One number can't tell the whole story

4/19/09

Another failure for UConn and Jim Calhoun.

Junior center Hasheem Thabeet announced last week that he will forego his final year of college eligibility and make himself available for the NBA draft. A 7-foot-3-inch behemoth, he's projected to be among the first few players chosen. Given the NBA's salary structure, he will be guaranteed a two-year contract worth at least $2.5 million per season.

He will not, though, earn his college degree, at least not yet. If he or any player does not earn a diploma within six years of enrolling in school, he becomes a detriment to the reputation of the coach and the school. At last count, UConn's graduation rate for the men's basketball team was a sickly looking 33 percent.

These numbers are released every year just in time to give everyone excited about the sport a knock on the head. Around the start of the NCAA tournament, each school's graduation rate is held up for discussion as if all that is good or bad about a team can be boiled down to one statistic. The rates are good every year for a few outraged opinions from people who say the athletes are being treated as commodities. As soon as they have outlived their use, this thinking goes, they will be tossed aside -- and without a degree, most will have few options.

Except, as someone like Thabeet shows, it's not that simple. For one thing, it's a small sample size; a school has 13 scholarships, and most years only a handful of new players suits up. There's also the fact that nearly everyone who puts in four years on the team has a chance to make money playing basketball somewhere, college degree or no. The European leagues are packed with ex-college players not good enough for the NBA but who make a solid living -- often in the six-figure range. It's far from home and not the easiest road, but it's a living, and one that those players might not have had without four years to grow and develop at a place like UConn.

As marginal a player as Danbury native E.J. Harrison, who was backup to the backups on the 1999 national championship team, played for a decade in England. Others play in Ukraine or Australia or Israel. It's not always glamorous, but there are worse ways to spend your life.

A lot of UConn players, too, are in the NBA (13 at last count). Every one of them is a millionaire many times over, but most of them count against the school's graduation rate. If the point of the college experience is to help young people mature and expand their opportunities, it's hard to count a story like theirs as a negative.

The graduation rate is an attempt to find a shorthand look at how well or poorly a school is serving its students. And there is nothing pretty about 33 percent; it would be easy to extrapolate from that data that the focus during a player's UConn years is on everything but academic achievement. As long as the team wins and the dollars flow into the coffers, all is well.

But the reality doesn't support that view. A degree itself is no guarantee of future success, and a solid financial foundation earned by playing basketball for a living can be just as valuable, if not more.

It's partly a rationalization on the part of fans -- like me -- to play down the importance of stories that make their team and their school look bad. It's also tempting to argue the entire system is corrupt from top to bottom. There's a lot of truth in that view.

There is a lot wrong with big-time college athletics, and it's a fair argument that universities shouldn't be in the business of serving as de facto minor leagues. No one argues the coaches are pure and the system flawless.

But it would be wrong to assume you can boil down a school's morals and priorities into a simple number, no matter what it measures. Anyone who wants to rage against the system as it exists should aim a lot higher than UConn.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. He can be reached at 203-330-6233 or at hbailey@ctpost.com.

The players deserve better than this

4/5/09

"Those cheating Huskies," read a headline in a CBS Sports column. The New York Times opened its "Meet the Final Four" piece by discussing recruiting improprieties. It's been Topic A on ESPN for two weeks.

Maybe my lifelong fanhood for all things UConn should stop me from weighing in on this. To me, it doesn't change the fact the men's basketball team is being wronged.

The charges were treated like blockbuster news. Yahoo led its sports page with the headline: "UConn broke rules." Never mind that on the first day of journalism school you're taught not to convict people in the story; the NCAA decides who broke the rules, not a news outlet. This was different; from the beginning, the tales of recruiting misdeeds have been assumed to be true before the official probe even starts.

UConn fans are livid. They -- we -- are smart enough to know this kind of season doesn't come around all that often. After so many close calls and great teams that fell short, this is not a fan base that takes Final Fours for granted.

But instead of talking about basketball, everyone -- players, fans and coaches -- has been asked about improper phone calls or who paid for what hotel room. It's bad enough for those of us who do nothing but watch, but the players deserve none of this.

Two years ago, this same team couldn't get out of its own way; this year, they've been ranked No. 1 in the country. It's a remarkable story, and one that has been wholly overshadowed.

Even worse, the explosiveness of the charges is illusory. The story hinges mainly on what the coaches knew about the activities of a former team manager who was working to ingratiate himself with recruits. His activities alone are against the rules, but if the coaches knew nothing about it, they can't be held responsible. If they did know, that's a problem.

It is not, though, an earth-shaker. No players were paid off. No one altered anyone's test scores. Rules are rules, but there is an enormous difference between the way the alleged violations have been reported and what they entail. In no way are they important enough to overshadow the players' accomplishments.

There's a reason it's happened this way, and it's pretty simple. Coach Jim Calhoun can be a jerk, and a lot of reporters can't stand him. This is no secret -- a top state columnist wrote a piece not long ago laying it all out for everyone to see.

Being a jerk isn't against the rules. But it does carry a price. When something like this comes along, the reporters and columnists who shape the news not only don't put the story in proper perspective, they pounce.

There is not a single top program that hasn't been caught up in something at least as serious as the UConn allegations. (Anyone outraged by this story should save his righteousness for the NCAA itself.) But when a coach makes time to be buddies with the media -- not the local guys who cover the team day to day, but the national writers and broadcasters who drive the conversation and determine how long a story stays in the public eye -- everyone is just as happy to look the other way.

In UConn's case, we get weeks of phony outrage, as if the fulminating wasn't a thinly disguised excuse to take shots at a guy who makes their jobs tougher.

