Obama Fumbles
I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses--there's no clear decisive winner--that we should be creating a playoff system. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do.
-Barack Obama, November 17, 2008
I'll be the last person to defend college football's Bowl Championship Series, a messy arrangement that serves mostly to funnel millions to football powerhouses, while spreading around enough hush money to lesser lights to keep discontent in check. But I have to say that Obama's championing of a college football playoff stinks of rank hypocrisy. There are valid arguments against the BCS - it's probably an antitrust violation, it locks some colleges out of contention and favors those with a national profile - but Obama didn't advance them. No, he mostly seemed annoyed that, as a fan, his season lacks a clear resolution.
It might have been nice for our president-elect to bear in mind that when he discusses college football, the emphasis properly belongs on the first word. Big-time college athletics has, for decades, grown increasingly mercenary. The players are supposedly student athletes, but these days, they're more likely to receive repeated concussions than an actual education. In truth, they're mostly entertainers. And that's tragic. It's true to some degree of all big-time college sports, but football stands in a class of its own. The teams are enormous. The money is bigger. The risk of injury larger. And the need to compromise academic standards more pressing.
None of that is Barack Obama's fault. But here's something that's well-worth bearing in mind. When Obama transferred out of Occidental College after his sophomore year, he didn't go to Georgia, Pittsburgh, or Alabama, despite their formidable success on the gridiron. No, he went to a school that hadn't posted a winning season since 1971, and which would set a record for football futility with 44 consecutive losses, beginning the year he graduated. His wife attended Princeton; they both went on to Harvard Law. The Ivy League withdrew from Division IA in 1981, rather than keep pace in the race to the bottom among top football programs. To this day, it has no conference football playoff, and declines to participate in the FCS championship. When it came to their own choice of colleges, the Obamas put the quality of their education first. So how can our new President, with a straight face, disregard the adverse academic impact of a FBS playoff, and speak as if providing clearer resolution for fans were somehow more important than the interests of the student-athletes themselves?
During the campaign, Obama spoke eloquently of "American kids who have the brains and the drive to go to college - but can't" because their families can't afford it. He has placed renewing opportunity at the center of his policies, and opening access to higher education as a key component of that agenda. I don't mean to denigrate the many fine institutions of higher education that field competitive football programs - but I absolutely mean to question the relationship between those programs and their host universities' academic missions.
A 2003 study, co-authored by Obama's own incoming OMB Director, found that increased spending on football programs had no correlation whatsoever with either increased overall revenue or academic performance, a finding other studies have borne out. In other words, popular opinion notwithstanding, college athletics programs don't increase donations or the volume or quality of applicants. They do nothing productive for the universities that host them. And if increased athletic spending hasn't been found to harm the universities, either, the same can't be said of the athletes in individual programs. In Division I sports, only basketball produces lower graduation or academic progress rates than football; both "revenue sports" feature athletes with poorer high school records than those in other D-I sports. And there are roughly ten thousand football players currently on scholarship at FBS schools; that's ten thousand slots that might have been awarded on the basis of academic achievement, given (along with the scholarships) to economically-disadvantaged students, or otherwise used to advance the academic missions of these universities.
I'm a fan of college athletics. I like watching the games. I have boundless admiration for players who manage to be both students and athletes (let's hear if for Myron Rolle!) But I have no patience for those who would place the entertainment value of these sports above the needs of the students. Is there any way to justify an eight-team game playoff in academic terms? Can it be said to inculcate desirable habits, build character, to further the ideal of mens sana in corpore sano, in a way that the existing schedule does not?
Fortunately, there's someone well-positioned to explain all of this to our 44th President - the First-Brother-in-Law, Craig Robinson. In his collegiate days, he approached the ideal type of the student athlete. A high school basketball star, Robinson turned down big programs at Purdue and the University of Washington to attend Princeton. He was a two-time Ivy League player of the year, was drafted in the fourth round by the 76ers, and played professionally for two years in England. But when his pro-career fizzled, he had the credentials to earn an MBA from the University of Chicago, and to launch a successful life in the world of high finance, as a bond trader and investment banker.
He also inherited his family's ethos of service. Unfulfilled by finance, he left his lucrative job to coach basketball, and to offer young men the same opportunities he'd enjoyed. After an apprenticeship at Northwestern, he turned around the program at Brown in just two years. But his biggest challenge will come in his new job at Oregon State, a Pac-10 school. Why? Well, it's been widely noted that the OSU Beaver's finished 0-18 in conference play. But that's actually not a bad thing for a new coach. It's statistically unlikely that the team would be as bad again this year, even if nothing else had changed. And turning around a struggling basketball program is hardly unprecedented, particularly when the new coach enjoys certain, er, recruiting advantages.
