Football as art

I'm digging ESPN's ongoing illustrations of the big college football storylines from the weekend.

Actually, I should say I've been digging Chris Morris's illustrations of the same...

Update: My top tens

In a post two weeks ago, I listed my top ten movies, books, albums, comic books, and restaurants. I ended by asking if there were any other top tens you'd like to know. Smamy asked for my favorite sports venues.

In no particular order but grouped by sport...

• Seymour High School (high school basketball)
• I spent a number of March Saturdays in the Seymour gymnasium, often watching three games in a day, something that doesn't happen in the Indiana state tournament any more, sadly. I sat courtside. I sat in the highest extremes. I saw Bobby Knight in the stands. I saw Damon Bailey break the state scoring record. I saw New Albany win, and I had my heart broken.
• Southport High School (high school basketball)
• I've only seen a game and a half there, both in the same day when New Albany was undefeated and headed to an obvious state title - only they weren't because of Brownsburg High School and Gordon Hayward.
• New Castle High School (high school basketball)
• New Castle's gymnasium is the largest high school gymnasium in the country with seating for 9,325 rabid fans. I've never seen it full, but I love going to the Hall of Fame tournament whenever I can.
• Dayton Arena (college basketball)
• Five games are played there in a day for the Ohio high school basketball tournament, and they're pretty good games since it's the round of 32 for the state. I've never managed my dream of seeing all five even once. I have seen Princeton play there a number of times in the lucky years when the team is good and the tournament draw is right. I also got to see Indiana edge Temple in the second round of the NCAA tournament last year - admittedly in slightly worse seats.
• Assembly Hall (college basketball)
• Indiana's gymnasium is the first place that I saw a college basketball game, and at this point it's the last one I've seen one. Throughout the years I was taken there by my parents, and I've come to make a pilgrimage there once a year as an adult. I love the place.
• Cintas Center (college basketball)
• This is another place where I've seen Princeton's state title hopes end unsuccessfully and thankfully stay alive a number of times. It's often where the first few rounds are played and always where the Cincinnati area's final four representative is decided. Once since I've been at Princeton that representative was that Vikings.
• PNC Park (baseball)
• The Girl and I have made a number of rounds to various major league ballparks over the years, not having visited a new one for a long while now, though. The Pittsburgh stadium, at the confluences of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers is absolutely the perfect stadium. It's marvelously well designed and gorgeous.
• Wrigley Field (baseball)
• Without romance, without beauty, without the marvels of baseball, this is an aging, outdated, cramped stadium. With the romance, with the beauty of the ivy, with the marvelously picturesque, it's near perfection.
• Mud Hollow (soccer)
• Sure, this is because I lived in the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house and was able to watch a soccer game on our land, haranguing the visiting goalie from over his shoulder - we weren't allowed to stand right behind the goal. Once we were even told by the university that we were being too nasty and negative and had to move to the sidelines. I'm not proud of it, but those were some good times.
• Little Giant Stadium (football)
• For the homecoming games and parades and beauty pageants alone... 

I've been two NFL stadia - the Hoosier Dome and Paul Brown Stadium (only from the concession stands, never seeing an actual game).

I've been to a number of major league baseball stadia...

• Atlanta - Turner Field 
• Baltimore - Oriole Park at Camden Yards
• Chicago - Wrigley Field, US Cellular Field
• Cincinnati - Great American Ballpark, Riverfront Stadium
• Cleveland - Jacobs Field
• Detroit - Comerica Park
• Miami - Sun Life Stadium
• Milwaukee - Miller Park
• Minneapolis - Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome (now torn down)
• New York - Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium (both now torn down)
• Philadelphia - Citizen's Bank Park
• Pittsburgh - PNC Park
• St Louis - Busch Stadium (now torn down)
• Washington, DC - Nationals Park

...and a few minor league ballparks - Durham, Indianapolis, Louisville, Dayton.

I've seen big-time tennis in two cities - Cincinnati and Indianapolis, including the Davis Cup in the latter.

I've seen one major league soccer game - the Columbus Crew when they were playing at The Horseshoe on Ohio State's campus.

I've seen high school basketball in dozens and dozens of other gymnasiums - mostly in Indiana and some in Ohio.

I've seen a couple of minor league hockey games - in Cincinnati and Indianapolis.

Here's to the first football game I remember

This was a cultural touchstone, man, and I'm happy to have read this oral history of the "Super Bowl Shuffle".

