The Pangs of Guilt

Please forgive this brief interruption in the stream of baby updates. Fear not! His visage will grace this page again!

College Bowl season begins tomorrow. And yes, despite the fact that I may not sit through entire games, I plan to watch at least two and follow two or three others with great interest. Yes, the BCS is probably foolish and bad (go to my wife's blog and link to Elizabeth's to find a great anti-BCS post and discussion), but I still get excited about college bowl games. Tomorrow BYU takes on Arizona in the Las Vegas Bowl, which I hope to watch at my in-laws' place if the weather cooperates Both my in-laws are BYU alums and I must say that I've followed the team somewhat since moving to Utah.

Then, of course, there is the Rose Bowl. I'll be pulling hard for Penn State as usual, but I won't be surprised if they fall to a very talented USC squad.

This time of year I read many football articles, and at the risk of being a killjoy, I must bring up some of the more poignant issues facing major college football - both probably more important in a real sense than whether or not Texas should be playing Florida instead of Oklahoma.

First, there is the great racial divide among Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision) head coaches. Is it four or five of the 119 head coaches at this level that are black? That's about 3%, and it really is a travesty. It's not like there aren't lots of qualified black assistants and coordinators. It's not like black men haven't shown great success as big-time college basketball coaches (thanks in part to men like John Thompson kicking in the door).

Even if the number of black Division I coaches only equalled the percentage that African-Americans make up of the general population, there would be at least 15 of them. And if minority coaches equalled the percentage of minority players in college, then about half the coaches would be black or another minority. The trouble is, I just don't know the best way for colleges or the NCAA to encourage minority hires, but it seems clear that the situation really ought to change.

The other sad story is the atrocious graduation rate among football players at the big-time "football factories". Nationally only 55% of Division 1-A football players graduate in six years. In an awesome article, Linsey Luebchow covers this topic. That 55% figure doesn't even consider the actual quality of education they receive. Luebchow actually comes up with an "Academic BCS" picture. In their national title game, Boston College would play Northwestern (Penn State ranked third - *shameless tout*). Oklahoma and Florida ranked #20 and 21, respectively. Florida graduates only 36% of its players. It doesn't even pain me to say it: if you can't graduate at least half your players, you have no business playing for any kind of college title.

As Luebchow states:

"Every year, college football fans get caught up in some "major" controversy with the BCS rankings. They spend hours talking about obscure statistics and cursing computer formulas. This year, it was Oklahoma and Texas fans battling it out for the right to play in the Big 12 and National Championship games. Texas fans were devastated when they lost the rankings fight.

But the real tragedy for this team is that only 40 percent of its players, and only 27 percent of its black players, will graduate. Texas' football players put the University on the national stage. And what do they get in return? Besides the precious few that will make it to the NFL, most will leave school without a degree and with few career prospects."

Ouch.

Well, enough said - college football does a lot of good bringing funds into universities, but maybe, just maybe, fewer hours should be spent bending the rules to practice longer and harder, and more time shoud be spent actually being a student Isn't that what college is for, anyway?