No, the real challenge facing Coach Robinson is that he wants to turn OSU into a winning team by finding "really good basketball players who respect their academics." And clearly, that's an arena in which OSU has struggled in the past. There are two ways to measure graduation rates: the way the Feds do it, and the NCAAs more inclusive GSR numbers. The latest available data from the NCAA shows that students entering OSU's basketball program between 1998-2001 had a GSR of 64% and a Fed rate of 45%. That, in a word, is mediocre. The national averages for Division I men's basketball programs are 62% and 46%, respectively. Robinson claims to be aiming for a rate of 100%, which is the only meaningful target.
And it's not just talk. When one of his players missed a tutoring session, the entire team ran wind sprints. Academic accountability took the players by surprise. "It was all foreign to them," Robinson reflected. "They just came and went before, I guess, or it was a different type of motivation." He's determined to instill a sense of discipline, and to break bad habits. Practices start promptly at 5:30...AM. Coaches supervise mandatory study halls, on and off the road. Tutors can now travel along with the team, when needed.
So if, as President, Obama really feels that the power of the bully-pulpit is best expended reforming big-time college athletics, I have a suggestion for him. Instead of pushing for more football games, or emphasizing his interests as a fan and a spectator, why not speak out on behalf of our nation's student athletes? His brother-in-law, and coaches like him, have already demonstrated that academic achievement and athletic success can be complementary. Top-flight college programs are in dire need of reform, but the NCAA seems gripped by institutional paralysis. If Obama wants to throw his weight around a little, if he really wants to be the First Sports Fan, he might begin by re-emphasizing a crucial theme of his campaign: that all Americans, even the athletically-gifted, deserve a fair shot at an actual college education. That's change we can believe in.
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Now you've done it, Fly. There is a clear right-wing media bias attack: picking on Obama for a mere comment made about football!
November 24, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point of correction - Obama advocated an 8 team playoff, not 8 games. This would require the two finalists to play 3 games, instead of the one bowl game they play now.
It is certainly possible to fit that in without adversely affecting class time, any more than bowl-bound teams in major programs already do. There's plenty of time in mid-December when teams currently are practicing when they can fit in an extra game.
As a larger point, the NCAA is this weird quasi-professional sports organization. The fact remains that at too many programs, lots of players are athletes first, students second (or third, or barely at all). The damage to athletes' academics is the large time commitment already required for the whole season. Tacking in an extra game or two, when you'd otherwise be preparing for the Gargantuan Fruit Bowl, wouldn't change things much. So while I'm sympathetic to your point about not over-emphasizing athletics, IMO that's already a sunk cost. So let the fans enjoy a playoff.
November 24, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your response, Fosberry. And particular thanks for pointing out my slip; it is indeed an eight-team playoff. And I suppose it's possible that the state of college football is bad enough that adding a playoff wouldn't make things significantly worse. (Although most proposals would place the games squarely in the middle of final exams, and most experts think it'd take at least 11 teams in the playoffs to pass such a proposal, adding another round of play.)
But is this really the standard by which we wish to measure our goals? To cede that college football is a hopeless mess for the players, so that we might as well maximize our enjoyment as fans? Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations (tm).
I'll admit that this isn't the most pressing issue on our national agenda. But Obama knew that when he broached it. Nor was this an offhand remark - he debuted his stance, unprompted, on Monday Night Football, and then raised it again on Sixty Minutes. I suspect his media advisers found that it burnished his image as a man with a common touch, spoke to the interests of a demographic with which Democrats have often struggled, and provided a nice way for him to move beyond the mind-numbing
minutiae of economic policy. Plus, I have no doubt that he believes it. But if we're going to spend time discussing this, as a nation, I think it's important that we get it right.
The NCAA, as you note, embraces contradictory goals. There are those who want it to abandon pretense and pay its athletes; I disagree, but their position has the virtue of consistency. There are those, myself included, who would like to see it get serious about guaranteeing that student athletes receive an education. I know that others disagree, and respect that. But Obama isn't proposing top-to-bottom reform of any kind; he just wants his playoffs, for the sake of the spectacle.