The people who pay the heaviest price are the ones who make it all possible; guys named Jeff, Stanley, Hasheem and the rest. They'll only get one shot at the Final Four, most of them. And though they've done nothing wrong, they're tarred as cheaters.

Some people blame Calhoun for that. Given the facts at hand, I blame the people who don't seem to realize their grievances are not the story. No one cares whether the coach is nice to you. But thanks for making a week with UConn in the Final Four more pain than pleasure. I wouldn't have thought that was possible.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. He can be reached at 203-330-6233 or at hbailey@ctpost.com.

Expecting more from public figures

3/4/09

This didn't have to be a big issue. If University of Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun had kept his temper in check, this story would have gone nowhere.

He didn't, of course, and now his insulting response to a question at a post-game news conference has become the talk of the sports world, and beyond. It's about far more than salaries and deficits -- it's about basic decency.

The issue is not whether Calhoun should, as his questioner suggested, give back some of his salary in light of the state budget crisis. No one in a position of authority -- the athletic director, university president, governor, etc. -- has asked him to, so there is nothing for him to refuse.

This is also not an issue of whether his salary is justified. The university pays him what it thinks he is worth; if he disagreed, he could go somewhere else and maybe make more money. Both sides entered into his contract with a full understanding of how the system works.

Most of Calhoun 's job is based on one thing -- winning basketball games. On that score, his success may be unsurpassed in the entire country. That UConn is in the upper echelon of programs -- alongside North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, etc. -- would have been unthinkable before he arrived in the 1980s. Every other consistently top program has a tradition of greatness. Calhoun had to create UConn's tradition, and he has.

And the impact is hard to measure in dollars and cents. The bottom line shows the athletic department brings in far more money than it pays to run a basketball program, whether from ticket sales, sports paraphernalia or TV rights. What it can't measure is how many more students have chosen UConn over other schools because of the winning sports teams; or how much extra money alumni donate because they like what they see on the court.

It's true not all his players graduate, but a significant number go on to successful careers, in basketball or otherwise.

Then there's the change in the university's wider reputation. Its academic standards and physical infrastructure are dramatically improved from a generation ago. At least a small part of the credit should go to its highly visible athletic successes.

There are many budget items that drain significant funds from the state and university -- Jim Calhoun 's salary is not among them.

But another part of his job is to be the public face of the university. And no matter how much money he brings in; no matter how much positive publicity he creates for the school and the state; no matter how much he gives to charity, he has responsibilities. High on that list is basic decency.

If he didn't like the question, or he didn't think it was appropriate, there are ways to handle that without resorting to saying, "Shut up." Calhoun has never been known for his diplomacy, but that doesn't mean the state doesn't have the right to expect better.

Workers, players better off organized

3/9/09

You can blame the unions and public employees if you want to. But when there's only one group of people that can feel remotely secure in their employment, I have a hard time taking them to task.

At every level, the call is for concessions. Teachers should forego raises, union contracts must be renegotiated, city workers need to sacrifice benefits. The story in Bridgeport City Hall is the same one in the state Capitol. The inference is that public employees are feeding off the rest of us, and it's time to take it back.

No doubt there are some lazy, good-for-nothing public employees who are wasting time and money. But there isn't a workplace in America that can't say that.

There are changes that should and likely will be made to make the system fairer and more transparent. But a crisis like this brings outbursts against the very idea of collective bargaining, and the protections only available to a lucky few. It's a system that treats workers as disposable that needs reform, not the one that offers a safety net.

Today, in businesses across the nation, people who work for a living watch grim-faced executives hold daylong, closed-door sessions secure in the knowledge they aren't talking about anything good. The jobs shed so far haven't slowed the economic plunge, so everyone knows worse is coming. And it could be any day.

Meanwhile, people who have been able to negotiate a modicum of security over the years are held up for ridicule. The autoworkers are blamed for Detroit's troubles, much like homeowners are said to be responsible for the mortgage crisis.

Surely some people took advantage of the housing bubble, and took what they could and ran. But most people didn't. A mortgage is like any contract; it has two parties, and usually only one is well versed in how the system works. If a lot of people ended up borrowing beyond their means, it was often because they believed the hype about all-powerful markets.

So now, in a situation where the news gets grimmer day by day, in one industry after another, we're told to take out our anger on the one group of people lucky enough to enjoy some security. Organized labor exerts only a fraction of the influence it once had in this country. But it's no coincidence that the only people it still covers are those best equipped to ride out this economy.

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Missing in the debate about Jim Calhoun and his salary is the question of the performers themselves, and what they are worth. The coach is the mainstay -- the only link between the greats of years' past and the current product. But no one pays to see Calhoun roam the sidelines, entertaining as that can be.

It's the players who produce the value. Without them, there's nothing. But of the billions of dollars spent in this country on college sports and their marketing, they end up with a pittance.

An athletic scholarship is not to be minimized -- a lot of people would pay dearly for the opportunities it can provide. But at a total value of, say, $120,000 over four years, it doesn't come close to matching the value produced by even an average player on a successful team.

If the coach is paid $1.6 million a year, how much is the point guard worth?

Some players will go on to successful basketball careers after college, a (very) few of them in the NBA. But for many, this is it. They fuel a multibillion-dollar enterprise and see the equivalent of a few pennies tossed their way. If they find a way to profit and get caught, they risk being banned from the sport.

The solution is uncertain, but people who make big money in this business should hope the players never organize themselves.

Hugh S. Bailey is assistant editorial page editor at the Connecticut Post. He can be reached at 330-6233 or at hbailey@ctpost.com.