Dan Hampton (Chicago Bears defensive tackle/defensive end, 1979-90): They had approached me to be in the thing and I refused because of being superstitious. I thought it was presumptuous to say, "Oh yeah, we're going to the Super Bowl" when the franchise had never been in one. Willie gave me lyrics, I can't remember, "something something Danimal," or something, and I said there's no way. They hastily rewrote it and went to McMichael and he'd seen that I wasn't doing it and asked why, and I said, "You idiot, you're more superstitious than I am, I ain't gonna jinx this," and he said, "You're right, I ain't going to do this either." It ended up going to Mike Richardson. 

...

Mike Ditka (coach, Chicago Bears, 1982-92): I didn't know anything about it. It surprised me when I found out. But we had a fun group of guys, and I never discouraged them from having fun. That wasn't the way I did things. Did I think it was inappropriate? No. If you don't think you're going to win, then you're not going to win, that's why I thought [the song] was pretty much a symbol of the fact that they thought they were going to win.  

... 

Valdiserri: After a somewhat humbling first loss on Monday night, we arrived [in Chicago] probably at three in the morning. This thing had been scheduled for an eleven o' clock taping at the Park West. This was not ideal, because we had unnaturally worn our home uniforms for an away game at Miami, and those uniforms had to be cleaned, so we had to get our equipment manager to launder the uniforms and I had to physically take them down to the Park West.

...

Mike Tomczak (Chicago Bears quarterback, 1985-1990/Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew guitarist): I watched a lot of MTV, and I kind of knew the gyrations for air guitar, so I tried to bring some of my Eric Clapton knowledge, if you will. It was fun — by far one of the more enjoyable experiences of that year. I think I mentioned to Bob Seger at a concert after that season that I played guitar in a music video, and he said, "How'd that go for you?" I said, "Fine, because it wasn't plugged in."

It's even better than this Behind the Music that Fox put together a decade ago.



Plus, it was able to remind me of the existence of this poster, about which I had entirely forgotten.

I remember watching the Bears thump the Patsies in the Super Bowl...from Tumbleweed (a local Tex-Mex restaurant in m'home town)...in a snow storm...with nobody other than my family in the restaurant...

Super Bowl!

It doesn't get better than this, does it?

Patriots vs Giants in tonight's Super Bowl.

Go Patriots!

Thanks to Coffee and Shurikens

(source)

Today's sports bits

Indiana 73-72 over the #1 ranked Kentucky Wildcats! Much happiness...

Kansas 78-67 over the #2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes! Not much either way...

Wyoming 3 22-11 over the Sharonville Eagles! Minor sadness but lots of room for improvement, at least. We've clearly only got up to go from here.

The Bearcats and Muskies did what they could to get just about their whole teams suspended.

Mt Union 28-21 over Wesley, UW Whitewater 20-0 over St Thomas to get the same two teams to the Stagg Bowl (DIII championship game) for the seventh straight year. Three wins each so far.

Ryan Bruan, current National League MVP tests positive for performance enhancing drugs.

And Robert Griffin III rightfully wins the Heisman tonight.

From the hills of Maine...

Wabash 29 - North Central 28...apparently a pretty amazing comeback with the backup QB starting because of injury. Check all the details...

Franklin, on the other hand, saw their dream dashed at the hands of the #1 school in the nation. Details here.

By the way, the links post will be up in the mornin'...

Fantasy football, here we come

Play the rainbow

Caught a glimpse Friday night of a football game between Eastern Washington and the Delaware Blue Hens (some sort of div I-AA / FCS championship game or something).

No clue where the game was played, but the broadcast did provide a glimpse of Eastern Washington's home turf.

Apparently they've joined Boise State in the not-so-green turf world...

I'm looking forward to more eye-blasting fields on television in the future...maybe purple down in LSU, yellow at Oregon, orange in Tennessee, black for Nebraska, green for Miami, maybe pink for Notre Dame.

I think this would be awesome.  Sure it would mean less real grass, but the field turf's pretty awesome stuff.

What're your suggestions, folks?

Update: There is now target=_blank>a high school with a similar red field. And because I'd mentioned it to Calen, here's an image of the U of Oregon basketball court.

Football trivia...

I heard this one from the over-night sports jock this morning as I was driving back from Kroger at 2:50 AM after buying knock-off Chloraseptic to soothe my aching throat.

Who is the only NFL player to have at least twenty passing and ten rushing touchdowns in the same season?

I'll tell you that I got it wrong.

Answer after the jump...

These are Bill Simmons's readers

From Bill Simmons's newest column/mailbag...