Sure, I'm being petty. As ClearThinker notes, I'm a notorious right-wing hack, so that's to be expected. But I think Obama is still learning just how important his every word has suddenly become. In low-income communities across America, athletic accomplishments are often privileged over academic success. Obama represents a very different model of achievement, a fact that has often been noted in recent weeks. But the very first thing he had to say about higher education after getting elected was that we need a playoff system to replace the BCS. And he didn't just offer it as a casual opinion. He said that "any sensible person" would agree, that every "serious fan" concurs, and that it's the "right thing to do." That's strong language, even when offered in a ironically self-aware tone. He's the President; he no longer has the luxury of casual remarks. If he's going to weigh in on college athletics, he owes it to us all to be a little more thoughtful. He's gone from being a skinny kid with a funny name to an 800-pound gorilla. That's a lot of weight to throw around, and I'd urge him to use it a little more cautiously.
November 24, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly, I can't honestly decide if your comment about my thoughts of your post:
is said with tongue in cheek or not. But if it's not, perhaps you should read this and place my comment in that.
There has been a lot of comments lately about the media attacks on Obama for essentially trivial things. I was merely pointing out that your piece is right up there. ;-)
And I'll add another ;-) for my original comment.
So there.
November 24, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, how I wish deadpan humor translated to written form. Thanks, all the same, for your emendation; I assure you I was no more serious than you.
November 24, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deadpan humore certainly translates into the written word. See Mark Twain.
November 24, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly -
I'd decompose this into two different discussions.
1. Is this issue an appropriate use of Obama's political capital?
2. Is a college football playoff a good thing?
For point 1, I think so long as Obama's involvement doesn't go beyond the jawboning he's done so far (and recall that the 60 minutes quote you use is in response to a question from Steve Kroft), I have no problem with it. It's said a little tongue-in-cheek, with mock seriousness, like the deliberations over picking the Presidential Puppy. It projects an image of Obama as a regular guy, and, as you note, helps humanize him to a part of the electorate Democrats have historically had problems with. I think it's smart politics, so long as he doesn't spend any serious time or energy on it. So far, so good, IMO, but if he appoints a commission or does more overt lobbying, he's gone too far.
On the second point, I'm one of those who thinks college athletics (or at least football and men's basketball) is de facto a professional sports business, so I do think players should be paid by the NCAA. The system serves high profile coaches and schools that want the publicity of a successful athletic program, but it doesn't necessarily help athletes as much. So I'd say they should give up the pretenses, and at least pay the players some of the money the sports generate.
I don't think a playoff makes matters any worse for the athletes' academic lives, but it may indeed be a benefit for the fans. And, if it proves to generate more revenue, perhaps some of that will trickle down in ways to help the athletes, although I'm skeptical on that last point.
The NCAA is primarily designed to serve the schools and coaches, not the interests of the athletes. Note how students are "bound" by "letters of intent", or how they need to sit out a season if they transfer (unless they can get a special waiver approved, which is largely a function of how good your political connections are with the NCAA). If an athlete signs to go to Gargantuan State U. to play for Coach Legend, but then Coach Legend leaves to go to the NFL or some other school, the kid is still committed to attend Gargantuan State.
But this "commitment" isn't reciprocal: scholarships aren't guaranteed, they're dependent on the student staying in the good graces of the coach, and also on their continuing to compete. A coworker of mine won a track scholarship to a Division I school, but was threatened by his coach with losing his scholarship if he didn't compete in all three seasons (cross country, indoors, and outdoors). As he was struggling academically and athletically with the pressure, he finally decided to give up the scholarship and transfer to a local, less expensive school. His experience underscored the fact that when you accept that scholarship, you're an athlete first, and a student second.
Athletics is overly important in this country, especially in colleges. People miss classes or other activities all the time because they have a game, but, as my high school choir director once quipped, when was the last time you heard of a student athlete missing a game because they had a concert? Henry Reich, a senior on Division III Grinnell's cross country team, passed up a final Rhodes Scholarship interview (giving up any chance of winning) to run with his team at the NCAA national meet this past weekend.
So while I'm sympathetic with your hopes that colleges should do more to help the athletes succeed in the classroom, Fly, I'm too cynical to expect much to happen. The NCAA will eventually move towards a playoff, because the money will be irresistible. And I honestly don't think it will detract more from players' academic lives than college football already does, so the main downside is that it will be another sign of the increasing importance of sports in our society and culture. That's not a good signal, I agree, but it's probably inevitable. So getting out in front of this wave, like Obama did, is smart politics.
