Slow day at work, so I'll do my very first Diary entry after 4 years posting on the site:

 

What a great column & comments following Brian's "Indefensible" post.  My points--

1)  This OSU sham doesn't ruin my fandom of Michigan Football, but it DOES significantly add to the mounting data points eroding my enthusiasm for College Football in general--particularly in the way the NCAA as an institution runs it.  Why?  Because....

 

2)  This OSU result--while vastly disappointing--was not at all surprising.  In fact, it was ENTIRELY predictable.  And that's probably the saddest part of this whole thing for me.  It'd be marginally better if people were OUTRAGED at the result of this OSU "investigation."  But thus far people--at least those who's opinions actually matter (the NCAA, OSU fans, boosters, administrators, potential recruits, etc.)--don't seem to really care.  They SHOULD, but they DON'T.  So unless/until the rules change or the administrative enforcement polices on this stuff changes in a material & consistent way, this kind of behavior will will only get worse.   Which brings me to.....

 

3)  Brian made a point on the MGoBlog Roundtable on WTKA this morning that Michigan should just start violating the NCAA rules against paying players.  I think that gets to one of the major root causes of the problem here.  We all know that big time college football is a multi-BILLION dollar industry, but very little of that money can legitimately wind up directly into the hands of the players. 

So, this massive black market economy has developed where schools either think of creative ways to skirt the rules or just blatantly violate them. 

The most schools just indirectly pass down benefits in the form of outrageously palatial stadiums, locker rooms, "student athlete centers," etc.  The next step down is schools literally giving their recruits and players cash under the table, or other individual material benefits like loaner cars, etc. 

And then there is this other non-monetary compensation that some schools provide as well--insanely easy classes, a permissive "see no evil" culture that enables and indulges players (AND STAFF) who exhibit their WORST character flaws with zero worry of accountability being enforced by the school,  the league, or the NCAA.  This is where the MSU/OSU/Baylor stuff comes into play.

To Brian's point, much of this would be resolved if the NCAA allowed players to be paid legitimately.  And I DO agree that for now, Michigan should start breaking the rules (on the paying players/recruits part but NOT on a "not playing school; we turn a blind eye to criminal behavior" level.)

This is hard for me to admit, because I've been a Michigan alum "blue hair" type of guy where I like to think we exist on a higher moral plane than most of the other schools out there by the way we conduct our business. 

But facts are facts and there becomes a tipping point where that is no longer the case. 

If 5% or 10% or 20% of Power 5 programs are breaking the rules, then they are cheaters & ought to be punished.  But if 70% or 80% of Power 5 programs are breaking the rules AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT, then then that does not make the remaining 20% of programs not violating the rules honorable.  It makes them naive SUCKERS.  That's because--based on the enforcement of the written rules, the rules as written are no longer really in effect in any meaningful way.  They are archaic tenants that nobody enforces or cares about, but they simply have not been formally removed from the code of conduct yet.

It's time for us to stop being suckers.

 

4)  However, Brian made the point that we should violate the NCAA rules BLATANTLY on the grounds that we find them immoral.  Basically adopting a civil disobedience/activist posture.  The theory being, if a law is unjust and one cannot change the law, the only thing to do is to disregard it and be willing to suffer the punishment for breaking said law. 

It's an interesting thought, but if we did that then the NCAA would come down on Michigan like a ton of bricks.   And I, for one, do not want Michigan to become a pariah.  The tallest blade of grass is the first to get mowed down, after all. 

If we did what Brian advocated & if the NCAA hammered us to make an example out of us, then short of winning a major federal lawsuit putting the NCAA in it's place, it would actually do MORE long term harm than good.  Other would-be activists would see how the NCAA squashed us like an insolent peasant and it would have a chilling effect on would-be activist schools for another several decades.

I'm not a tax attorney & I am not privy to the full business model of the NCAA.  But my bet is that the status quo (formally not paying players, but also not enforcing blatant violations of those rules especially from cash cows) is the ideal sweet spot for the NCAA in terms of clout & profit.   

So in reality, if we want to bring Michigan in line with the other schools, one of two things need to happen:  1)  The NCAA has to change their rules to allow much of the black market activity to be legitimate (thus greatly shrinking the size and scope of the black market), OR  2)  Start violating the "rules" under the table just like everybody else. 

I would advocate that Michigan pursues both tracks in parallel.  Start to advocate #1 publicly, but until that effort is successful, follow #2 on a financial/paying players level.  I think loudly doing #2 would only invite the NCAA to come down on us hard in an effort to continue selling the fiction that they are a non-profit organization there for the development of student athletes.

The risk of course, is that if the NCAA does truly like the status quo, Michigan publicly agitating for #1 would put a political target on its back and then the NCAA could still come down like a ton of bricks on hypothetical Michigan clandestine #2 activity.  Not because the NCAA really CARES about clandestine payment of players--they don't.  But because Michigan is being too vocal about #1 and shaking up the status quo, so it's a good way to "make an example" out of them.

Essentially, it'd be the NCAA saying:  "Why don't you just quietly violate the rules and not advocate for true reform, like all the other good cash cows do?"

 

5)  Much of the reprehensible stuff going on is also due to college sports devolving into a modern secular form of rank tribalism.  Yes, part of this stuff is due to the prospects of fame, fortune, careers, and prestige associated w/ big time college athletics.  But it's also enabled by the FANS, who have very little to gain from this stuff materially.  Fans--o a greater number and to a greater degree--are deriving a bigger amount of psychological, emotional, and (dare I say it) spiritual well-being with identifying with certain sports teams.  The MGoBlog Roundtable guys mentioned this as well.  Tribalism is part of human nature.  It manifested in literal tribes millennia ago, and has been expressed through religion as well as the concept of the empire & modern nation state.  But as secularism has been on the rise and since we've become more global, the nation state has waned as a tribalism model--at least in Western Civilization.  Our culture has totally fractured--partly due to technology--where people can find much closer kinship with somebody half a town or half a globe away because they eat the same food, enjoy the same art, and root for the same sports teams.  "Buckeye NATION," "Raider NATION," etc.

When tribalism is present--especially VIRULENT tribalism--people will start to conflate their own well being with the tribe.  Thus, when the power, prestige, or honor of the tribe is threatened, it's as if their own INDIVIDUAL power, prestige, and honor is threatened as well.  

Every person on this planet likes to think that they are an honorable/smart/capable/competent person.  And as Brian said on the Roundtable people will be willing to develop MASSIVE moral blind spots and rationalizations in order to eliminate the cognitive dissonance in their own mind.

Therefore, I think the degree of tribalism and psychological conflation one experiences with any particular team/ethos/political ideology, etc. is also directly proportional to the amount of mental gymnastics and size of moral blind spots one can develop when it comes to rationalizing bad behavior form the tribe with which one identifies.  Which brings me to my final question:

6)  Is this virulent tribalism ("Win at All Costs" culture in the context of sports) a bottom up, or a top down phenomenon?  

What I mean is---

Did the Alabamas & OSUs become that way because a cluster of boosters & administrators decided they'd "win at all costs" and the otherwise passive fan bases BECAME virulently tribal BECAUSE the teams started to win so much? (i.e., an addiction model where the fan bases just got hooked on the wins after-the-fact)

OR

Did the Alabamas & OSUs hire morally repugnant administrators and coaches, and enable bag man boosters, etc. because the FAN BASES for whatever reason were already primed to view their teams in a virulently tribal way?  (i.e, the flies were just attracted to the moral rot that was already present in that particular fan base)