Reader Question: Can we please find some kind of award to give Buffalo linebacker Arthur Moats? The man did what no other defensive player, prescription drug addiction, forced retirement or alleged cell phone penis photo has been able to do for 18 years: HE FINALLY FREED THE WORLD FROM BRETT FAVRE!!! The NFL MVP might not be the right award, since really, his accomplishment goes far beyond the lines of the playing field. Maybe Time Magazine Man of the Year? Or the Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, sure, that one guy spent the last two years in a Chinese prison, but Favre has held us all prisoner for nearly TWO DECADES! Arthur Moats has to become more than just an obscure footnote in Favre's story, right?
-- Brian, Seattle

I agree with the guy.  Arthur Moats deserves all the thanks and respect we can give him.

Here's Simmons's answer...

Answer: Couldn't agree more. I know Moats has to be diplomatic and say things like, "That's not the way I want to get my name out there, for hurting somebody," but part of me wonders if he should be playing this up and milking his 15 minutes of fame. If this were professional wrestling, Moats would have gone on "Monday Night Raw" the following night, renamed himself "The Legend Killer" and done the whole "I didn't just kill a career, I killed off a legend!" routine as the crowd went crazy.

The counter-argument would be "Come on, that's not classy," but is it less classy than Favre milking seven days of "I'm not sure I can play this weekend, the streak might be over" and "The roof collapse might have given me the 24 extra hours I needed to recover in time" media leaks, deceiving everyone into thinking he might play, then announcing his streak was over while simultaneously rolling out autographed "297" footballs on his website (meaning he knew all along that he wasn't playing)? How manipulative was that? And he wonders why everyone wants him to go away. If Moats created a website and sold replica jerseys with "LEGEND KILLER" on the front and his name and the number "297" on the back … I think he would have sold a few.

(True story: For the lead of this week's column, I thought about writing "Brett Favre" 2,000 times and organizing it in different paragraphs the way Jack Nicholson wrote "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" for 600 pages in "The Shining." I messed around with it for 20 minutes, shaping the different paragraphs until it looked like that scene. Then, I started to get the urge to kill my family and Tony Dungy with an ax. So I stopped. The point is: Brett Favre is the only professional athlete who ever pushed a sports columnist to the brink of a quintuple homicide.)

Is the 297 thing true?

Yes, it is.

LSU loses! LSU wins!

Caught a bit of the LSU-Tennessee game yesterday. 

Good to see Spencer's lone catch (16 yards) while I was tuned in.

Better to see the outstanding ending as LSU mismanaged the clock at the end of another big game.  As the clock ticked down, LSU had no timeouts and switched their quarterbacks.  The 'final' play saw the clock hit double zeros while LSU fumbled the ball on a horribly misplayed snap.

But, no, Tennessee had thirteen men on the field for the final play, so LSU got a single, untimed play from the one-yard line.  Down four, needing a touchdown, LSU punched the ball into the end zone with no time on the clock to snatch victory from the jaws of certain defeat.

Outstanding, boys, outstanding...

Brutus gets laid out

Apparently Brutus got laid out and OU is regretful about it.  The mascot guy, however, had it all in the plans.

From another vantage point...

Spencer Ware touches the ball!

No matter how much I try, I can't find an online image of Spencer Ware in his LSU jersey.  Even his LSU roster page doesn't have him in uniform.

I watched the first LSU game of the season (vs North Carolina) and got to see him back to receive a punt as the ABC crew discussed this freshman recruit, but Spencer didn't get to touch the ball that game and didn't get into the box score at all.

I didn't watch LSU's second game - against Vanderbilt - but Spencer did get into the box score with an eight-yard carry and a twenty-four-yard reception.

Congrats to Spencer (and to LSU for whomping Vandy 27-3)!

Thoughts on a passing

It's been a rough year or so at Princeton.  Since last winter, we've lost three students - two seniors to car accidents (last school year) and one this past weekend.  The short story - and I don't know many more details - is that the student had an asthma attack on Wednesday evening and was taken to the hospital where he was in critical condition with limited - if any - brain function until he passed away Saturday evening.  We'd gotten an initial report on Thursday morning from our principal who stated at the time that they had pulled the young man's schedule from our computer system, telling us that things weren't likely to get any better without him actually telling us exactly that.

I've taught fourteen years now - just starting my fifteenth year - and can remember most of those years without a current student passing away during the school year.  I was speaking to one of my students from last year, another junior-to-be last Thursday and told him that when he asked if this was normal.  He didn't say it with any pleading but just with a kind of simple questioning, trying to figure out if what he'd seen was what every high school student sees.

