Category Archives: Blog

Acting Like You Have Never Been There Before

We have been recycling the same culture war for nearly 50 years, since Cassius Clay filled the once quiet air with bombast—“I must be the greatest!”—after shocking the world by beating Sonny Liston. The man who soon changed his name to Muhammad Ali ran to Liston’s corner to taunt him, shouted down his journalistic doubters, and repeatedly interrupted Joe Louis during a post-fight interview. The compliant Louis was said to be a credit to the human race, which made White America all the more aghast at Clay—just like they were at Richard Sherman at the end of the NFC title game. After Seattle’s cornerback broke-up the potential game-winning pass, he taunted Michael Crabtree and praised himself to the heavens– “I’m the best corner in the game”—leaving Erin Andrews speechless.

It is easy to understand why so many people were offended by Sherman’s outburst. Since Victorian times, the prevailing belief has been that athletes are supposed to compete strenuously but fairly, keep a stiff upper lip if they lose, and exhibit humility should they be fortunate enough to win. Humility, however, has not always been part of the equation since Ali.

On the surface, the view just outlined seems obvious and unassailable, but let’s look at the presuppositions that underlie it. 19^th century reformers did not believe that sports had any intrinsic worth; the purpose of playing was to teach non-cognitive skills, such as the value of planning and preparation, effort, teamwork, and sportsmanship. What’s more, sports was just supposed to be a minor part of life, that would benefit participants (and spectators) because it taught lessons that could be used at work and benefit one’s community. Finally, since this project was inaugurated in prep schools and universities, it presumed that most of the players would graduate to reasonably productive, successful, and comfortable lives.

But what’s left of these ideals if these presuppositions do not apply to the players or are obsolete? Sports is no longer a minor part of life, or schooling, and many players are fully aware that succeeding on the field is their only chance of leaving poverty behind.

The common rebuttal is that sports represents equality—the level playing field—and thus athletes from disadvantaged backgrounds should be grateful because they are getting a fair chance to compete for all the goods society has to offer. Sherman embodies this hope perfectly. He may be straight out of Compton, but he was ranked second academically in his high school class and his athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to Stanford, where he is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.

So why can’t he comport himself like a good Victorian? Actually, he checks off most of those non-cognitive boxes: he is thoroughly prepared for every game, his effort is unquestioned, his teammates and coaches swear by him, and none of his peers have accused him of being a dirty player, let alone a thug. Most importantly, he has also given back a tremendous amount to his community. He chose then mediocre Stanford over USC because he wanted to send the message that a kid from Compton could go to an elite school, and he has helped many of his high school teammates apply for college. Football appears to really be just a means to the larger goals he wants to accomplish.

So why can’t Citizen Sherman take that last step and exhibit humility? Only he can answer that question, but I will hazard to guess.

The conventional worldview assumes that there is a level playing field, both inside and outside the lines, but most members of the African-American underclass do not experience equal opportunity in the larger society. Sherman is proof positive that success is possible, but he is also probably keenly aware of how many obstacles stand in the way of the average person from Compton: poor schools, rampant gang culture and crime, drug use, high unemployment, lack of cultural capital, all adding up to lots of hopelessness.

Legendary coach Paul Brown famously advised his players to ‘act like you have been there before’ when scoring a touchdown. The classic Victorian point being that succeeding at a game should be kept in perspective. By contrast, Randall Hill, one of the more infamous players on the infamous University of Miami teams back in the day, once defended the fact that he celebrated even short completions:

People complain about me celebrating after a four-yard catch. I look at it like this: If you were poor and you didn’t have a car and God blessed you with a Yugo, wouldn’t you be happy with the Yugo? Why not be happy with everything you can get on the field?

Brown argued for perspective because most of the people he came into contact with went on to live reasonably productive, successful, and comfortable lives. Most of the people Hill and Sherman grew up with feel quite justified in celebrating game-saving pass break-ups, or even four-yard catches, because they have overcome such long odds.

Sherman acknowledged that he learned what a powerful combination intelligence and confidence were from Ali, but his actions Sunday night, and comments since then speak to a more fundamental point the Greatest made: “I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”

Apparently, that reality has not been accepted, even after all these years.

–Ken Pendleton

The Root of Football’s Violence Problem

With so much emphasis on making football safer, it’s worth looking back at how the game developed and why change won’t come easy. The dye was cast before the 20th
century and the best efforts at reform are bound to be challenging..

As Michael Oriard details in his marvelous book, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle (Cultural Studies of the United States), the game we now recognize largely took shape in the 1880s when the rules that govern rugby were overhauled. First, continuous play was replaced by the scrimmage line and later down and distance. Then blockers were allowed to escort the runner. And finally in 1888 defenders were permitted to tackle between the waist and knees. It is important to note that all of these changes were interrelated. Starting plays from scrimmage necessitated blocking, which in turn meant that tacklers had to be given more latitude lest the ballcarriers run wild. Imagine how hard it would be to stop Chris Johnson or LaMichael James if defenders could not tackle below the waist.

