The high holy days of sport begins in earnest today as the NCAA basketball tournament will be in full swing. When you get your sheets out and put faith in Old State U, think about how much money will change hands between the NCAA and its sponsors, the gamblers and their customers and all the office pools.
Not one player who dribbles a ball will receive one real red cent for this exhibition of amateur basketball skills. It goes in the pockets of the NCAA who in turn disperses it to the member institutions. The trickle-down effect to the players is via the ability to provide educations, room and board to these chosen few who reap gazillions for their owners. And you thought the International Olympic Committee has moral issues.
The tournament can only be won by a handful of teams. Spare me the rhetoric of Cinderella, a nice term given by the late Al McGuire when the tournament was in its infant stages of mega-exposure. Cinderella may spend the weekend with someone but she never has her prize forever.
This is an event that is based on hope, emotion, luck and some skill as 99 percent of these players will never play this game for a real living. All they have to play for is future memories.
The tournament is where careers start. A hot coach from a small school that can get to the second weekend normally finds some larger institution with millions of reasons why their place is better than the one coach is currently coaching at. Then the dominoes start to fall as the scramble begins to fill vacancies. Four or five years later, the process starts over for some schools as they never seem to get it right.
It will be entertaining to say the least, as Old Mizzou will have a shot. Those who always ask at this time of year “What’s a Billiken?” could find out that they are a handful as well as a good luck charm. This year more teams are equipped to have that coveted six-game winning streak. Step right up, as the fun is about to begin as the emotions run high and the stack of money made will grow even higher.
Cut lines
The sport we call the NFL never has an off day. We follow our teams during the playing season, understanding there is only one winner. The rest of us wonder how their team will get better. Normal for sure, but I always wondered how a player feels when he knows he will be part of an American statistic –
unemployment – for all the wrong reasons.
Yes, the unemployment season is here. You know, when a player in the NFL makes too much money in the eyes of an owner and when he does not want to take a pay cut (and they cut him. Yes, cut, unemployed, out of a job, part of the 8.3 percent of Americans.
It is sad when anyone finds themselves out of work, but pro football players signed their own death warrant in how they negotiated their contracts. In other sports, a player may get released due to lack of skill. In the NFL, players who can still play but cost too much seldom find work. These are the same players who were afforded a free education that they did not take advantage of, hence no degree, no chance to compete in the real world and they have yet to see a 30th birthday.
They got bad advice from leadership for years, continued to follow it and lived the myth that they will walk away from the game on their terms. You can name that select group on one hand these days. Please, do not feel sorry as they asked for it. They thought they were invincible, and all the alleged union can say to them is “it’s the system.” A system they agreed to and hoodwinked every other member to buy into. And all the union does is wait for the next group of dues-paying members to enter the league and feed them the same line.
Things with this league never change. The names do. So you will read about players who you think can play get cut, in most cases never to be heard from again or at a significantly less salary. The sad thing here is they have such a unique skill that they could have forced the owners hand, and they didn’t.
At least in the real world of employment, many employers give you a heads up, if not severance. In the NFL, maybe a phone call.