November 24, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why the emphasis on Division I teams in this discussion? The presidents/chancellors of those Division I schools would surely like the discussion focused just on Division I teams, because that would obscure the reality that Division II and Division III already have playoffs.
And that would undermine the entire argument advanced by university presidents and chancellors against a playoff system: that it's too detrimental to "academics".
I have tremendous respect for those students who manage a full time athletic career while still completing a degree. The responsibilities can be insane. I have little respect for the administrations of football and basketball powerhouses (and the truly mediocre, as well--Rutgers is now in a mess) who do a lot of handwringing about how important "academics" are whenever the issue of playoffs come up. The real reason for the reluctance is the contemplation of the drop in revenue they'll experience and not any serious concern for the student part of their "student athletes".
November 24, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT Voter:
I can't speak to the motives of university presidents, some of whom are undoubtedly simply seeking to maximize revenue. But frankly, I don't particularly care. I oppose a D-I football playoff because it seems to reinforce the same negative trends that have been at work in big-time college football for decades; if others advance similar arguments with less-than-pure motives, I don't see why that should have any bearing on our evaluation of the underlying argument itself. And you're correct that presidents, ADs and coaches bear a large measure of responsibility for the current mess, but isn't that a further reason to set it right?
It's true that FCS, D-II, and D-III all have football playoffs. I haven't focused on them because our president-elect didn't raise the subject. But if we must go there, I'd point out that the scale of the problem in other divisions is wildly different. If you think that the ability of Mount Union College to field consistently excellent football teams that engage in playoffs without compromising academic standards has any bearing on what it would be like for a lineman at Texas to play two or three playoff games at the end of the season, well, I'm not sure how to respond to that.
November 24, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Forgive my denseness, but this:
If you think that the ability of Mount Union College to field consistently excellent football teams that engage in playoffs without compromising academic standards has any bearing on what it would be like for a lineman at Texas to play two or three playoff games at the end of the season, well, I'm not sure how to respond to that
And I'm not sure how to respond to this because I don't understand the point you're making. It's easier for Mount Union to field excellent football teams, to engage in playoffs without compromising academic standards but Texas, for instance, can't, because of the impact it will have on football players? Why is that? Because of NFL scouts? Because implicitly, the point about football student-athletes at Texas is that the "student" part truly is a farce, while it isn't at Mount Union? Because of the money involved in the BCS?
My point wasn't to argue that because it's done in other divisions, it should be done in Division I. Rather, it was to point out the weakness in the "academics will suffer" argument.
Forgive my denseness.
November 24, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry if that reply came off as condescending; that wasn't my intent.
The first thing I want to emphasize in response is that the argument you're making is that a playoff system would be no worse academically than the status quo. To my mind, that's not exactly a compelling case for change. If our President-elect is going to weigh in on a subject like this, I'd prefer him to advance a proposal that might actually improve the situation for student athletes, and not just one that might not make things any worse. Can you find any affirmative academic reason for the change?
To your series of questions, I'd answer a qualified 'Yes.' The money, and all that it brings with it, raise the stakes immeasurably. The players in D-I are on athletic scholarships, which means, in many cases, that they have to remain on the team or lose their funding. The pressure to win is greater. The hours allowed for practices longer - and in D-I, during playoffs and bowl season, students lose their mandatory one-day-off per week. (To cite one particularly stark contrast, in 2003 D-III moved to cut back on the length of defined seasons and to end red-shirting of freshmen. Can you imagine that in D-I?) And, perhaps most importantly, most players in D-I harbor dreams of professional careers, however unrealistically. Very few in D-III have similar delusions, so they generally use their time in college to prepare for some other path in life. All of this suggests, at least to me, that players in D-III are better positioned to endure the extra games a playoff entails than are their D-I peers.
November 24, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the clarification.
I have a jaundiced view of the atmosphere in Division I football and basketball environments. I think the likelihood of change that doesn't make the situation worse is higher than the likelihood of change that actually produces change. If the President-elect were to advocate something that would improve the situation for student athletes but also jeopardize recruiting efforts and the possible W-L records and cost the university income, well, he'd alienate a swath of the electorate, and stir up a faux controversy that would accomplish nothing. His comments are sure to offend no one, because there's no potential for them to have any impact.
I have no solutions to propose. I thought that the president of Vanderbilt University had proposed that the athletes at Vandy become more integrated into student life (no more special dorms for athletes, e.g.), and I thought that was a possible first step in making the emphasis more on the "student" part of "student-athlete". But that's Vandy. If you know the SEC, you know what I mean.