The significance of these changes cannot be overstated. There is a big difference between the strenuous physical contact that characterizes rugby and the violent collisions that are part and parcel of football.

The NFL and the NCAA (and its earlier incarnations) have been trying to come to terms with this problem ever since. The forward pass was legalized to encourage more open play; Mass momentum plays, such as flying wedges, piling on, clothesline tackling, and ‘targeting’ have all been outlawed; players started wearing helmets, quarterback were given extra protection, defensive lineman were prohibited from slapping offensive lineman in the head; coaching and medical staffs started taking concussions seriously; the NFL fines and suspends players regularly; ESPN’s Tom Jackson has stopped giving ‘Jacked Up’ awards for Sunday’s best hits and I can’t remember the last time I heard an announcer joke about a player having ‘his bell rung’ or not knowing where he is.

We all get it, finally, but that does not mean that the core problem can be addressed easily, at least not sufficiently.

The first major problem is that a lot of long-term brain damage comes from the helmet-to-helmet contact that occurs between lineman on most running plays. It is the repetitive minor collisions rather than being jacked up that often leads to trouble years later. And the second is that physical intimidation is an integral part of the game. It makes quarterbacks throw the ball a split second earlier, running backs scoot out of bounds, and receivers get alligator arms.

Rule changes may eliminate a lot of the savagery, but not the ubiquitous brutality that usually determines who wins. This will take a lot of science, research, innovation, collaboration, and patience.

Bad Apples?

Great emphasis is placed on the bad things athletes do. Putting aside for a moment whether or not professional (or collegiate) athletes break the law at a greater rate than the average citizen (arguably, the visibility and high-stakes damage to competitive goals and reputation likely leave us with minimal tolerance for athletes doing bad things regardless of how they compare to the general population), the understanding most often targets the rule-or-law-breaking-athlete as a bad apple. Much of the attention goes into trying to understand which athletes have inferior character or broken moral compasses so that we can gather some insight into identifying these individuals, ostensibly to try to prevent a repeat of such a bad apple from finding it’s way, once again, into our future sports fruit basket.

First, your problem is partially solved by the mere removal of this individual. If Alex Rodriguez is caught using PEDs, we simply have to suspend or ban him from play and we have rid ourselves of that bad apple. If Ndamukong Suh, stomps on the head of an opponent during a game, we merely need to suspend and fine him and address that particular bad apple.

Second, the way to prevent is to seek to identify these bad apples as early as possible and decide whether or not the risk is worth taking. Certainly, the New England Patriots had some understanding of Aaron Hernandez’ questionable background, and made a calculated decision that the upside of his talents outweighed the risks of further (and greater) bad-apple behavior.

It is a very appealing framework to operate from. Every athlete will be replaced eventually but leagues, universities, teams, etc. will remain. There is understandable appeal in this interpretation – it keeps attribution clear and solutions contained to investigation and punishment. It also has some undeniable truth. There are some bad apples that simply should not be on your team. However, this is likely the exception and not the rule.

So often we see what one of my mentors, Larry Susskind, described as “Predictable Surprises.” We don’t know when or who the next bad apple will be but we know it is coming and we might even have a sense of what team is more likely to be affiliated with this future bad apple. We see certain teams that could be identified as bad apple factories. We seem quite comfortable with an emphasis focused on putting the right apples into the mix and hoping that will be enough.

The irony, of course, in all of this is that in sports we would never leave traditional sport skills predominantly to a selection problem. Certainly, we spend lots of time and energy identifying and recruiting the athletes with the most talent and recruit or draft heavily based on the perceived talent and potential for on-field success. We might even consider neck-up and off-field factors in this equation. But, most often we do not dedicate even a fraction of the resources to developing life skills, emotional competencies, conflict management skills, communication ability, and relationship skills as we do to the deliberate practice and repetition that we fully understand is needed to refine the inside-the-line talents. We practice shooting, passing, kicking, specific plays, etc. to work toward our 10,000 hours need for expertise. We do not rest on talent alone and know that those that do are likely to fail. We fully accept that responsibility often lies with the coach or organization if they fail to develop the athlete to realize that potential.

Arguably, the same diligence in creating structure and establishing deliberate practice for off-field competencies could go further toward meeting our zero-tolerance trend for bad behavior in sports than a model that emphasizes the individuals traits and behaviors alone. Even where we place emphasis on the individual, the more nuanced response is to adapt the structures, policies, and practices to address the identified risk – to better understand potential triggers and individual deficits with the goal toward preventing such behaviors.

A model that looks first at the organization’s role in assessing individual needs and developing a systemic approach toward building those skills in the same manner and focus as we do traditional sports skills has the potential to have significant impact on bad behavior. If we accept a role as bad apple factories, we can adjust how that factory operates and work toward eliminating the number of bad apples produced by that factory.