It's not.  It's been a very rough streak for Princeton's students this past year, and it's been something that's been oddly distant from me because I haven't known any of the students at all.  Ryan - who passed last fall - was someone who photo I'd taken a few times at a football game.  Guadalupe - who passed in the spring - wasn't anyone I knew at all, couldn't even place a face or find a photo of her.  Jovante - who passed this weekend - was someone I'd spoken to in the hallway a few times but whose name didn't mean anything to me until Calen reminded me of a story about his involvement in Pasta for Pennies during his freshman year.

I hope that he and his family and teachers won't mind me telling the one story that I knew of Jovante here.  If they do, I apologize in advance.  That year we had an incentive for the top freshman class.  The top freshman class got to join us at a pizza party that would have two other classes there.  We were always thrilled to reward the frosh because we always seemed to see those kids again as leaders of the campaign throughout their time at Princeton.  That year, there were two classes competing strongly for the top spot, but their competition was a friendly one.  The two teachers pushed their respective classes forward but shared every opportunity, splitting store collection opportunities.

On the final day, the two teachers' classes were neck and neck, and Jovante brought in a donation that would have pushed his class ahead at the last moment.  The teachers got together and asked Jovante for permission to split his donation between the classes so that the two classes would end up in a perfect tie - the same amount raised by the same number of students.  He agreed, and the two classes both earned the pizza party.

This would've been Jovante's junior year.  He would've been in my chemistry class.

I'll miss getting to know him.

---

Easily the oddest part of this passing for me is that it was news, not the kind of news that says "local high school student in critical condition" but the kind of news that says "son of famous athlete is in critical condition".  For those of you who aren't Princeton people, Jovante was Ickey Woods's son, so Jovante's passing was local news and even - as the screen cap at the top of this post shows - small national news.  I was shocked to see the headline on the side of the ESPN homepage on Sunday.

And I don't like that it was news.

I understand that some events like this - another local student passed away this past week when his car flipped as he was driving 130 miles per hour on the interstate - are news.  They shut down the interstate.  They intrigue people.  They serve as warnings. 

This passing was tragic and random.  Jovante had an asthma attack.  He was an athlete.  He was healthy.  He hadn't done anything wrong.  And he's gone.

That isn't news, and I didn't like seeing it covered.  Even though the coverage was tasteful - the Enquirer's series of articles and ESPN's pair - it felt wrong.  This was a kid in my school.  This wasn't someone who gets mentioned on ESPN's website.

But he was.

---

The first day of school wasn't bad - especially considering the loss that we suffered over the weekend.  I saw a number of shirts with Jovante's name or football number, a few haircuts with Jovante's number carved into them, a few folders with Jovante's name.  The students had a few places around school where they could write memorial messages, and we heard that there will likely be a memorial held at the school in a couple of weeks.

A few years ago, we had a teacher - the boys basketball coach - pass away suddenly overnight.  I wasn't at school the next day, but I heard a number of stories about how tough a day that was.  

We've gotten a new principal since then, and while I don't always agree with the decisions he makes, he's sadly becoming really good at helping our school grieve.  In every case, he's been very proactive, opening the school over the weekend to let the kids start grieving together as soon as possible.  We've worked with the families to hold public memorials or to assist in any way that we could while making sure to respect the families' wishes.

I hate that we're getting good at this.

---

I haven't attended either grieving session - this weekend for Jovante or last winter for Ryan.  These weren't my students.  These weren't people I knew. 

The closest I've come to helping with the grieving was a few years ago at Joey's funeral (I mentioned it in a post at the time).  I remember feeling absolutely helpless to help my students - and Joey was one of mine, the mourners were mine - in any way other than to be there, to grieve with them. 

This time I'm helping by offering stability, normalcy, a regular school day.  It's probably a cop out because it's the same thing I'd be doing even if nothing had happened this weekend.

I hope it's enough.

Today's one interesting game

If you're not doing anything at 4:15 today, feel free to check out the Tennessee-Seattle game on CBS.

Here's why, according to Adam Schefter

Records are on the line Sunday. With a 70.62 completion percentage, Saints quarterback Drew Brees has the chance to break Ken Anderson's season completion percentage record of 70.55. But the air record is secondary to the one that can be achieved on the ground. Titans RB Chris Johnson needs 128 yards to become the sixth running back in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. He also needs 233 to tie Eric Dickerson's single-season record, the most worthwhile pursuit remaining in a disappointing Titans season.

