Phil's Folly wags the Ducks

Phil Knight is at it again, this time with a $41.7 million over-the-top, luxury clubhouse for University of Oregon athletes.

UO officials continue to let the feathered tail (Knight, Nike’s billionaire founder) wag the ducks (the university's image and perceived mission). In the past I’ve suggested that “big sports” campuses spin off their athletic programs into amateur leagues that bear no relationship to the campuses and their academics except for traditional names (Ducks, Beavers, Vikings, Slugs, Earthworms or whatever. . . .)

Knight’s most recent duck-wagging may prove I have it backwards. How about the campuses keeping the athletes (and their clubhouses, stadiums, perks, overpaid coaches, television contracts, sponsor endorsements, and publicity machines) and transporting students and faculty to off-campus independent universities?

Sounds as though that’s where things are headed in Eugene, thanks to the sport-obsessed Knight and thousands of season-ticketed alumni seeking nostalgic pride in all the wrong places.

Campus culture clash: Scholarship and Athletics

Be careful of the metaphor you choose. It can put a lock on your mind.

Take the case of NCAA Division I college sports and how the University of Oregon’s athletic program was described in a New York Times story today.

The story displays a parade of useless metaphors all trying to address a serious problem.

At UO they have a star quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli who has been suspended from the football program after pleading guilty to burglary. (He stole a computer, even though the football program lends laptops to players free. Steal a computer when you can have one for free? And this guy's on a SCHOLARship?)

Then we have the handshake agreement to pay the departing athletic director Mike Bellotti a cool $2.3 million to leave. This sounds like something that might happen at a high-stakes poker game or in golf match between very rich executives. But on a college campus?

There’s more. The University must make bond payments on a new $227 million basketball pavilion. Here a little context is in order: The University of Oregon’s faculty is grossly underpaid and tuition is skyrocketing.

Go figure.

And somewhere lurking in the background is one Phil Knight, NIKE gazillionaire. The story doesn’t delve into the NIKE influence, but clearly Phil lives by his own rules — and he applies them to UO.

Back to the push and pull in the Times story. The quotes from critics of UO athletics frame the issue in metaphors that lock out solutions.

“It’s time for the athletic department to do a little soul searching on how they can serve the university,” said one professor. “The athletic department is out of control here.”

Implied answer: search your soul, serve the university and get things under control.

Also, take three aspirin and go to bed.

A sports psychologist, tipsy on metaphors, says, “We have reached a tipping point. You have to have this homeostatic balance — you can’t just run athletics as an entity by itself. What I think is important is that the University of Oregon is a unique place — most alums and most donors want to see a healthy balance. They want to see a school jump up in the academic rankings and not just see a top-five football team. We are really at a crossroads. I would hope the new administration would see this as a new opportunity and not a Band-Aide.”

Band-Aides, tipping points, homeostasis, healthy balance, crossroads. Got that?

Let me try a straight-forward metaphor.

What we have on this campus — and all NCAA Division I campuses to some degree — is a clash of cultures.

The cultures don’t belong in the same place. They are at odds. They have utterly different goals and values.

Football is mass entertainment, not education. Education is learning, not spectator entertainment. Sure one can, and should, have elements of the other, but that’s where it ends.

Wide receivers “learn” how to run pass routes; physicists and lit majors should get a some entertaining exercise. A little Frisbee perhaps? A jog through an academic glen?

But that’s about it.

Let's stop pretending that high-profile, televised, hyper-commercial, monetized athletics as anything to do with higher education.

Just note the tension in the term “athletic scholarship.” Note the absurdity of calling a collegiate sports rivalry “The Civil War,” which, as students of history know, was a great national tragedy. Note how supposedly educated adults behave like buffoons at athletic events.

Note that this weekend we have headlines screaming that a Portland high school backetball star, Terrence Jones, has chosen to go to the University of Washington, where he will receive a full ride “scholarship.” We all know he will use the Seattle campus/stage as a stepping stone to the professional sports fame. Call me crazy but my guess is that he will not leave the great University of Washington versed in history, literature or philosophy.

Where are the best high school students going? And why don’t we, the general spectator public, care? Why isn’t it news? And will these scholars receive full-ride scholarships? And why will they stay and graduate? And what are their chances for employment out of college? Will they command the same seven-digit salaries that the likes of Terrence Jones will?

Two cultures. Different values. Worlds apart.

The universities, their administrations and their alumni need to choose one. They can’t live in both at once.

The answer is a “National Athletic Association” minus “Collegiate.” It’s where young, talented athletes go to prepare for the professional leagues. If those NAA teams want to locate in college towns and wear college colors and even be “sponsored” by the local university, fine.

But let’s not conflate the two.

Biblical citations give football a black eye

Much has been made of celebrity quarterback Tim Tebow’s “message” eye shadow patches.

I must not have been paying attention when the Florida player, a devote Christian, put “John” on the right eye shadow patch and “16:33” on the left for millions to see last January in the BCS Championship game.

Or maybe I skipped the game. I can’t recall.

But I did watch Alabama trounce Florida on Saturday. Tebow was at it again — Biblical-wise. And. again, he chose John 16:33.

I confess the eye shadow message was as riveting as the game.

What’s it mean when you can’t watch a simple football game without having some in-your-face biblical passage thrown in your face?

The passage, by the way, is this (make of it what you will):

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.

Does “trouble” equal “’Bama”? Tebow was hardly of “good cheer” following the game. He openly wept at the worldly outcome.

Clearly the NCAA needs to put an end to this eye-shadow non-sense. If this is a free speech issue, where does it stop? Or does it?

Once upon a time, black athletes might well have written “Black”…“Power” on the little billboards under their eyes.

Or, heaven forbid “Peace on”…”Earth.” Or “Love”…”your enemy.”

What’s to prevent a political message: “Vote for”….”Obama” or “McCain” etc.? or “Nix Health”…”Reform.”

Or how about “Drink…Bud”?

And why not allow bumper stickers on helmets too?

No, this needs to stop, now.

Why is it taking so long? Are attorneys lining up on the sidelines?

By the way, I checked to see how that final score of Saturday’s game translates into chapter and verse in the Book of John. The score was 13-32. I was hoping for gridiron epiphany. Here’s what I got:

If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.”

Where's Howard Cosell when we need him?