~ Joshua Gordon

A Good Teacher Is A Good Coach

It has often been said that good coaches are good teachers. Indeed, good coaches teach their players how to practice, manage their time, work with their teammates, handle adversity, etc. But, after more than ten years of teaching, I have come to the conclusion that one of the major problems with our educational system is that teachers do far too little coaching.

What do I mean by coaching?

First of all, I am not suggesting that teachers should go all Bobby Knight on their students, though I sometimes see the allure. OK, to be honest, I have dreamed of cutting lose with a profanity-laced tirade while I am handing back a batch of mediocre papers. “You will not put me through another round of papers like the last ones. You will think the grades I gave last time were (expletive) generous if you continue to hand in this (expletive). . . .” I did once tell my students that, “I don’t see any blood, I don’t see any sweat, I don’t see any tears in these (existentialism) papers,” and proceeded to throw them all over the front desk. The subsequent papers were better, but I don’t think my theatrics rose above the level of entertainment.

Good coaches are able to motivate their pupils because they form deep relationships with them. Sometimes that does mean getting in someone’s grill, though I don’t think there is ever a need for Knight’s pedagogical techniques. Other times it means encouraging or putting your arms around a player. A good coach knows when to step in and when to step back. Knight, for example, often refused to call a timeout because he wanted to let his players to solve the problems they had created.

The point is that a good coach knows what buttons to push because she or he has an intimate relationship with his players. That is when the most effective classroom teaching occurs, too.

I was taking German in the ninth grade and the teacher (believe it or not his name was Herr Algae) and I talked about sports after almost every class. He warned all of us that we needed to spend at least an hour a night doing homework, but I wasn’t even coming close. In fact, I didn’t even study for the first exam because I was watching Monday Night Football (the Raiders beat the Chiefs, if memory serves). I got the C- I deserved, but what stunned me–and changed my life–was the way Herr Algae laid into me, in front of the whole class.

“Kenny got a C- because he was watching Monday Night Football,” he announced, and then warned, “I am going to continue to announce his grades out loud until he gets his priorities in order.” He never had to make good on that threat because I started doing by damn homework. I knew he was right and that I would never allow myself to be embarrassed like that again.

I took German with Herr Algae for four years. Lots of other students did poorly on exams, but I was the only one he ever publicly called out. Why? Why did he single out me and ignore all the others? My best educated guess is that he took that chance because he had taken the time to get to know me. He knew that I was underachieving and he believed I would respond to, rather than run from, his blunt criticism. The relationship we formed outside of the classroom allowed him to coach me.

I am not blaming teachers for this failure.

I teach ethics and focus on the big questions: What is happiness? How should one attempt to come to terms with tragic suffering? How does the Holocaust differ from other genocides? What can we do to stave off the possibility of ecological catastrophe? I would like to think I compel students to think about their place in the world, but what I do rarely rises to the level of coaching. I may reach the few students a quarter who come to office hours (the ones who are doing more than angling for a better grade), but the other 55 in each class seem all too happy to settle for a lecture. They don’t want to be pushed, let alone risk embarrassment.

Our classrooms are too bloated and many of the students simply don’t care enough about what they are being taught. We live in a society where more than 100 million people tune in for the Super Bowl while most don’t ever watch C-Span. They volunteer to play sports but only take courses like mine because they are required. I am happy that a lot of coaches get a chance to mold so many young women and men, but it would be nice if coaching also played a pivotal role in the classroom.

~ Ken Pendleton

A Simple Suggestion to Teach Leadership

Why are there coaches on the sidelines during games?

If we take seriously the idea that the primary purpose of sports is moral training (I am not sure this should be the primary focus, but that is a subject for a another blog): to teach sportsmanship, leadership, sacrifice, resourcefulness, composure—in sum, to teach children how to be adults, then why should coaches play such a prominent supervisory role during games? Wouldn’t players learn a lot more if they had to make all the decisions among themselves?

If practice is like a class, then a game should be the equivalent of exam. No one would suggest that a history student should have the right to seek out his teacher because he is struggling with questions about the Civil War, so why should a coach be there to remind a player about the fundamentals required to successfully deploy a 2-3 zone? I suspect players would be a lot more motivated to practice and strategize if they knew that all the game-time decision were going to fall on them.

I have no doubt that games would be a lot more chaotic, at least at first. There would be huge momentum swings, arguments over substitutions, and sometimes teams would completely lose the plot. And games would probably be more ragged, since coaches have more perspective and are generally pretty good at imposing order.

But think about how much players would learn, how much more quickly they would mature. They would have to prepare better. They would have to figure what was working, and what wasn’t, and come up with adjustments during timeouts or halftime. They would have to acknowledge their own limitations and agree to be voluntarily substituted. They would have to keep an eye on their teammates, especially those who are hotheads, and really think about how to keep them in emotional check.