Thanks for the reply, and the insight into the concrete differences between I and III.
November 24, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
To follow up on CT Voters point, Fly, in a slightly divergent way -- I don't know much about football because I don't understand it as a game. However, I love college basketball. In fact, I won't watch the professionals and will only watch the college men and women play.
I too have a jaundiced view of Div I basketball environment at-large as it is practiced in many places. I wonder is there a difference in how the womens sport in D-I behaves/differs as opposed to mens? I don't really know.
I know that I helped, academically, some athletes in two of the Big Ten Conf. schools that I attended a while back and I have a lot of respect for the time commitments they carry - athletically and academically. It was not easy for them but they came through fabulously on both counts of performance on the basketball court and also in the classroom. Some (not all) just needed a wee bit more academic attention given to them.
I think athletes should not have to pay for a schools greed, but conversely, an athlete should also not be punished just because it is Div I. In fact, I think that the Big Ten Conf. actually have a track record of high athletic achievement and academic excellence.
November 24, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
who gives a crap? Division 1 college football is a taxpayer/student subsidized, free farm system for professional football.
aren't there more important issues to discuss?
Let's ask Sarah Palin what her opinion is on college football. And then have a pool to guess how many completely inane things she can spew.
November 24, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin started out as a sportscaster, so that might actually be an area where she knows her stuff!
November 24, 2008 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wanna bet? ;)
November 24, 2008 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what the NCAA should work on enforcement of current academic policy, and you'd see a lot of the problems going on with graduation rates drop down as players had suspensions for not making their grades, with or without a playoff system to determine the national champion. It's shameful how little the NCAA does to enforce their own rules, and how much cheating goes on at the college level.
November 24, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Pal,
Those big $$$ collegiate sports programs are good. Sure, they may come at some expense to the relatively small proportion of student athletes, but they do serve to bring in all those dollars for groovy new things that benefit the entire student body - like sports complexes... and buildings... and stuff. Which universities use to justify their skyrocketing tuition rates for all the other students, which... oh wait. Nevermind.
November 24, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama said something similar in his interview on Monday Night Football the night before the election. It's pretty much his stock answer.
Who the &*%$! cares?
I noticed at today's conference, he didn't announce the appointment of his football advisory council. I doubt this is even in his top 1,000 list of priorities. Over the next four years, he'll probably spend more time worrying about pooper scooping the White House dog than fixing this alleged problem.
November 24, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fly,
While I understand your point that adding an 8-team playoff to college football does not address the problems of poor graduation rates among student-athletes, I would argue that the BCS is no fix for that problem either, and it might actually make it worse. The BCS is a broken system that's designed to create the biggest profit for the biggest schools and create the biggest TV audience that money can buy. It doesn't pay academic scholarships to students who need them most. Academics still take a backseat for the big football factory schools (to use Gregg Easterbrook's term), particularly the privileged few that actually have a chance at the BCS title game each year. Besides, college football players from a huge football factory school train and compete as hard as they can for no pay at all, and a lot of them are also trying to attract the attention of NFL scouts as well.
One of the best lessons I ever received while in grad school was to "think upstream" when considering of solutions for society's biggest problems. By that I mean this: You have a situation where lots of people are swept into a river with a rapid current. You can either stand downstream and pull each one out individually, or you can stand upstream and build a bridge so that people don't fall in the river in the first place.
In regards to the problem of low graduation rates, I think Obama would do best to think upstream. That is, implement a system that stems rising tuition costs and makes college more affordable for students. Urge Congress to pass legislation that provides greater aid and opportunities to public schools and communities. Urge schools with large endowments to provide more financial aid to their students. Work with local and state leaders to eliminate income inequality and poverty so that children have the best educational opportunities before they even reach high school.
Do I think he can do this by himself? No. Athletic programs and coaches have to play a role in getting students to put academics first as well (just like Coach Robinson in your post). But again, whether it's a BCS or a playoff system doesn't matter in the huge scheme because it likely won't raise graduation rates. College football programs first have to change their system from one designed to create a profit, to one built on providing academic and community service opportunities to students.
November 24, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know the post is intended to be humorous. Of course, even in humor, one can find a serious subject to discuss.
There's one aspect of the "big" schools' reliance on FB and MBB (WBB too, at places like Tennessee and Connecticut) that isn't discussed. For a school like Duke, UNC, Oklahoma, Alabama, Penn State, etc., the FB/MBB teams pay for the rest of the athletic department.