Most yards from scrimmage, season (1933-2008)

Player, team	Year	Rushing yards	Receiving yards	Total yards
Marshall Faulk, Rams	1999	1,381	1,048	2,429
Tiki Barber, Giants	2005	1,860	530	2,390
LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers	2003	1,645	725	2,370
Barry Sanders, Lions	1997	2,053	305	2,358
Chris Johnson, Titans	2009	1,872	483	2,355
Steven Jackson, Rams	2006	1,528	806	2,334
LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers	2006	1,815	508	2,323
Marcus Allen, Raiders	1985	1,759	555	2,314
Edgerrin James, Colts	2000	1,709	594	2,303

Most Rushing Yards, Season (NFL History)

Player, Team	Year	Attempts	Yards	TDs
Eric Dickerson, Rams	1984	379	2,105	14
Jamal Lewis, Ravens	2003	387	2,066	14
Barry Sanders, Lions	1997	335	2,053	11
Terrell Davis, Broncos	1998	392	2.008	21
O.J. Simpson, Bills	1973	332	2,003	12
Earl Campbell, Oilers	1980	373	1,934	13

But the mark that has not garnered anywhere near the same attention, but might be even more significant, is the number of total yards Johnson has gained from scrimmage. In addition to his 1,872 rushing yards, Johnson also has 483 receiving yards, giving him 2,355 for this season -- 74 short of tying the record that Marshall Faulk set with the Rams in 1999. So Johnson can become the newest member of the NFL's 2K club, possibly reach and surpass Dickerson's single-season mark, and shatter Faulk's record. Talk about a good day at the office.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback (a week late)

As a general rule, I find Gregg Easterbrook's writing for ESPN to be long-winded.

He can be insightful, yes, but he wanders off into so many non-sports tangents (the large hadron collider, economics, politics, bodyguards, CEOs) that I tend to skim his articles for interesting bits but skip the rest of the article.  Really, what else should I expect from a guy who's writing a football column but whose new book "Sonic Boom, [is] about the pluses and minuses of the evolving global economy"?

Every now and then, however, he hits on something that's tightly sports and also important enough that it should be read by more than the dorky few who light up his column each week.

One such occurrence came this past week as Easterbrook laid down a diatribe about the disjointed nature of colleges claiming to prepare their football players for the NFL and allowing their academic performance to suffer in the name of this goal - but seeing less than 10% of their players actually ever play a down in the NFL.

The full column is here, but I'll reprint the important parts here...

Charlie Weis and Bobby Bowden had to go -- Notre Dame and Florida State weren't winning every game! Get rid of the bums! All we heard from sports commentators, and from alums and boosters, was get rid of the bums, we gotta win, win, win. Sorry to interject, but why? Why does Notre Dame or Florida State or any university need to win every game? Is it now official that big colleges care more about sports than education?

If an NFL team, which is strictly a commercial enterprise in the business of providing entertainment, doesn't win, get rid of the bums. But a university exists to educate; winning football games is a secondary concern. Don't get me wrong. I attend way too many college football games, and I always like it when the school I'm rooting for wins. But I am not so misguided as to think that a college's winning games means more than a college's educating students, including athletes. Why is this distinction practically absent from sports commentary?

Maybe the sports artificial universe won't face the uncomfortable reality that the NCAA system uses football and men's basketball players to generate revenue and great games -- then tosses way too many of these players aside uneducated. It's a lot more fun to talk about winning and losing than to talk about education.

Perhaps you're thinking, first, football players at big colleges are not being taken advantage of because they are being prepped for the NFL; and second, academics-oriented "smart schools" don't do well in sports, so if a college wants to win, standards must be low. Both of those assumptions are wrong.

Prepped for the NFL? Each year, roughly 2,500 Division I football players leave college because they have exhausted their athletic eligibility, or are leaving early, or have graduated. Each year, about 200 rookie players make NFL rosters. Thus, more than 90 percent of Division I football players never play a down in the NFL. Take into account that some of the NFL rookies are Division II, Division III or NAIA players, and it's closer to 95 percent. Watch any top college football team -- the players are fast, muscular, and obviously devote tremendous amounts of time and energy to football. Ninety-five percent of them won't play in the NFL. If they don't study and don't go to class, they walk away from college football practically empty-handed.

Is it different at the very top? Lisa Brooks and Matt Willis of ESPN Stats & Information looked at the national championship teams of 2000, 2001 and 2002 -- the best football colleges of those years, with enough time passed to determine what kind of NFL outcomes the teams produced.

Oklahoma, the 2000 national champion, sent two players into the NFL for five or more years (that's a "career" in sports terms), six players for two to four years, and one player for one year. Of the 85 scholarship holders on that team, 11 percent advanced to the NFL. The rest went away empty-handed in football terms. Remember, this was the best team of 2000.