The game themselves might suffer—though I suspect they would make for fantastic theater—but the real benefit would come off the court. These players would be far better prepared to deal with all the temptations that life throws at them and to assume positions of leadership after their playing careers ended.

Too many athletes, especially those who compete in the revenue-generating sports, are taught to focus all their attention on the game, on the specialized role they will be playing in it. They have help making their class schedules, meals are prepared for them, and study halls are set up to compel them to do homework. They are sequestered in hotels the night before home games (at huge expense), lest they be tempted by other priorities.

In sum, they are not being adequately prepared to deal with the necessities of life outside the lines and they are constantly taught to follow orders when they are inside of them. Maybe I am missing something, but isn’t becoming autonomous a key component of adulthood? If that is correct, then why are we treating athletes like they are children? Let’s see how they would do without coaches lording over them.

The Sanity Code

It is easy to understand why NCAA president Mark Emmert has steadfastly maintained that student-athletes are not employees. After all, the ideal of amateurism is built on the principle that athletes should play for the love of sport rather than pay.

The problem, of course, is that athletes–just like coaches, trainers, athletic directors, and NCAA presidents–feel entitled to compensation. When was the last time you heard an athlete defend the amateur ideal? They generally observe NCAA rules because it is prudent, not because they buy into all the play-for-love-of-school-and-sports rhetoric.

It more or less follows that many players will break the rules if they don’t think they will get caught. This is the problem that college football has faced since the 1870s.

Take Yale, the team that dominated play during its formative years. They were guided by Walter Camp, who more than anyone else shaped the sport’s evolution. Camp sincerely believed that the purpose of football was moral training and advocated amateur ideals, for example, he served as a volunteer head coach for decades while running a clock factory. Nonetheless, he had to come to terms with the fact that some of his best players required additional motivation. In fact, his 27-year-old captain James Hogan (pictured above) enjoyed free tuition and a swanky suite, a handsome stipend, a ten-day paid vacation in Cuba, and, best of all, a monopoly on the sale of American Tobacco Company products on campus (referred to affectionately as Hogan’s Cigarettes by fellow students).

I suspect that Ohio State’s quarterback Terrelle Pryor would not have been trading equipment for tattoos if he could have secured market exclusivity for beer sales on the Columbus campus (Pryor’s Pilsners?)

During Hogan’s time, the fact that he received what was in effect an athletic scholarship was every bit as problematic as having a right to profit from tobacco sales. Coaches were supposed to recruit the players who happened to be on campus. not recruit them to come to campus. Thus, Harvard’s coach Bill Reid, who unlike Camp did accept a professional salary, kept card files on all 4,000 students.

The NCAA did not formally address the issue until after World War II. In 1948, they passed the Sanity Code, permitting the awarding of scholarships and jobs, but with the important caveat that the recipients had to demonstrate financial neediness. Finally, in 1956, they sanctioned the awarding of scholarships without regard to an athlete’s academic promise or economic hardships.

This was probably the sane thing to do given the rife corruption, but, make no mistake, this policy amounts to paying athletes. President Emmert can claim athletes are students not employees, but the fact of the matter is that a scholarship is a form of compensation for services rendered–which is fundamentally at odds with the ideal of amateurism. The International Olympic Committee was forced to address this problem by the early 90s, and sooner or later the NCAA will be forced to do the same.

In my view, the NCAA should allow athletes to be compensated by agents rather than by the schools.

The problem with the latter is that athletic departments, which are already usually operating in the red, would likely reallocate funds that support non-revenue generating sports. This would be a shame since the students who play these sports come closest to embodying the scholar-athlete ideal.

Allowing agents to represent athletes would have several benefits.

Agents could be regulated and monitored far more effectively. The NCAA and players’ unions in the major professional leagues could collaborate and establish standards of conduct. This would all but eliminate illegal payments and actually help players receive quality representation.

Coaches could consult with agents about their athlete’s best professional interests rather than worrying about them signing their stars. As it stands, agents have a huge incentive to encourage players to turn pro early because they are worried that players will choose to be represented to someone else a year or two later. Coaches may loathe the prospect of working with agents, but it would probably be easier than working with relatives or other hangers-on, and struggling to get a message to an agent lurking in the background.

Allowing agents a seat at the table would go a long way towards minimizing the sway of boosters, which would make coaches, athletic directors, and university presidents’ jobs a lot easier

Finally, some might fear that a university’s athletic community would be divided between the haves and have-nots, but this already occurs now because of illegal payments and the fact that some athletes are paid professionally to play one sport while maintaining college eligibility in another. Furthermore, the NCAA could also stipulate that any funds received that exceed a certain stipend would be put into a trust for the athlete. This might provide some of them a nest-egg in case their professional careers are derailed.

We can quibble over the details, but let’s be clear about the big picture. The present system is not working. There is too much money on the table and athletes are going to try to get their fair share. The NCAA can try to prevent them from taking funds under the table or it can compel everyone to put their cards on it.