This has become even more pronounced since the NCAA started enforcing Title IX requirements to the letter. Many schools, to meet the balance requirements, had to start up entirely new sports for women. This increased the athletic department expenditures, and put even more pressure on the "money" sports. That pressure is still being felt today.
(Note to P.C. police: This is NOT a criticism of Title IX. It's just a fact. And it's why the NCAA doesn't do more to police the money sports. For most member schools, varsity sports depend almost entirely on those big-dollar teams.)
On a lesser level, there's conference profit sharing too. When USC collects their annual eight-figure BCS check, a lot of that goes to the other Pac-10 schools, and programs like Oregon State rely on that money.
Having said that, there are obviously areas of much greater import. But, if Obama must get involved with sports on some level, I wish he would throw his weight behind stricter drug testing and penalties at the college and pro levels of all sports, especially track and field. (One of my stepdaughters quit track when she found out that Marion Jones doped.)
November 24, 2008 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who brought up this issue of football playoffs in the first place? Obama? If so, why is he bringing up such a STUPID topic??
November 24, 2008 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There have been a string of great comments, and since I lack the time to respond to each of them in the detail they deserve, I thought I'd add a single post with some broadly-applicable thoughts.
Several readers have scorned the topic as unworthy of serious attention. If that's their opinion, their argument is probably more with our President-elect than with me.
There seems to be an emergent consensus among other readers that I misfired with this post. They agree with aspects of my critique of the revenue-generating programs in Division I, but fail to see how adding playoffs would make that situation substantially worse. A couple add that since playoffs might correct other problems with the BCS, they're worth considering.
They may well be right; I certainly lack the evidence to challenge them on the hypothetical. So, if I may, let me refocus attention on the broader point at which this post was aiming. It's clear that Obama was having some fun with the question. It was the last thing he was asked in an hour-long interview. And Kroft, fully aware of what he'd volunteered on Monday Night Football, gave him a slow pitch right over the fat part of the plate. That's not unusual; many interviews end with a light-hearted question that the interviewee can knock out of the park. And from a political perspective, Obama nailed his response.
My gripe is that college athletics has some real problems. I identified some in post; readers have since pointed out more. And Barack Obama has to know this, as an alumnus, an avid fan, and a brother-in-law. Right now, he's an immensely popular and influential figure. He chose to score some easy points on this topic. Fine. But the story was picked up in every sporting news outlet in the country, and in the sports sections and segments of the mainstream press, as well. And millions of Americans were left with the impression that when our new president thinks of college athletics, he's mostly worried about attaining a clear resolution at the end of the football season.
Reading the transcript, and viewing the video, that answer struck me as a little glib. It smacked of the campaign trail. It scored points; it didn't advance an agenda or a set of policies. And I guess what set me off was that Obama was explicitly weighing in as President. He was asked what he'd do "as president of the United States...about getting a college football playoff for the national championship?" If he wanted to answer the question as a sports fan, he needed to first disavow its premise. He needed to say something like, "Look, as a fan, I can tell you what I'd like to see happen." But he didn't. Or he could have said that he didn't think he'd take any actual steps as president to make a playoff happen. But he didn't do that, either. There was even the classic way out - he could have promised to appoint a commission to study the problem. No dice. Instead, he threw the weight of the presidency behind his views as a fan. And that's amateurish. The only justification for the president weighing in on the structure of the college football championship is if his position is intended to advance some public good. And though some posters here have made that claim, Obama himself did not. He simply said that as president, he'd use the influence and authority of the office to satisfy his interests as a sports fan. And that's not the sort of thing a president should say, even in jest.
November 24, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/2_year_old_donkey_called_up_to
November 24, 2008 11:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing to keep in mind is that big time athletics has made it possible for minorities to achieve prominence in the culture. It was harder than hell to get black students into southern classrooms but they entered the locker rooms with comparative ease. It took a couple of generations, but now it is accepted by a majority of Americans that black people can be trusted with positions that demand great competence, character and intellect. I doubt that twenty percent of the population believed that in the forties and fifties.
I would have agreed more with your premise in the purist sixties when violence of any kind was as uncool as greed. But today I realize that while Bill Bradley would almost certainly have made it without professionalized collegiate sports, Barak Obama may not have.
November 25, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
While a strong Obama supporter, I find his inclination to make glib remarks troubling. When he has a talking point to rely on or a prepared script he does fine, but on this occasion and at times in the campaign his answers didn't evidence much thought.
November 25, 2008 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink