What the actual hell, Baylor?
I mean, for a university whose mission statement reads, in part:
Beyond the intellectual life, the University pursues the social, physical, ethical and spiritual development of each student.
Oh, and:
Affirming the value of intellectually informed faith and religiously informed education, the University seeks to provide an environment that fosters spiritual maturity, strength of character and moral virtue.
Strength of character and moral virtue, you say?
I won’t rehash the actual newsy bits of what’s been going on at Baylor over the past 15 days, let alone the past fifteen years. What’s that? You don’t remember what happened to their men’s basketball team in 2003? Here’s a refresher. TLDR; one of their players was murdered by another player, and (maybe) coincidentally the victim was a young man who then-coach Dave Bliss tried to tell the media was a drug dealer. Bliss also attempted to pass himself off as another player’s father to head off NCAA investigations into the team.
Strength of character and moral virtue, indeed.
Look, I’m a Georgia Bulldogs fan. Four glorious months out of the year, I eat and breathe SEC football with a fervor known mostly only to other zealots. I get that college athletics, at least in the “money” sports of basketball and football, is an irredeemably broken system with fault for its demise spread from boosters and parents all the way to university chancellors, presidents and the NCAA itself.
However, let us be clear on one thing: giving a struggling student athlete a few hundred dollars to afford [life necessity] under the table because of archaic ideas about “amateurism” is in no way, shape or form the same as attempting to cover up, deflect, ignore or in any way diminish violence or assault, sexual or otherwise. Or, for that matter, any other sort of criminal behavior which, in literally any other life experience category in this entire country, would lead to arrest and potential penal repercussions.
Jameis Winston steals crab legs, everyone laughs, it’s a big deal around draft time, and two years later no one even remembers. Wait, that’s right, Winston was also accused of sexual assault but no charges were ever filed because the alleged victim refused to cooperate. Could that be, perhaps, due to promises of a settlement which occurred earlier this year? Florida State University settled with Winston’s accuser for nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Then there’s Greg Hardy. Sure, he may be out of a job in the NFL (at least for the moment until someone during training camp gets desperate) but he was never truly, legally punished for his “alleged” series of increasingly violent behaviors toward women. I bring up these two examples because what’s going on at Baylor, and Oklahoma State, and Louisville, and more than likely even the college you root for or graduated from is a symptom of a larger and more endemic problem:
If you can ball, you get it all.
I’m not an athlete. Never have been, ever since a tragic trampoline accident cut my baseball playing days short when I was 12. I do know, however, a fundamental American truth: athletes are our gods. From the plains of arid Texas to California’s sunshine all the way to the asphalt courts in Harlem, if you can play, and play well, someone will take care of you. Boosters, coaches, administrators, someone somewhere will do everything in their power to make sure you reach the next level. Forgiving a speeding ticket, looking the other way at shoplifting, turning a blind eye to underage drinking and the like produces young adults with no sense of personal responsibility or consequence.
Case in point.
What Baylor coaches and administrators are accused of doing is inexcusable. The athletics program at the university has lost its head football coach and athletic director and the university itself has lost its president-turned-chancellor.
People are considering what all this means for Baylor football. Pundits and commentators across all channels of media are curious to know how the program will respond, how the Big 12 conference will perform, and so on and so forth. About the only thing we do know is that this whole fallout has cost Baylor everything in recruiting. All but one member of their 2017 recruiting class has decommitted, and at least 7 members of their 2016 class have asked for releases from their National Letters of Intent (although they’ve currently not released those players and do not look as if they want to).
You know what? Honestly, who f*cking cares? It is a fundamental and unspoken agreement between college football universities, athletes, fans and the media that we all put aside the issues of unfair treatment, health concerns, and the like because sports is fun. My question, now, is this:
Is it really worth it?
How many Baylors, Penn States, Oklahoma States, SMUs, Louisvilles, North Carolinas, et al do we have to wade through before we all collectively agree the system of deifying athletes is a corrupt and morally bankrupt one? Steph Curry is an amazing shooter who plays a level of basketball I have never seen, but would I let him babysit my infant son because of it? No. If Michael Jordan broke the law (oh, wait) he should have to sit through the tedious American justice system just like everyone else does.
I love sports. I love the people of all ages in this country and the world who go through tremendous personal and physical tolls in order to produce entertainment; sadly, most are not compensated fairly and most will never achieve glory. However, being able to throw a 95 MPH slider should not excuse a person from consequence whether it be unpaid parking tickets or sexual assault.
We have the benefit in 2016 of the internet’s many channels to investigate and expose areas of our favorite sports we may prefer to leave buried. How many high school baseball prospects are receiving better grades than their peers because of their curveball potential? How many junior varsity linebackers, built a little bigger than their age group should get away with being just a wee bit more violent on the field because what if?
Baylor’s handling of the offenses at the hands of its players is shameful. But it is by no means an isolated incident, and we all, as fans, need to acknowledge that fact.