The latter would be the right thing to do and in everyone’s best interest. However sad, the fact of the matter is that the spirit of amateurism is fundamentally at odds with an industry that generates oodles of money. That was true in 1905, and in 1956; it is true today; and it will remain a problem so long as the NCAA does not allow market forces to take their natural course.

~ Ken Pendleton

When Is Too Young?

When you work in the youth sports field, you are reminded constantly of the fact that there are plenty of parents out there who either over-value their child’s athletic ability; over-rate their child’s athletic ability; or over-value the importance of their child’s athletic ability to their well being. But at some point, you become somewhat immune to the absurdity of it – and accept that it’s part of the deal. I’ve often thought that we are dealing with two of the most impactful things in people’s lives – their children; and their money (for which they’ve forked over to have their child play sports).

Upon reviewing petitions to have their children or their child’s team “play up” a grade or age (essentially asking to have their child play against kids older than them for a higher level of competition) – I often get a good chuckle to myself out of the support statements. Statements such as the one I received comparing a 4 year old child to Albert Pujols in terms of batting ability – are intended to imply justification. This falls into one of the most common categorical questions of what is too young. Despite the fact we ask that kindergartners play t-ball – feeling that 1st grade is an adequate year to start “coach pitch” (adding the element of seeing a “live pitch” as opposed to hitting off a stationary tee), and t-ball and important progressionary step – we see a number of requests to opt out of t-ball. Almost without fail the reasoning is linked to the child’s ability being far surpassed that of necessitating the use of a tee; and an inferred hampering of their development in the sport. Never mind the amount of high school, college, and professional baseball teams that religiously use the tee as part of their training. The sense I get is that they feel their child at 6 years old will be held back athletically!

One of the more disappointing questions I get when a parent finishes the last session of their child’s 3 or 4 year old Tot Soccer is – “so they don’t play a real game? They don’t play other teams?” While the fun based entry level soccer clinic is absolutely an every-time winner with kids – it is not a training ground for 3 and 4-year-old soccer stars. It’s play time! The disappointment that the sessions didn’t end with two 11-aside 3 year-old teams facing off in a 40-minute soccer match is symbolic. You hope it doesn’t signal that years of disappointment in athletics for the child and the parent aren’t ahead.

So it’s probably not a surprise that we’ve seen an upswing in the number of youth teams in our program, that feel that their team needs to “play up” and compete against older kids. Words such as development, and competition are put in place of fun as early as 1st grade. At an age where introducing kids to the most basic concepts of sport; and letting the natural course of a child finding their love for a particular sport; should go hand in hand with fun – you’d think it can’t be a good thing to already start the separation of “athlete” and “non athlete”. And by accelarating the natural pace of kids playing sports against kids their own age – it also seems to heighten the chance that less “new” kids will choose to want to play that sport from within the school or social group.

This tends to give the impression to young kids and parents that their child is already “too late” to join a soccer team at 3rd grade – for the advancement of skills by the others at that age is so great that a newcomer shouldn’t bother trying to catch up. Never mind the absurdity of it – but even if the goal is to develop the largest number of great athletes, narrowing down the number of kids who feel they can still join at that young an age would be counter-productive to that goal. Realistically those with the most natural athletic ability, and combination of size, strength and speed will rise to the top by the time kids get to high school – even if not always picked to be on the “elite” youth team. Which renders the “weeding out” at such a young age as elementary school, a pointless act.

If you asked the 3 and 4 year old children upon completing Tot Soccer – shortly after running through the parent tunnel and collecting their stickers – I doubt you’d hear much dissatisfaction that the session didn’t end in a “real soccer game”. Likely you’d end up getting a boastful review of the stickers they just collected. Similarly, a 5 year old who has been hitting a pitched wiffle-ball from his Dad or Mom in the back yard; is not likely to feel utter disappointment at being relegated to t-ball with his kindergarten classmates, rather than moved up to coach pitch with 1st grade kids he doesn’t know. The point is, generally if you have to take steps that take your child outside of the programs that are already in place for kids at their appropriate age; then chances are the child is too young for that activity.

~ Matt Brown

Do American Owners Understand the EPL Landscape?

Jacksonville Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan recently purchased a controlling interest in an English Premier League (EPL) soccer club Fulham in a deal thought to be worth between $250-300 million. During the last decade Americans have acquired a controlling interest in three fabled clubs (Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool), two mid-sized ones (Aston Villa and Sunderland), and now an even smaller one. Fulham has not won a major trophy since it was established in 1879.

Americans are not the only billionaires investing in the EPL. Twelve of the twenty clubs have non-English owners. Most notably, a Russian oligarch (Roman Abramovich) and an Arab sheik (Sheikh Mansur) have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Chelsea and Manchester City, transforming them into European powers. But the huge losses both have racked up suggest that their motives have more to do with the dizzy glory of winning trophies than good business.

