive change. Although the development of legislation and guiding principles that prohibit sponsorships from corporations that objectify women should be encouraged, the more profound task for college presidents, faculty athletics representatives and athletics department personnel is to truly come to grips with what it means to be both inwardly and outwardly respectful of women. If not you, who, and if not now, when? Ellen J. Staurowsky is an associate professor and coordinator of the Sport Communication Program at Ithaca College. This article first appeared in the January 18-24, 1999, edition of Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal. Opinions -- Too many easy outs for not banning dietary supplements
Ann Hall, writer "I'll bet one of the reasons (that Massachusetts high schools are) unwilling to ban andro and other performance-enhancing products is because a lot of coaches are willing to turn a blind eye as long as their teams keep racking up the Ws. "Plus, how do you enforce a ban? Test every high-school athlete? That would cost huge amounts of money, take time and rile up parents, whose attitude these days seems to be, 'What right do you have to tell me what to do with my kid?' "OK, you tell your kid what's right, what's wrong and what could hurt him or her. And while you're at it, explain that there are no pills that will substitute for eating a proper diet and exercising. Then go out and set a good example. "Better still, the message should come from you and the school. ... Local school systems should actively discourage the use of andro and creatine until studies show they're safe for teenagers. "For all the good things Mark McGwire gave us (last) year, opening the door to a discussion of the use of andro and creatine ranks right up there with his most stellar achievements."
Steven Plisk, director of sports conditioning "Creatine has an osmotic effect on the cell, initially increasing its water volume. It is important to understand that muscle cells are 70 percent water, and any increase in lean mass is therefore 70 percent water -- with or without creatine supplementation."
Richard B. Kreider, faculty member "If someone cramps during two-a-days, they are asked, 'Were you taking creatine?' If the player says 'yes,' there suddenly is a relationship. More detailed questioning often finds the athlete was not well-conditioned upon reporting to camp, was not drinking enough during practice, did not rehydrate well between practices because of appetite suppression. It's easy to blame it one something 'new' the athlete did rather than things coaches and trainers could have controlled."
Hiring female coaches
Donna Lopiano, executive director "The issue is not hiring women to coach women's sports. The discrimination issue is in hiring women to coach men's sports, which now have higher-paying jobs and better status."
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The 1998 college football season has come and gone and will be remembered as one of the most exciting in recent memory. It was highlighted by great conference races, memorable intersectional games and tremendous fan interest. Regular-season attendance increased by almost 5 percent and total television viewership continues to grow. Certainly, the conclusion of this season raised interest in college football to a new standard.