I understand her point, but Hill has confused a couple of pretty important parts of this story. I don't know this for sure, but we probably should keep in mind that she started the Detroit Free Press, so she also has a personal stake in defending the newspaper in the face of criticism from current employer.
First, she is slightly misrepresenting the violations in the same way that the Free Press did in the original report. The NCAA limits the amount of practice time on the field or in the weight room with coaches, and formal film review with coaches to 20 hours per week. Unfortunately, Hill and Rosenberg make no effort to actually detail what the Michigan players were doing during their "ten hour days" at the Schembechler Center. For all we know, they did follow the NCAA rules for 20 hours of formal practice, and the players had voluntary workouts. All the evidence is circumstantial, either because of lazy reporting by the Free Press or, more likely, because they didn't actually have hard evidence of a violation.
Second, she also makes the same mistakes about sources that Rosenberg did in the original piece. The piece claims "5 or 6 current and former players" without making any effort to spell out how many of each. Joe Schad has said he found one source on the current team. Two current freshmen said that they were quoted, but the quotes were taking out of context and that the reporter mislead them during their interview by telling them the story he was working on was not about NCAA violations but rather the hard work the players were putting in to rebuild the program. Believe it or not, in that case the players were excited to brag about the hours they put in-- in the summer, when there were no 20 hour limits on their time-- when they thought the article was on another topic.
This is not to say that I disagree with Hill's overall point, because I do think that these players should be student-athletes in college. The fatal flaw of her article, however, is the misdirected anger she has in the article. The problem she has is not with Rich Rodriguez-- or, for that matter, other coaches who have the exact same expectations for their players like Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Jim Tressell, Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Frank Beamer, etc ad nauseum-- but rather with the NCAA for allowing this loophole to exist. Again, neither her article nor the Free Press report violations, but rather how the NCAA lets coaches get around the rule.
D1-A coaches are paid by wins and losses, period. They are not paid for job placement after college or really their graduation rates. Right or wrong, that is how their performance is evalauted, but remember professors and administrators at the the school are not hired either based on job placement or graduation rates. The NCAA exists to make sure that these perverse incentives, which do not encourage coaches to view players as students first, does not allow coaches to turn their programs into football factories. This is not a problem with an individual coach, but rather a structural problem inherent under the current NCAA regulations. If Hill and the Free Press actually want to see a change, then they need to start petitioning the NCAA to change the rules. Until then, don't hold up one coach as the-exception-run-wild based on incomplete and unpersuasive evidence.
All fair. I guess I was just refreshed by somebody not being afraid to mention academics in an espn.com column. I really couldn't care less whether which program got caught, because none of them follow all the rules. Rodriguez just seems to have bad luck combined with a healthy dose of immaturity on the part of his upperclassmen. In addition, I sympathize with his dilemma; how to keep his job when he can get fired for breaking the rules and drawing sanctions on one side, or following them and quickly falling even further behind the rest of the elite than they already are. The problem, as you so correctly surmise, is not with 1 school but with the entire disgusting system that is the FBS. The crooks who run things (aka the bowl committees and the conference commissioners) cost the vast majority of the players a great opportunity to get an education for free. So they, like their basketball bretheren, pin their hopes on going pro. Yet nobody tells them that even if they make it their career will probably last < 3 years, and they'll need to know how to do something afterwards. Makes me glad I was born short and slow.
2 comments:
RAE,
I understand her point, but Hill has confused a couple of pretty important parts of this story. I don't know this for sure, but we probably should keep in mind that she started the Detroit Free Press, so she also has a personal stake in defending the newspaper in the face of criticism from current employer.
First, she is slightly misrepresenting the violations in the same way that the Free Press did in the original report. The NCAA limits the amount of practice time on the field or in the weight room with coaches, and formal film review with coaches to 20 hours per week. Unfortunately, Hill and Rosenberg make no effort to actually detail what the Michigan players were doing during their "ten hour days" at the Schembechler Center. For all we know, they did follow the NCAA rules for 20 hours of formal practice, and the players had voluntary workouts. All the evidence is circumstantial, either because of lazy reporting by the Free Press or, more likely, because they didn't actually have hard evidence of a violation.
Second, she also makes the same mistakes about sources that Rosenberg did in the original piece. The piece claims "5 or 6 current and former players" without making any effort to spell out how many of each. Joe Schad has said he found one source on the current team. Two current freshmen said that they were quoted, but the quotes were taking out of context and that the reporter mislead them during their interview by telling them the story he was working on was not about NCAA violations but rather the hard work the players were putting in to rebuild the program. Believe it or not, in that case the players were excited to brag about the hours they put in-- in the summer, when there were no 20 hour limits on their time-- when they thought the article was on another topic.
This is not to say that I disagree with Hill's overall point, because I do think that these players should be student-athletes in college. The fatal flaw of her article, however, is the misdirected anger she has in the article. The problem she has is not with Rich Rodriguez-- or, for that matter, other coaches who have the exact same expectations for their players like Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Jim Tressell, Mack Brown, Bob Stoops, Frank Beamer, etc ad nauseum-- but rather with the NCAA for allowing this loophole to exist. Again, neither her article nor the Free Press report violations, but rather how the NCAA lets coaches get around the rule.
D1-A coaches are paid by wins and losses, period. They are not paid for job placement after college or really their graduation rates. Right or wrong, that is how their performance is evalauted, but remember professors and administrators at the the school are not hired either based on job placement or graduation rates. The NCAA exists to make sure that these perverse incentives, which do not encourage coaches to view players as students first, does not allow coaches to turn their programs into football factories. This is not a problem with an individual coach, but rather a structural problem inherent under the current NCAA regulations. If Hill and the Free Press actually want to see a change, then they need to start petitioning the NCAA to change the rules. Until then, don't hold up one coach as the-exception-run-wild based on incomplete and unpersuasive evidence.
All fair. I guess I was just refreshed by somebody not being afraid to mention academics in an espn.com column. I really couldn't care less whether which program got caught, because none of them follow all the rules. Rodriguez just seems to have bad luck combined with a healthy dose of immaturity on the part of his upperclassmen. In addition, I sympathize with his dilemma; how to keep his job when he can get fired for breaking the rules and drawing sanctions on one side, or following them and quickly falling even further behind the rest of the elite than they already are. The problem, as you so correctly surmise, is not with 1 school but with the entire disgusting system that is the FBS. The crooks who run things (aka the bowl committees and the conference commissioners) cost the vast majority of the players a great opportunity to get an education for free. So they, like their basketball bretheren, pin their hopes on going pro. Yet nobody tells them that even if they make it their career will probably last < 3 years, and they'll need to know how to do something afterwards. Makes me glad I was born short and slow.
Post a Comment