Traditionally, owning soccer clubs has never been seen as a business, let alone a profitable one. As former FIAT and Juventus Turin president Gianni Agnelli explained: “If it’s a business, then it’s a losing business.” Agnelli and his wealthy fraternity assumed a controlling interest in clubs out of vanity or civic pride or just because it was a lot more fun than making widgets. Big soccer clubs were always run differently than teams in the major American sports: the point of generating revenue was to buy the players to win trophies rather than to buy players and win titles to make bigger profits.

A lot has changed since Agnelli’s death. Clubs are now run like sophisticated corporations and the biggest leagues generate huge TV rights, both domestically and abroad. The EPL’s most recent domestic contract, which takes effect next month, is worth more than $4.6B, a 75% increase on the prior one. And the increasing value of foreign rights is highlighted by NBC’s recent $250M acquisition of EPL rights for the next three seasons, which is more than triple what Fox previously paid. In sum, sales of rights have inflated total TV revenues to an estimated $8.31B over the next three years.

Throw in the huge money that comes with participating in the Champions League, other domestic competitions, such as the FA Cup, and the global marketing and merchandising possibilities and you can understand how the EPL has lured so many American owners. They see the EPL’s vast global growth potential—far more than any other domestic soccer league, and maybe enough to eventually make it as lucrative as the NFL—despite the fact that commercials cannot be shown during matches.

But these huge investments do not come without risks. The most obvious of these is relegation. Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool are almost certainly safe (though United were demoted in 1974). Aston Villa and Sunderland flirted with the ‘drop’ last season. And, although Fulham has enjoyed being in the top flight the past 13 seasons, most of their history has been spent toiling in lower divisions. One assumes that Kahn and his brethren at Villa and Sunderland have planned for this contingency, but Leicester City, Bradford City, Crystal Palace, Wimbledon, and most notably Leeds, which used to be a very big club, declared bankruptcy after being demoted.

Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that relegation (and consequently promotion) might be abolished. But the political fallout makes this more or less inconceivable. The reaction of fans, especially in England but also around the world, would be hostile to the point where they would take collective political action or even resort to violence.

The next huge problem club owners face is the fact that they must compete in a global market. In fact, the amount of increases in player salaries has more or less kept up with the increases in revenue generated. EPL owners have recently taken steps to control their own spending and the governing body of European soccer, UEFA, has adopted a policy called Financial Fair Play, which is supposed to compel clubs to ‘live within their means’. But, so far at least, there is little evidence that these policies are slowing spending. There is never going to be a salary cap to strictly control costs, like there is in the NFL, and players figure to continue to enjoy relatively unrestricted freedom of movement (what Americans call free agency).

American owners have never demonstrated an ability to live within their means when faced with free agency. That’s why they clung to the ‘reserve clause’, which allowed them to retain rights to a player unless they released him; tried to restrict free agency once the courts abolished the reserve clause in the 70s; and instituted salary caps and luxury taxes, of varying degrees of strictness. Finally, at some point in their history all of the major American sports leagues have merged or entered into strict non-compete agreements with other leagues in order to curb labor costs. American owners are fond of touting the virtues of the free market, but the success of their businesses would not have been possible without strict regulation and revenue sharing. As former Cleveland Browns’ owner Art Modell once admitted, “We’re 28 Republicans who vote socialist.”

This gets to the heart of the challenge NFL owners face in the EPL: they will have to compete in a largely unfettered marketplace and negotiate with stakeholders they are used to ignoring.

The biggest clubs in England will always have to compete for players in a free market with each other as well as with the biggest clubs in Spain, Italy, and Germany. And the middling and smaller ones will have to compete in an even more saturated, global market. The fact that the average club in the EPL is appreciably bigger than the average club in la Primera Liga, Serie A, or the Bundesliga, let alone the average ones in smaller leagues, will not help hold down player costs. A club like Sunderland does not compete for players with, say, a middle of the table team in Holland or Russia; they compete with the financially comparably sized clubs, like Ajax or Zenit St. Petersburg, that are usually higher in the league table. The other problem with competing in a free market is that the demand for talented players is always greater than the supply, and thus—given the lack of restrictions on player movement—there will always be bidding wars for the players on the right side of the bell curve. These realties explain why one EPL club, Portsmouth, actually had to file for bankruptcy even though, or precisely because, they were enjoying unprecedented success.

Until the 1970s the owners of major American franchises did not have to negotiate seriously with other stakeholders unless there was a rival league. They did not have to work with governing bodies, like the English Football Association (FA), whose primary charge is to promote the best interest of English soccer at all levels. No equivalent body exists in the United States. They did not have to bargain with players over pay because of the reserve clause. Fans in the United States and Canada have never organized collectively. And franchise owners have rarely faced concerted political opposition at home and never abroad.

