DRY ROT

What am I supposed to do
with all this useless air in my hands, Lord?

Or that the world refuses to believe
that it just may be that easy?

THEY WANT YOU, THEY WANT YOU, THEY WANT YOU AS A NEW RECRUIT

As is his wont, Michael Wilbon has hit the Paul Hornung nail right on the head:

[T]he problem for Notre Dame isn’t attracting the black athlete, it’s attracting the elite athlete, the kids who can affect a college football game enough to put Notre Dame back up there with the Miamis and Florida States. And the reason is the team’s reputation for running an archaic offense that turns off kids who dream of playing in the NFL some day.

Please don’t let it be said, Golden Domers, that Nebraska smelled the coffee before you. While it’s way, way too early to tell if Nebraska did the right thing in severing its ties with Frank Solich, it’s clear that Nebraska realizes the rules of the recruiting game have changed–and not just because of Colorado’s excesses.

Let me just ask a question of you all: if you thought you had a shot at getting a $250,000 a year job–at minimum–how hard would you be willing to work for it? Would you spend four or five years of your life in, say, Stillwater, Oklahoma for that chance? Because that’s what today’s elite athlete is looking at. Forget the academics; how hard would you work in class for a semi-solid $35K if you knew that enough hard work and a little luck would get you a shot at millions? What matters most to an elite athlete is, “Which program is going to get me my best shot at the pros?” You can complain about that all you want; you can quote the oft-cited statistic that only 1% of all college athletes ever play professionally; it just doesn’t matter. A 1% shot at millions–or at least hundreds of thousands–looks a lot better to most of us than an 80% shot at $35,000.

And it’s that hope of being the 1% which keeps the charade of college athletics alive. Elite athletes don’t get that way by believing they’re part of the 99%.

What I’ve always wondered is why you can’t just major in football, basketball, hockey, etc., in college. Colleges offer all kinds of majors which lead to limited employment opportunities after graduation. You can get a degree in music performance, but it doesn’t guarantee you a recording contract. You can get a degree in ar, but that won’t get you a major gallery showing. You can get a degree in drama, but that won’t even get you a bit part in a straight-to-video film, or the lead in the community theater production of The Fantasticks.

Your odds of making it in any of those fields are less than 1 in 100. In most cases, way less. (There are at least four colleges in North Dakota offering degrees in music performance. How many full-time professional musicians do you think there are in the Flickertail State?) So where’s the harm in offering degrees in athletic performance?

People in music, drama, and the arts understand that they get no guarantees with their degrees. They know they might get really, really lucky breaks; they also know they might work at Starbucks for six or seven years before things start happening for them. But nobody looks askance at colleges for offering degrees in these fields. And nobody sees a student majoring in such fields as “wasting their lives”–though, of course, they’re always advising them to have something to fall back on, which is good advice for anybody.

Why can’t we do the same thing for gifted athletes?

A NEW DIRECTION

So long, folks; it’s been fun. But I’m shutting it down here at TBP. I have recently accepted a new job which will require me to relocate and, you know, actually work during most of the day. Since I’d only be able to blog during the early-morning hours, I’ve decided to just hang it up instead.

I’ve been hired as Paul Hornung’s speechwriter, in case you’re wondering. You can read the official press release here.