By Jordan Kobritz, JD, CPA
The complete bumbling of the Mike Rice scandal by Rutgers university officials is being compared with the Penn State fiasco – not the severity of the incidents or injuries certainly, but rather the reaction to them leaving some observers to wonder how this could happen, again and again, at our colleges and universities.
The answer shouldn’t come as a surprise. The institution of higher education is poorly equipped to monitor and manage what is in fact a professional sports enterprise, artificially wrapped in the veil of education and amateurism. A college president, frequently a Ph.D. trained as a scientist or researcher in English, history, or philosophy, is tasked with overseeing an operation, i.e., an athletic department, that bears little resemblance to any other activity on campus. In what other organization is someone who is so unprepared and ill-equipped for the role forced to oversee an operation that in some cases generates in excess of $100 million in annual revenue, has employees who earn multiples of their own salary, fills 100,000-seat stadiums, and is the public face of the entity, albeit far removed from the main purpose of its existence?
By now, most Americans have viewed the tape of fired Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice kicking his players, hurling basketballs at them from point-blank range and bombarding them with homophobic slurs during a team practice. Rice, who apologized publicly for his actions, claims he was merely trying to “motivate” his players.
A number of coaches and commentators have said there’s a fine line between motivation and Rice’s outrageous conduct. They either haven’t watched the video or they’re myopic. The gulf between motivation and the conduct engaged in by Rice is a chasm as wide as the Atlantic Ocean and as deep as the Grand Canyon. Rice’s conduct would be considered a crime if it occurred between anyone but a coach and one of his student-athletes.
After Rutgers’ officials learned of the tape last November, Rice was suspended for three games. That suspension is an insult to every student-athlete. You know what will get you a three-game suspension from the NCAA? Recent examples include a clerical error by a school’s compliance department; a family friend co-signing a note for the purchase of a car; acceptance of a $250 discount on a hotel rental for a 21st birthday party, even though the student-athlete didn’t know he was receiving a discount; and receiving educational benefits from a family friend prior to enrolling in college.
If the NCAA stood for anything other than money and power, they would suspend Rice indefinitely and prohibit him from coaching again until he successfully completes anger management and sensitivity training. Not until a medical professional determines that he has been “rehabilitated” should he be allowed back on the bench of a member institution. But don’t hold your breath. Rice’s actions didn’t violate any of the NCAA’s archaic rules designed to “control” student-athletes.
Rutgers’ athletic director Tim Pernetti, who resigned shortly after he fired Rice, is viewed as a scapegoat in some circles. Although Pernetti proposed a longer suspension 10 games than the three-game hiatus, along with a $50,000 fine, Rice received in December, he caved when other officials involved in the coach’s investigation argued for less. Rice was Pernetti’s first major hire and the AD didn’t want to admit he had made a mistake, especially after extolling Rice’s “passion” and “fiery edge” as reasons for hiring him.
Pernetti was aware of Rice’s inappropriate conduct long before he suspended him. The AD admonished Rice to control his emotions after observing him at practice in early 2012. In addition, last summer he received reports of Rice’s mistreatment of team members from assistant coach Eric Murdock. Yet Pernetti took no action until the tape surfaced, probably because he didn’t want anything to derail negotiations on Rutgers’ admission to the Big Ten Conference. The move means tens-of-millions of dollars to the university and in the misplaced world of college athletics, money is a higher priority than the safety and well-being of student-athletes.
Professional athletes won’t tolerate the treatment dished out by the Rice’s of this world. The reasons include agents, a union, and the fact they’re adults getting paid. On the other hand, student-athletes don’t have agents wink, wink – and have no union to represent them. Although student-athletes receive a scholarship, in most cases the amount doesn’t cover the actual cost of attendance at college. Recent studies have shown that the average student-athlete incurs $3,600 in annual out of pocket costs.
Furthermore, scholarships are awarded on a year-to-year basis even though the NCAA last year authorized member institutions to award four-year scholarships. And if a student-athlete attempts to avoid the Rice treatment by transferring to another institution, he loses a year of eligibility unless he receives permission to transfer from his coach.
In addition to Rice and Pernetti, Rutgers’ President Robert L. Barchi, should have walked the plank. Barchi was new to his job when he was first advised of Rice’s conduct last November. Although he agreed with Rice’s suspension, he never viewed the infamous tape. Whether he was too busy getting acclimated to his new surroundings, as he claims, or because he preferred to have an “out” should the tape become public, Barchi referred to the suspension in lieu of firing Rice as a failure of “process.” A failure of leadership or incompetence would be more accurate.
Under NCAA rules, the president, rather than the AD, is the person responsible for the oversight of the athletic department. Given the events of the past year, it isn’t a stretch to argue that Barchi should be disciplined by the NCAA. But don’t hold your breath for that to happen. The governing body hasn’t suspended a president yet, preferring instead, like Rice, to wield an iron hand against defenseless student-athletes.
Despite the rhetoric of change emanating from the NCAA since Mark Emmert took over as president in 2010, little has been done to suggest that athletics will be de-emphasized or controlled on campus. That isn’t surprising, considering the recent scathing expose in USA Today of Emmert’s leadership roles at Montana State, UConn, LSU and the University of Washington.
At each stop along his journey through academia, Emmert was able to ride out of town ahead of investigations that, according to the USA Today article, stamped him as someone “with politician-like savvy and a self-serving salesman who escapes blame when scandal visits.” Emmert’s failure of leadership sounds eerily similar to the likes of Barchi and Penn State President Graham Spanier, except for the fact the latter two got caught during their terms in office.
Nothing substantive has changed in collegiate athletics since the Ohio State scandal in 2011, when, in response to a reporter’s question about whether he had ever considered firing football coach Jim Tressel, President Gordon Gee responded: “I’m just hoping the coach doesn’t dismiss me.” That statement may have been intended as a joke, yet it summed up the reality of institutional dynamics: Athletics is the tail that wags the dog. To be more accurate, the “tail,” athletics, isn’t even part of the dog. It’s a completely different animal forced to co-exist in a foreign environment, no different than if you or I were banished to live among the indigenous people in the Amazon jungle.
What to do about the seeming disconnect between college athletics and education? For one, we could hire managers who understand business and finance, rather than allowing Ph.D.’s in history to oversee the athletic department. A second option is to attempt to overhaul the system, making athletics more accountable to the educational mission. However, with the likes of Mark Emmert leading the way on this effort, don’t hold your breath that such an approach will prove fruitful.
The only way things will really change is if we recognize college athletics for what it is, professional sports in disguise, and separate it from the educational mission entirely. Only then can we hope the scandals at Rutgers and Penn State won’t be repeated.
Jordan Kobritz is a former attorney, CPA, and Minor League Baseball team owner. He is currently a Professor and Chair of the Sport Management Department at SUNY Cortland.