EPL club owners could face strong opposition from all of these groups. The FA may very well attempt to direct a larger share of the EPL’s revenues to the lower tiers and the youth system. The players’ agents and union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, might resist any attempt to impose cost controls. Supporters groups are already organizing with the goal of lowering ticket prices. And the other major domestic leagues, as well as UEFA, and perhaps even FIFA, will not likely just stand by if the EPL becomes too big. They might, for example, pass regulations to distribute Champions League TV revenues more equitably.

The NFL has been the most profitable league in sports history because owners, like Modell, were creative and open minded. It would be foolish to dismiss their EPL investments as folly. And it is easy to see how they could come to the conclusion that the EPL could be a global NFL. But the structural challenges they now face could not be more different. They will never enjoy market exclusivity, be able to run their business with player cost certainty, or be largely free from having to negotiate with fans or other governing bodies. Their success will depend on their ability to adapt to an entirely different sporting culture.

Bearing the Costs of High-Risk Athletes

Let me see if I can summarize what USA Today recently reported about an incident involving Aaron Hernandez and, believe it or not, Tim Tebow. The two of the them were at a night-spot, called the Swamp, at one in the morning, on a weeknight during the University of Florida’s spring semester. The then 17-year-old Hernandez successfully ordered and consumed two drinks (and I assume by drink we mean adult beverage), refused to pay, and slugged an employee in the side of the head, breaking his eardrum. Tebow tried to convince Hernandez to leave before the incident occurred, and even offered to pay the bill, and agreed to serve as a police witness. The police were all set to charge Hernandez with felonious assault, but the person with a broken eardrum withdrew the charges, after having contact with officials from UF’s athletic department.

Florida’s and coach Urban Meyer’s handling of this situation is, to put it as mildly as possible, troubling. In fact, incidents like these, which occur all too regularly, raise basic questions about the nature of football, the character required to succeed, and the steps that the NCAA can and should take to compel coaches like Meyer to make better decisions about how to discipline players.

The Nature of Football: You might be surprised to learn that most coaches have defended the extraordinary violence that is part and parcel of football on the grounds that it does, or at least can, build character. The ability to withstand, and persevere in the face of constant punishment is supposed to inculcate the toughness that will teach players how to keep moving forward in life no matter the number of obstacles. As Bear Bryant used to tell his players by way of explaining what it means to fight: “I mean, some morning when you’ve been out of school 20 years and you wake up and your house has burned down and your mother is in the hospital and the kids are all sick and you’re overdrawn at the bank and your wife has run off with the drummer what are you going to do? Throw in? “ Bryant and his coaching brethren would probably not go so far as to claim that playing other sports cannot build character, but most of them believe that football forges the stoutest men.

The Character Required to Succeed: The problem, of course, is that football doesn’t just teach young men how to endure and overcome, it also puts a premium on one’s ability, and willingness, to administer violence. The ideal calls for vicious but fair play on the field and law abiding citizenship off of it. But, as former Notre Dame running back Alan Pinkett recently explained, being law abiding sometimes has to take a backseat: “You have to have a couple of bad guys that sort of teeter on that edge to add to the flavor of the guys that are going to always do right because that just adds to the chemistry of the football team. You have to have… you look at the teams that have won in the past, they have always had a couple of criminals.” Tebow embodied the possibility that ferocity on field can be coupled with gentlemanly comportment off of it, but Pinkett’s comments suggest that success requires some players like Hernandez and the 30 other UF players who were arrested between 2007 and ’10.

Steps the NCAA Can and Should Take: The suggestions I am about to make are based on the premise that coaches are usually going to place more emphasis on winning than doing what’s right. Meyer obviously should have allowed the criminal justice system to run its course in Hernandez’s case—and undoubtedly he would have done so if he had witnessed one neighbor punching another in the ear—but the pressure to win often compels supposedly God-fearing coaches, like Meyer and his predecessor at Ohio State Jim Tressel, to put the Good Book in their pockets.

Coaches constantly tout the virtues of tough love, but most share Pinkett’s view that, “You don’t hand out suspensions unless you know you’ve got somebody behind that guy that can make plays.” And, striking a similar pragmatic note, you don’t recruit troubled players unless you think the potential benefits are worth the potential risks.The goal of these suggestions is to force coaches to calculate the cost/benefit ratios differently:

Any player charged with a misdemeanor, let alone a felony, must be suspended until charges are dropped or the sentence is served.
Two strikes and you’re out: Any player convicted of more than one crime loses his scholarship, period.
The minimum suspension for a misdemeanor should be four games, and one season for a felony.
The four-game suspension should apply to conference and bowl games so that teams don’t whittle down their impact by scheduling out of conference games against Lamb-to-the-Slaughter U.
The personnel from universities should be strictly prohibited from establishing contact with someone, like the manager at the Swamp, who is contemplating criminal action against a student-athlete. This should constitute a major violation with a five-scholarship deduction from the next recruiting class.
Universities should be required to compile a list of all players who have been arrested and turn it over to the NCAA. The NCAA should then publish these statistics and grade each program.

The point of these suggestions is to compel coaches to absorb more of the risks and costs that come with recruiting and retaining athletes that do not embody the student ideal. As it stands, PR hit and possibly pangs of conscience aside, Urban Meyer has not had to bear the costs of the risks he took on Hernandez. Sadly, and perhaps tragically, those costs have been borne by others while Meyer has moved on to an even bigger salary at another elite program. I am not sure that he would have even recruited Hernandez if there had been mandatory suspensions, which would have been applied to conference games, clear criteria for dismissal, the inability to intervene in any potentially criminal matter, and a report card that would publicize and penalize any wrongdoings.

I know coaches would probably lobby against these kinds of proposals, because they don’t like change, especially when it requires more bureaucrats, and chafe at any loss of authority. But I think that, so long as these rules were applied uniformly, coaches would be better off because they would not be nearly as tempted to take chances on players who cost them so much of what little sleep they now get. I would like to think that both Meyer and Tressel are sincere in their religious convictions, even though they badly lost their respective scriptural plots. They were put in a position where there was a stark choice between serving worldly concerns and serving God, and we should take every step possible to reconcile serving both.

The Key to Ethical Reform

Sport has never really recovered from the bad name the Romans gave it.

The Greeks held athletic competition in very high esteem, putting it on the same pedestal as music, theater, and sculpture. The pursuit of excellence was fundamental and the men who attended the Olympics tended to also play themselves. No one banged on about the moral lessons games should impart, winning the wreath was everything, and successful performers expected to be compensated handsomely.

Then came the Romans, bread and circuses or, more to the point, spectacle and barbarism. The decrepit were pitted against imbeciles, women against dwarves, and Christians were fed to lions, whatever it took keep the spectators entertained. The performers were often slaves or the indebted, and the spectators were strictly segregated. Finally, the Romans replaced symbolic death, that is, athletic defeat with gladiatorial, funeral games in which to quote historian Allen Guttmann, ‘the dead were honored by additional deaths’.

Not surprisingly, Christians took a pretty dim view of the way the Romans played. For example, a fifth-century bishop named Salvian, claimed that, “In these games, the greatest pleasure is to have men die, or, what is worse and more cruel than death, to have them torn to pieces, . . . so that the victims seem devoured as much by the eyes of the audience as by the teeth of the beasts.”

Christian reformers, however, went too far, throwing the baby out with the bath water, condemning sports as a species rather than the twisted form it took in Rome. Puritans viewed it as the Devils workshop, outlawing watching and even unnecessary walking on Sabbath; more moderate figures tolerated it as a harmless diversion, so long as it was kept in perspective; and educators have tried to save it from its excesses by turning it into a vehicle for moral reform.

The latter project is misguided, and doomed to come up short. The problem is that no child ever started playing sports because it was going to help build character or teach morality. Kids want to play because playing is fun: kinesthetically, socially, and aesthetically; the ethical life-lessons they may learn are thus extraneous to their reasons for participating.

Given this, we should question the ubiquitous role that coaching has come to occupy. The natural evolution from play to work is stunted as soon as supervision and discipline come into the frame. At that point playing often becomes a chore, in the sense that the intrinsic love of a sport is compromised by extrinsic concerns such as approval and/or securing playing time.

My view is that there should not be any kind of organized athletic competitions until children reach adolescence. In other words, there should only be pick-up games, and supervision, when required, should be passive. This would allow kids to develop passion for the activity naturally—far fewer kids would burn out—and they would also learn more life lessons. I can honestly say I learned more about life playing pick-up games, having to choose sides and settle disputes about rules, than I did from playing on organized teams.

I would also suggest trying to find ways to minimize the roles that coaches play during high-level athletic competitions. Players naturally want to play. They want to defeat their opponents by demonstrating their superiority; they want to play them off the pitch, the rink, the field, or the court—not just win. Coaches are the figures who settle for ties, circle the wagons to protect leads, and generally inhibit self-expression.

Bobby Knight once suggested that coaches should not be allowed on the sidelines during games; the idea being that players would learn a lot more if they had to sort out the difficulties they are facing. I agree. Not only would this be more educational—players would learn a lot more about leadership, teamwork and problem-solving. But, more importantly, the games themselves would be far more unpredictable and adventurous.

I also believe there would be more sportsmanship because players would be more committed to aesthetic excellence. At present, asking players to focus on playing fairly is roughly akin to asking beauty contestants to focus on being Miss Congeniality. That is just not why they entered the pageant. On the other hand, if a players love of a particular sport was allowed to evolve on its own terms, meaning without supervision at a young age, then he or she would be much more likely to prioritize achieving aesthetic excellence. Then cheating would be akin to painting the Mona Lisa with a black eye: it would be more than a blemish; it would undermine the integrity of the entire performance.

In sum, the best way to reinvigorate sports ethically would be to reinvigorate them aesthetically, restoring the Greek ideals excellence and physical perfection.

~ Ken Pendleton