Miami, the 2001 national champion, was among the most talented collegiate squads ever, with a roster that included Andre Johnson, Vince Wilfork, Clinton Portis, Ed Reed, Bryant McKinnie, Jonathan Vilma, Sean Taylor and Jeremy Shockey. That team sent 20 players to the NFL for at least five years, 12 for two to four years, and four for one year. This was one of the most talented college football teams ever assembled, and almost two-thirds of its players never played a down in the NFL.

Ohio State won the 2002 crown, and produced 11 players who were in the NFL for five years or more, 16 who played two to four years, and seven who played for one season. Again, this was the year's best college football team, and almost two-thirds of its players never played an NFL down.

Brooks and Willis looked at USC between 2002 and 2004 -- a period of very strong teams, including the 2004 squad, which won the BCS championship. In those three seasons, USC produced 12 players who were in the NFL five years or more, 15 players who were in the NFL for two to four years, and 13 who had single-season stints. Approximately 120 individuals had football scholarships at USC during that period; again, about two-thirds never played an NFL down.

Brooks and Willis also checked out Nick Saban's 2002-2004 LSU teams, including the 2003 team that won the BCS title. (Saban has not been at Alabama long enough to assess how his recruits there will do in the pros.) From those LSU years, 11 players played at least five seasons in the NFL, 10 played two to four years, and three played one year. That means 80 percent never played an NFL down.

It's simply not true that playing football at a big-deal college grooms you for the NFL. Coaches sometimes encourage this illusion -- which lures players into giving their all to the team, only to discover, too late, that college is over, the NFL didn't call, they didn't attend class and are not prepared for success in life. A couple of weeks ago, Saban told reporters he got the Crimson Tide fired up for its game against mega-underdog Chattanooga by warning players, "You would someday be an NFL player in a Mercedes-Benz and roll your window down to talk to a pretty girl and she'd say, 'You lost to Chattanooga when you played at Alabama.'" The overwhelming majority of the players on the current Alabama roster will never be an NFL player in a Mercedes-Benz. Encouraging that illusion improves Alabama's football results, while potentially distracting players from studying. Yet studying means a lot more to the typical Crimson Tide player's future than football.

One reason the system is so skewed is that big-college football coaches aren't rewarded for player graduations, they are rewarded for wins. Boosters don't care if the players graduate, they only care about victories -- and most football-factory coaches are in effect employees of the boosters, not of the university. If Saban creates a pleasant fantasy for his players that they are headed to the NFL, Saban's income rises. Future incomes for the majority of players decline if they fall for the fantasy and don't study.

In the past two decades, there's been a race to the bottom, in which many football-factory schools have lowered academic standards for football and men's basketball, dropping any pretense of education in pursuit of wins. (NCAA strictures govern whether a player can become a college athlete; colleges or conferences generally impose their own rules about whether athletes, once admitted, remain eligible; some big universities now define a football player taking a half-load of courses pass/fail as a "college student.") Here, "Outside the Lines" details how, at Florida State, a suspiciously high percentage of football players have been classified as learning disabled, which creates exemptions from already lax academic requirements. The lowering of standards in pursuit of wins is incredibly cynical on the part of big universities -- not only do hardly any of the players at colleges that don't focus on educating athletes advance to careers in the NFL, the recruiting pitch could be, "Come here and we'll never make you go to class."

Notre Dame was among the few prominent holdouts, insisting its football players be students too. This generated a recruiting disadvantage -- and a recruiting disadvantage caused by high standards, not Weis suddenly forgetting how to coach, is the reason for the recent records of Notre Dame football. Notre Dame alums and boosters should have been proud that high standards keep the school from going 12-0!

What about the other commonly heard claim -- that "smart schools" can't win in football and men's basketball? Cal, Georgia Tech, Navy, Nebraska, Northwestern, Stanford and TCU -- all academics-first colleges where football players are more likely to attend class -- are on their way to bowl games. Most of them have been in the top 20 nationally this season, and Georgia Tech and TCU even made BCS bowls. Notre Dame would be headed for a bowl game too, if it weren't for athletic director Jack Swarbrick's bizarre notion that winning "only" six games is something to be embarrassed about. Villanova and William & Mary just met in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, while Coe, Illinois Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins made the Division III playoffs. Penn and Amherst also would have advanced to the playoffs, if the Ivy League and the New England Small College Athletic Conference did not prohibit member schools from sending their football teams to the postseason. It is simply not true that colleges where football players study hard and go to class can't have winning seasons.

Reader Natasha Lettis of Oakland, Calif., provides this troika of stories about academics being enforced in the Cal football program: One player gave up his starting position because a class he requires for graduation conflicts with practice; another was suspended for a game for missing class; this article assesses Cal's overall commitment to blending academics and football. Cal's example shows that a football-factory school can enforce academic rules and still have a great season -- Cal finished 8-4 and will face Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl.

