“Ugh!” Wasn’t that the line from Charlie Brown when he was disgusted?
That is where I am today. I full of ugh! I don’t want to be. I am.
In the mail today I received my Indiana University Varsity Club Annual Statement. This is a nice piece of paper that says how much my dear wife, Carrie, and I donated to Indiana University Athletics. What was not included in the total, of course, was the amount spent on season tickets. You’d think there would be a thank you in there for that, after the season Indiana had in 2022.
It gets worse. Bless his heart. Inside the envelope was a plain 2/3 sheet of paper that included a note from Athletic Director Scott Dolson. I like AD Dolson. I do. He is a nice guy. But when I saw this all I could read was “MAYDAY!!” At the heart of AD Dolson’s letter was him doing what he has to do in 2022. Ask for more money. Specifically asking for money to support today’s athletic programs that allow college athletic participants to be remunerated via Name, Image, and Likeness for their efforts beyond the traditional scholarship, meal money, stipend, et al.
I can chuckle. I remember the late Florida State Seminole Coach Bobby Bowden going back and forth with former Miami Hurricane receiver and eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer, Michael Irvin, when Michael was giving Coach Bowden a hard time about not being strongly recruited by Florida State in the 1980s. Bobby Bowden, how I miss his quick wit, said, “We couldn’t afford you!” Paying players was an under the table endeavor then. It was a contest all its own.
This old college football purist is having a hard time of it.
Above are the Big 8 Football Coaching Salaries from 1976.
Yes, I know. That was a long time ago. I also know the top salary here translates to about $175,000 in today’s money.
Ole Miss Head Football Coach Lane Kiffin started the season with a contract that paid him 7.25 million per year. His mighty Rebels team started the season 7-0. The Rebs lost four of their last five, including the Egg Bowl to rival Mississippi State. That is a major thou shalt not! Kiffin flirted with the Auburn job and Ole Miss rewarded his poor season ending performance with a new 9 million dollar contract. Strange times indeed. There is more television money out there than I can begin to imagine. That and every football coach and their agent in the SEC jumped up and down for joy when the University of Kentucky Football Coach, Mark Stoops, signed an extension to his contract that upped his annual pay to 8.6 million. That’s Kentucky Football good people. That is not basketball. Further proof the gridiron rules the show me the money quotient.
So the players are being paid these days. It was bound to happen. They were holding the ball and hopefully a diploma eventually for all the years that college athletic money was getting out of hand. Who could blame them?
What is a football fan like me left with in today’s NCAA world? Well, lets just say I am very delighted I got to see seventy major college football teams play in person in my lifetime before NIL and the UK Football Coach making 8.6 million got here.
What is left for a football fan like me in today’s NCAA world? No acknowledgement in my Varsity Club letter thanking me for buying season tickets for a bad football season. Instead, I receive a letter asking for more money to support the NIL case.
What is left for a football fan like me in today’s NCAA world? Watching a College Football Playoff expansion from four to twelve teams in 2024. All of this while bowl game player defections are more and more and more prevalent. Eventually, I fear the bowl teams we see will more resemble the upcoming spring practice game than they will the team that just ended the season.
What is a fan like me left with in today’s NCAA world? Watching the game I have loved to follow all my life slowly, quickly, instantly become unrecognizable. This whole portal, players moving on via free agency, has me reaching for Rolaids. What is going to become of my annual Lindy, Athlon, and Phil Steele reading ahead of the college football season? I am not going to resort to an app to tell me where a player is.
Yes, I did write a post stating my delight about UCLA and USC becoming Big Ten members. I so want to be there when the Indiana Hoosiers play UCLA in a game in The Rose Bowl Stadium. UCLA is under contract to stay there until 2030. Am I supposed to believe that? Since the dust settled on this news, I am not so sure it is a good thing for West Coast athletes being made to travel that much for dollars.
If I make it back to The Rose Bowl to see the Hoosiers play there one day, nostalgia more than the game will be in front of me. I am certain. I am that disenchanted. I wish I didn’t feel this way.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson