The sorry state of affairs at the University of Kentucky with respect to its “football program” (used to just be called a football team, but now everything’s a program) is once again in the limelight. Remember the saga of Bill Curry, Hal Mumme and others? This is the huge banner headline in the Lexington Herald-Leader of 08 November: UK to give Brooks fourth year. GIVE…GIVE…GIVE…GIVE???!!! Brooks is in only the third year of a five-year contract, and Mitch Barnhart, the Athletic Director, is going to GIVE the man a fourth year. How does one go about giving a guy something he already has? UK and Brooks, supposedly in good faith (if there IS such a thing in college sports anymore) signed a legal contract requiring that each fulfill a 5-year commitment to the other.
Now, apparently, on the mere whim of the athletic director the contract can be voided…EXCEPT, of course, only if the proper financial obligations are honored. In this case if not retained, Brooks would be entitled to a severance package including two years worth of lost income ($1,450,000 in salary and perks) plus whatever else he can pry out of the university. Mumme got a million in cold, hard cash along about the year 2001 plus the use of cars plus no telling what else. Curry left town a few years before him with a cool $600,000 to make a fortune as a broadcaster…just because UK decided not to honor its contracts with the men, neither of whom had done anything (anyone knows about, at least) wrong. Curry didn’t win many games, Mumme presided (or somebody did) over a corrupt “program,” according to the NCAA, and Brooks has won only three conference games in three years. Therein lies the rub, of course.
No…the rub lies in the fact that the entire system of intercollegiate sports has descended into a quagmire of double-dealing dishonesty that gives the lie to all the things it’s supposed to enhance in a young athlete – a sense of fair-play, no cheating, reasonable but not exorbitant preparation for “the game.” There’s always been an aura of “getting away with as much as possible” in sports – just the male psyche about most things – but the current escapades by coaches, athletic directors, and even institution presidents goes far beyond the pale. The big deal recently, for instance, has been that marvelous fount of guaranteed success – the weight room, where athletes can pile on as much knotty muscle as possible, along with the concomitant increase in weight, the better to maim the opposition, whether football or basketball. Ostensibly, the effort is meant to protect the athlete from injuries…nobody believes that, of course. Injuries, if anything, are more common now than ever, understandable since bigger, harder bodies are crashing against each other in a sort of arranged mayhem.
The winner is the coach, who works his way up the million-dollar ladder on the backs of young men, most of whom will not even graduate – a sort of serf-system. The hallelujah chorus in the coaching industry is Nike Be Praised! Contracts with the equipment makers plus the silly TV/radio programs are worth fortunes to coaches, while many of their “scholarship” players enter the system as functionally illiterate and depart the system the same way, most without diplomas, or with diplomas in virtually worthless fields, comparatively, with regard to those of their fellow students.
The UK athletic director is worth at least a half-million a year…and he’s the guy who brought Brooks to UK and now has to figure a way to squirm out of the contract sooner or later, but apparently a bit later at this point, since it seems Brooks will stay. Barnhart gets bonuses, depending on the appearance of UK teams in bowl games or basketball tournaments or whatever else is included in a contract it took months to finagle when he came to UK. This is disgusting, since he also rides on the backs of young men earnestly committed to their tasks while he becomes a millionaire many times over. Since someone else is responsible for just about everything he does, such as determining an athlete’s eligibility, promotion, etc., he may just be a paper-shuffler or a fundraiser – probably the latter mostly, since money drives everything, especially since the advent of TV and its bottomless pockets of cash. An AD ought to be worth no more than a tenured professor, if that. In fact, the president of Vanderbilt did away with the AD there and took the job himself, an indication of just how much time and talent are needed to be an AD.
The taxpayer watches all this, realizing that he’s the victim, just like the athlete. The wonder is that the powers- that-be didn’t just pay Brooks a cool million and a half plus a couple of Cadillacs and a 4x4 pickup and tell that taxpayer where he can go. At least UK will save itself $725,000 by giving Brooks another year. The “program” won’t change much, but so what!!!
Anyone interested in reading a short story about this subject, The Stem-cell Quarterback, is invited to go here: http://www.clarkscorner.org/tscq.pdf. It’s all about the saga of Kentucky Coach Jubal Cornhusk, the “game,” steroids, and such like.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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