Is this autumn some kind of fluke? No. Last year, Boston College, Cal, Georgia Tech, Navy, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, TCU, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest made bowls. Colgate, Villanova and Wofford made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, while Case Western, Occidental and Wheaton of Illinois made the Division III postseason. Harvard and Trinity (Conn.) would have made the playoffs, except for Ivy League and NESCAC rules. All these are academics-come-first schools.

The field for last season's NCAA men's basketball tournament included Boston College, Butler, Cal, Cornell, Duke, North Carolina, Purdue, UCLA, Villanova and Wake Forest. In the women's tournament, Cal, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgia Tech, Lehigh, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Stanford, TCU, Villanova and Vanderbilt made it. Brackets for the men's Division III basketball playoffs included Amherst, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont McKenna, Middlebury, MIT, RIT and Washington in St. Louis (which repeated as champion). In Division III women's basketball, Amherst, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Rochester and Washington-St. Louis all made it. All of these schools enforce academic standards for athletes.

Smart schools dominate the Directors' Cup standings of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. For Division I sports, Stanford has won the Cup 14 times; in Division III, Williams has won 11 times. North Carolina, Penn State, Princeton, UCLA and Virginia are other smart schools that perennially finish high in the Cup standings for Division I; Amherst, Bowdoin and Middlebury perennially finish high in Division III. The Directors' Cup honors overall athletic success, across the spectrum of collegiate sports. And smart schools do really well -- in many cases better than sports-factory colleges that channel far more money into athletics than the smart schools.

A college can field winning football teams and still have strict academic standards for players; in turn, because the overwhelming majority of players (even at football-factory schools) will never advance to the NFL, they must go to class! Why does the sports universe shy away from discussing these core points?

In fact, athletics can even help improve academics. Studies have shown that in high school, male members of sports teams have better grades than male students as a whole. Some critics have suggested this outcome is deceptive, owing to "self-selection" -- the sort of boys with the work habits to be on time for sports practices are also the ones likely to do their homework. Over the last generation, girls and women have entered organized sports in large numbers. If athletic activity improves grades, female academic performance would be expected to rise. And that's exactly what has happened. Girls' GPAs in high school, and women's graduation numbers in college, are way up.

This important study by Betsey Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania tests the relationship between Title IX, which led to an increase in girls' and women's sports, and female academic and professional outcomes. (The link is to her draft; the final version is upcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics.) She found that every 10 percent increase in participation in girls' high school athletics leads to a 1 percent increase in girls' college attendance and a 2 percent increase in women's workforce presence. Further, Stevenson finds that "greater opportunities to play sports leads to greater female participation in previously male-dominated occupations, particularly for high-skill occupations." It wasn't just that girls who were likely to be good students also tried out for the field hockey team. The same fraction of girls likely to be good students always existed -- becoming athletes improved their college and career prospects. Sports made them better students and more successful in the workplace.

Stevenson's findings have not made a major splash -- maybe her work has simply gone unnoticed. But evidence that athletics actually improve academic performance makes the lack of academic focus in much of big-deal college sports all the more wrong. This won't change until college and university boards and regents stop shirking their duties -- and until the sports media stop covering college sports as though the sole thing that mattered was winning.

...

Not only do most football-factory colleges place too little emphasis on education for players, there is a second level of scandal: low graduation rates for African-American players. This new study from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida shows that of the 68 colleges which made bowl games this season:

• 21 graduated less than 50 percent of African-American football athletes, while only two graduated less than 50 percent of white football players.
• 7 graduated less than 40 percent of their African-American football players, while none graduated less than 40 percent of white football players.
• 35 had graduation success rates for African-American football athletes that were at least 20 percent lower than their rates for white football athletes.

College is what you make it, so it's fair to ascribe some of this poor performance to players not working harder in class. Even so, the figures should shock -- half the schools appearing in bowl games this holiday season have substantially lower graduation rates for African-American football players than for white players. The boosters don't care. Do the deans, regents and coaches care?

Easterbrook's commentary is well researched and scathing.

At some point, I need to consider whether my fandom for college sports - basketball more than football - is more important than my knowledge that many of the institutions for whom I cheer, to whose successes and failures I pay far too much attention (which is still far less attention than many people pay to them) are deserving of my attention and cheering.

I also need to talk to a friend's brother who is the academic advisor at the University of Memphis to see what his take on all of this is.  He would clearly be more knowledgeable on the subject than I am.

Oh, and Joey, I notice that he actually has praise for Notre Dame's academic stances but scorn for their denial of the bowl because they only went 6-6.  Your thoughts on that?

