Did you ever think that Condoleezza Rice would have such an impact on sports? She has an impeccable resume in government and education. She is one the two first female members admitted to the Augusta National Golf Club, home of the prestigious Masters Golf Tournament. Her credentials are now being challenged, as she has been mentioned as a candidate to be part of the national playoff selection committee for college football starting next season. From columnists and beat writers to coaches, many have come out in opposition to her appointment. Funny thing is that if the same people who are now calling her out had done their job in the first place, there would be no need for her appointment.
The writers and coaches have turned their so-called “ranking polls” into one of the great jokes of the 20th and now 21st century, and yet they look down on an outsider. Former Auburn coach Pat Dye was quoted as saying the only thing Rice knows about football is “what someone told her or what she read in a book or saw on TV.” That is interesting, as Rice and Dye may share the same process of selection. In a coaches poll, a number of coaches are charged with ranking teams each week. Their votes are normally cast on Saturday night, if not Sunday morning.
So here is the question. At what time does a coach have time to vote on 25 teams and their rankings when he is trying to get his team prepared to play a weekend opponent? When does that coach have time to watch the other teams? Is it Saturday night after his team has played when he has that sort of time to watch the rest of the country? Nope. Perhaps it is Sunday morning – you know, between church, taping his coach’s show and team meetings? No chance.
So when did Pat Dye or his like have a chance to objectively vote on the other teams in the country? Surely you would hope that he would have seen enough of them to vote, or does he just look at the scores? There have been some coaches who have admitted that they would just turn it over to the school’s sports information director and let him cast the vote in the coach’s name. Brilliant idea. The SID may have even less time to watch than the rest of the country. When the question is posed, they just shrug it off.
That brings us to the writers’ poll. They cast votes too. If they are covering a game and then writing afterward (allow for travel if it is a road game), even if these guys are credible and diligent – most of them are not, in this case – when would they have time to see everyone in question and cast an objective vote? When you add up a season, how could any coach or writer be in a position to honestly know who is any good week in and week out without the help of a scoreboard or storyline? Yet these are the same groups that say Condoleezza Rice does not know what she is voting on.
I do not subscribe to the notion that you need to have played the game in order to know the game. Just look at the annals of sports and look at the great coaches – Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics (second most NBA Finals championships), Scotty Bowman( most Stanley Cup championships in hockey), Mike Krzyzewski (most wins in college basketball) – and then look at their career numbers as players in the NBA, NHL and NCAA. Two of the three never played at that level, and Coach K was a player at Army who never saw a day in the NBA.
As for writers, can you name the ones who were big-time players in a sport before they decided to make a living writing? The only voting that is more comical when it comes to college sports is the Heisman Trophy. That’s the epitome of know-nothings voting on a now meaningless trophy.
I do not know if Condoleezza Rice will serve on the committee or not. I do know that she will be prepared, as she has shown in her past professional accomplishments. She will not hand it off to someone else or just vote someone in because she coached with or covered someone elsewhere or any of the other good-old-boy hijinks that sometimes takes place.
I do know this. The reason that she is even being considered is that some who were charged with this assignment initially failed miserably. While it was not solely their fault, they only exposed a flawed system that the posse was going to eventually catch up to. Now that they have caught up, it is time for a new sheriff and deputies to come to town and start fixing college football. The opposition will be stiff, and there will not be a lot of support from the talking heads because their voices will not have the same impact with new players at the table with a new mission.
The playoff system has been long overdue for an overhaul, and while it will not be perfect at the outset, it is a big step in the right direction. Now if only the ones with narrow minds could step aside, the partial mess they made can begin to be cleaned up with a legit playoff format overseen by a legit panel members.
As for Condoleezza Rice, she is an interesting person who would bring a fresh perspective. She has been in rooms where more was at stake than who gets seeded for a playoff game, so pressure to get it right will not be a problem here. The problem is she would be a new kid on the block who has no real ties to the past football frolic that we call the polls and rankings. There will be others involved in the selection, and we shall see if Coach Dye and his likes will be quick to point out what he does not really know again. Can’t wait!
