Well, it finally happened. The last hold-out among major NCAA conferences that still placed academics and students above sports has finally decided to join the same money-grubbing sports-crazed fever of the rest of the country, as the college presidents of the Big Ten, under pressure from the new Big Ten commissioner, voted unanimously to play football in the fall.
What makes this decision shocking is, just a few days earlier, Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway had firmly stated that he, and other Big Ten presidents with whom he had spoken, did not believe it was safe, and derided President Trump's interference in the Big Ten's process as a "blatant and desperate political ploy." Yet, Holloway gave in the pressure of Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska, and (of all institutions!) Iowa to play football this season.
Let's break this down. The boosters (who, let's face it, are the primary driving force behind this effort) of Ohio State wanted to play, because there is a chance for the Buckeyes to play in the National Championship Playoffs, and, to the boosters, that's the only thing that matters. Furthermore, parents of highly-touted players of Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska, and Michigan wanted their children to play on national television, to improve their draft position so that those parents could sponge off their kids for the rest of their lives. The common thread in all of this? Greed. Nobody really cared about the players (and certainly didn't care a whit about any of the other students on campus), but only their own personal concerns.
So, we had Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska, Michigan, and Iowa (and we're not sure why THEY fell into this category) who wanted to go ahead and play football, mostly to keep ensuring money rolling in from boosters and football-crazed alumni. On the other hand, we had Rutgers, Illinois, Northwestern, and Indiana feeling it was a bad idea. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, Purdue, and Michigan State remained mostly silent on the issue, except the Spartans wanted to play their in-state rivals Michigan if the Wolverines played.
Now, it's a little understandable why some schools remained solidly on the side of safety -- they didn't rely so much on the money from boosters and sports backers. Rutgers, Illinois, Northwestern, and Wisconsin all get more of their donations from academic supporters and alumni who hit big in business due to their education at those institutions, and target academic improvement with their endowments. (Note: there may be more than those four schools who get a majority of their financial donations targeted for academic or general purpose means, and not focussed on sports improvements, but those are the four that I know, and I cannot find detailed information on the financial endowments and donations on the other schools).
So why didn't those schools vote against it? Why was it important to make it unanimous? Those schools could have taken a stand, even if they lost the vote.
They didn't even need to lose the vote. The Big Ten charter demands that 60% of the schools vote in favor of any conference-wide resolutions in order for the proposal to pass. With 14 schools currently in the conference, that means 9 schools are needed to ratify. Those four schools, along with Indiana, number five. All they needed to do was to sway ONE of the "on the fence" schools to their side, and the Big Ten would have remained football-free this fall. It would have been pretty easy to sway a school, too. After all, look at the problems all of these other conferences have had with being able to play during this pandemic. In just the first two weeks of the college football season, over ten games have been cancelled or postponed. All teams are playing with smaller rosters, due to either sick players or players holding out this season, concerned for their own health and well-being (smart move! I have to give credit to those athletes; they're not just "dumb jocks").
What makes this worse is that the Pac-12 and MAC are influenced by the Big Ten. Since the Big Ten voted to play, that means those two conferences are likely to do so. The MAC has already announced that they will be taking a new vote this week.
And will all of this turn out the way those football obsessed boosters and parents want? Given the percentage of teams currently playing (or planning to play, which brings in the illness-plagued SEC, where one team, LSU, has already announced that ALL of their players either have Covid-19 or were exposed to it), is it likely that some, if not many, of these NFL-hopeful players will get sick, miss games, and likely jeopardize their draft position. And will Ohio State make the playoffs? As discussed by Rece Davis and Kirk Herbstreit during last night's Miami-Louisville game, the selection committee will have an interesting time decided the merits of teams who will be playing a wide array of games. How do you measure a team who played ten games against a team who played seven or eight? How do you measure a team that plays only in-conference opponents, who they play all the time and know well, versus a team that played non-conference patsies (of course, that can be an annual question for teams that schedule their non-conference games against weak opponents)?
I don't think this will turn out well for the teams, schools, student body, and even the reputation of the Big Ten. For instance, there may be alumni like myself, who have gladly donated during the annual fund raising drive, as I know that I would not be where I am today without the quality of education that I received from the University of Illinois, who may change their mind. After all, these schools have shown that the wants and desires of the sports department, and the sports boosters, have taken precedence over the safety of the students and the consistency and quality of the academics. They might decide, like I am, that the school no longer needs, nor desires, our annual donations.
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