Ryan Moats

I've met a grand total of one NFL player in my life.

 I'm not a huge NFL fan or anything, so that's hot really a huge surprise.  I haven't exactly been hanging out at NFL games or fan gatherings in hopes of adding to that total or anything.

But I've met Ryan Moats, and he's every bit of Jim Bullinger's equal to me because of that.

It was the spring of 2005, and Calen and I were in Dallas for a National Science Teachers Association conference - we were both presenting for the first time.  We flew into Dallas on the morning of the day before the conference, Thursday, probably, getting into town in enough time to take the DART (I think, maybe it was a shuttle, who knows?) out to our hotel at Mockingbird Station and get settled in.

Once we oriented ourselves a bit - figuring out where we were, how we were going to get to the convention center to pick up our conference materials - we headed out to see what there was to see around the area where we were staying.  Turns out that we were just a few blocks from Southern Methodist University, home of the only athletic death penalty in major D1 sports.

We checked out fraternity row and a few neat sculptures and eventually ambled our way to SMU's football stadium where we looked for an open gate, eventually heading into the stadium and down toward the field to take a few pictures of Beaker (my class mascot, don't ask if you aren't already aware).

As we wandered are the stadium, looking for the best angles to pose Beaker, we saw that there was a lone athlete down on the football field working out.  He was running wind sprints and line drills alone, simply out for a workout.  He even wandered up into the stands to run the stairs later as we headed away from the stadium.

While we were there, however, the athlete stopped up into the stands and asked us what we were doing.  No accusation, no worry, just some sort of odd curiosity as to why these odd people were taking pictures of the stadium with this little Muppet in the foreground - no pictures with people in them, of course.

We told him that we were science teachers from Cincinnati in town for a conference and explained that I took my Beaker figure - my doll, as he said - with me on vacations to let the kids see where I'd been.  Since we were missing a couple of days of school for the conference, I wanted to make sure the kids knew we weren't just ditching school for a quick trip to the warm south while they wiled away the hours in rainy, dreary Cincinnati.

The athlete introduced himself, saying that he had played college football at Louisana Tech University and was about to be drafted into the NFL in the next few weeks.  He was temporarily back in his hometown of Dallas working out to stay in shape.  He wished us well - our entire conversation probably lasted two or three minutes - and we wandered onward.

Calen and I have both followed Moats's career since then, mentioning it to each other whenever we'd see his name in the news. 

Moats's career hasn't been too much to write home about, really.

• Drafted by the Eagles in the 3rd round
• Headed to the scout team initially but finished the season strong as an injury replacement with 260+ yards and three touchdowns in the last six games of the season
• Not even 70 yards in 2006
• Missed the full 2007 season with a preseason injury
• Moved on to Houston in 2008 but didn't do much - just twenty-six carries all year
• Filled in admirably when Stave Slaton was injured this year - 114 yards and three touchdowns in a single game against Buffalo
• Back to the bench the next game 

But I'm always pulling for Ryan Moats.

If ever I'm back into fantasy football, you'd better watch out for my team, the Ryan Moats.

Oh, Moats has also been in the national news for one other, far sadder incident.  In the spring of this year, Moats and his wife were speeding through the streets of Dallas, on their way to the hospital where his mother-in-law was dying.  Moats reached the hospital parking lot where he and his wife got out of the car.  A police officer who had been trying to pull Moats over for a mile or two pointed his gun at Moats's wife and ordered both back into their car.

Moats's wife went into the hospital, but Moats himself was detained for eighteen minutes while his mother-in-law passed away inside.  By the time Moats was able to get inside, she had died.

The incident became national news as a white officer had treated a black man unfairly - or at least unfairly as many people saw the incident.  You can view the whole police tape in two YouTube videos here.

I certainly don't know that I consider the incident racially motivated, but I certainly know that the whole situation was regretable and sad, and I was sorry that Moats's return to the headlines had to be because of it.

Run hard, Ryan Moats.  There are at least two midwestern science teachers cheer for your every yard.

I give the man credit.

At least he recognizes that he's become a joke.

Quick note

The NFL season is underway (in case you weren't aware).

I'll update you on my fantasy team in a day or two, but here's a bit of frivolity regarding correcting some team logos thanks to ESPN's Page 2.

In honor of...

And now you too can celebrate the glory that is Jim Tressel, coach of the two-time defending national runner-up Buckeyes of An Ohio State University by wearing the officially licensed Jim Tressel Sweater Vest T-Shirt for only $20.

Or there's the similarly produced Jim Tressel Sweater Vest Beer Coozy...

sheesh...