Column on March Madness and Ethics

March Madness is my favorite sporting event. I love the David v. Goliath upsets, the tight games, of rooting for a team I am barely aware of. I can recapture in memory the thrill of NC State and Villanova in the eighties over great teams. I lived to see Maryland win a men’s national basketball championship. (Somewhere, I bet I still have the Sports Illustrated cover of their victory). I still miss Gus Johnson calling games, and the mysterious Gus aura that led many of the game she called to be good close ones.

This year, I am watching with a bit of a burden of guilt. That beloved sport is clearly corrupt. It is so corrupt that the FBI has a large scale investigation, with the arrest of coaches in major programs.

The system is apparently corrupt into the high school ranks, as the shoe companies finance all sorts of summer leagues to gain the attention of college recruiters. Apparently this is an open secret, but it was not one of which I was aware in perusing the sports page or listening to sports radio.

I suppose the age of amateurism is over. If the Olympics have gone to a professionalized model, I should not be surprised that the student athlete in the big two major sports will go that way as well. I will miss the connection to a college by way of an athletic scholarship as gateway to college. I don’t know if my loyalty will extend as easily to a minor league system for the pros, under the banner of college sports.

It has long troubled me that coaches at big time athletic state colleges are the highest paid state officials, even if their salaries do not come from taxpayer money but donations. On the other hand, the billions that flow into big time college sports pay for the athletic program scholarships of many sports.

With this sea of corruption engulfing big time college sports, the NCAA seems to focus on trivial violations of amateur roles. This failure will be used in the future as a classic example of goal displacement, where the goal of organizing a level playing field became transmuted into a checklist of minor infractions as doing their job.

Most of the athletes playing college basketball will not go pro. I have no idea what sort of “salary” is proper for them, the ones who will not be approached for endorsement deals. Maybe a professionalized minor league system will lessen the bribes being paid to athletes to join a college squad. I understand that it seems inequitable that the players are getting but a tiny slice of the billions that flows into college football and basketball.

Part of me thinks that those young men should get endorsement deals and have the money placed in a trust fund. Part of me is disappointed that so many small pleasures get linked to big money and commerce. I could watch Division III which is much less corrupt or NAIA, so that the old amateur image still shines more brightly there.

I suppose that a good ethical solution would be to consider a system that seems less likely to be corrupt. As much as it pains me to say, a more professionalized system promises. If we have a draft system into college ranks, like the professional leagues, it could lessen recruitment violations and even lead to a more level paying field for Division One colleges.

I will set this aside and enjoy the thrills of the tournament again this year. It may well be one of the last tournaments that make a bow toward the old vision of amateurism, of playing for the sheer love of the game.