Indianapolis Colts
7001 West 56th Street
Indianapolis, IN 46254

Dear Mr. Irsay:

We share mutual interests. In running your football team, you want smart, mature players who can handle the economic, social and physical pressures of professional football. As an advocate for free public higher education, I want strong institutions that can train and educate skilled young people who are prepared to meet success.

It seems in running back Donald Brown, your first round draft pick from the University of Connecticut, we have an example of that individual in whom we share an interest. Mr. Brown so far is having a decent rookie season for the Colts. In three games, he has 99 yards on 29 carries and a touchdown.

When you signed Mr. Brown to a five-year, $11.235 million contract, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if you shouldn’t be giving the University of Connecticut a contribution for helping prepare Mr. Brown to step right into the life of a professional football player.

See, Connecticut right now is facing a multi-billion dollar budget deficit in these tough economic times, and the state government is cutting services across the board. The University of Connecticut is bearing a heavy burden. In Spring 2009, Gov. M. Jodi Rell sought give-backs from all departments.

Letter to the Colts...Continued

Dear President Hogan -

I write to you as a law student at the University of Connecticut, as a journalist, and as a concerned citizen. I write to you because experience tells me that the UConn Athletic Department will not adequately address my concerns, and thus, I must appeal to a higher authority.

On Sunday, August 9, 2009, local journalist Stan Simpson televised a 30-minute interview on Fox 61 with UConn men's basketball Coach Jim Calhoun. During the interview, Coach Calhoun misrepresented my academic record by stating I have been in law school for 15 years.

In good conscience, I could not let this distortion go. When the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee pores over my file for the character and fitness portion of the bar review in the fall of 2010, I need to make it known that I defended my academic integrity. If I do not defend my own honor, how can I defend clients zealously?

So I emailed Stan Simpson, and asked him to correct the misstatement. Mr. Simpson refused, and suggested everyone understood that Coach Calhoun's comment was hyperbole. Mr. Simpson recommended I take the matter up with Coach Calhoun.

My last interaction with Coach Calhoun in July 2009 leads me to think that I will find no recourse there: Coach Calhoun told me to contact his attorney, but refused to give me his attorney's name; then he directed me to the UConn press office. I hate to harp on this, but the athletic department is part of the problem, and it will not help correct Coach Calhoun's distortion of my academic record.

Open Letter to UConn President Michael Hogan...(con't)

With the recent revelations that the CIA waterboarded two suspected terrorists a total of 266 times (proving how effective a torture technique it truly is not), I wonder why I am spending so much time covering UConn sports?

It seems the inverse of the 9/11 question - how can we laugh after such tragedy? Why examine entertainment in the face of Constitutional catastrophe? With the war on civil rights raging, the excesses of intercollegiate athletics should take a back seat, right? Over at edgeofsports.com, Dave Zirin suggests that progressives should not cede the contested space of the sporting world to the conservative right, because sports are in play in politics.

On Sunday, April 19, Zirin hosted a panel discussion "Sports as A Platform for Dissent" at the Left Forum, a three-day leftist learn-in at Pace University in New York City, featuring of dozens of sessions like "Terror Incognita," "Housing, a Basic Human Right" and "Women's Voices from Iran."

About 30 or so people sat in a windowless classroom next to the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall to grapple with F-16 flyovers of stadium games and the anti-war stances of college basketball players. (And the counter-speech of Yankees' fans cheering for anti-war first baseman Carlos Delgado.)

More on Chomsky, Upton Sinclair and UConn Football...

Editor's Note: The top of the incoming freshman class at Syracuse University are offered the chance to compete in a scholarship competition run by William Coplin, Professor of Public Affairs at the world-renowned Maxwell School. Coplin picks a topic, and students submit essays, then argue it in front of their peers. Each activity is scored, and the top 25 students earn scholarship cash.

The following essay by Michael Taylor, class of 1993, won one of the top three prizes in 1989. In 1990, I wrote ino the Maxwell scholarship competition about the chances of the EPA becoming a cabinet-level post. My essay hardly compares to this piece by my friend Michael Taylor, now a freelance photographer for Lonely Planet, written when he was 18.

Property of Athletic Department.
The Dead End for College Athletes and How to Give Them an Honest Education

By Michael Taylor
Citizenship Education Conference
Public Policies to Improve the Quality of Life for the Young
April 22, 1989

I. Summary
"College sports have been developed from games played by boys for pleasure into systematic contests for the glory and, too often, the financial profit of the college." (Robert Sullivan, "Blast from the Past," Sports Illustrated, June 15, 1987, p. 13).

These words, written in 1929, ring all the more true today, sixty years later, except that now the "profit" of the college comes fully at the expense of the student. Because of the mad emphasis on winning for the money it brings, student-athletes are being exploited by manipulative recruiters, and deprived of an education by the athletic departments themselves. Since few of these student athletes earn degrees, and less than 1% of all college athletes go on to play professionally, that leaves the other 99% searching for jobs in the "real" world, "brandishing only their varsity letters, not diplomas." (Steve Robinson, "Continuing Ed for Jocks," Sports Illustrated, June 6, 1988, p. 120).

For the sake of the students, it is time to put an end to this chaos in college sports. Colleges must regain control of their increasingly unwieldy athletic programs and re-establish the fact that the goal of an educational institution, first and foremost, is to educate, not to fill stadiums or turn out No. 1 draft picks. Therefore, I have formulated a major plan, which, if put into effect, could do just this. My plan is composed of several parts, but its overall goal is twofold: to decrease the emphasis on money in college athletics and to decrease the emphasis given to those very sports programs in higher education.

Link to the rest of this prize-winning essay...

Okay, so I was wrong. My prediction that number one seed UConn would lose to number four seed Washington in the third round of the NCAA tourney fell flat when Purdue beat Washington.

Oh well. I'll suffer that indignity, considering that I may have been right to bring up the question of Coach Calhoun's salary, in loght of the number of stories that have recently arisen discussing paying players and coaches' salaries. Not only that, Courtney Paris, a star player from Oklahoma, has vowed to repay her scholarship should she not win a national title.

This is madness. It was only two weeks ago that the 40-Year Plan suggested that football running back Donald Brown of UConn should give some of his professional signing bonus to UConn, as it lost money in the International Bowl earlier this year. The press is catching on.

"The Real March Madness" from the Wall Stret Journal, March 20, by Richard Vedder and Matthew Denhart (with a h/t to Joel for pointing it out to me):

The economy may be tanking and our pocketbooks are slimmer, but we can rejoice in one thing: March Madness is here and we can watch our favorite teams participate in the annual NCAA college men's basketball tournament. Behind all the hoopla, however, is the reality that the players who entertain us receive compensation that amounts to only a very small percentage of what they would have earned if they sold their services in a competitive market.

 

Read about NYT, WSJ, and Courtney Paris from Oklahoma

Among the four number one seeds in the NCAA collegiate basketball championship, Country Club Jim Calhoun has the worst graduation rate at 33 percent. Number one seed North Carolina, under coach Roy Williams, boasts of an 86 percent graduation rate, according to the 2009 annual study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

Williams, who like Calhoun makes $1.6 million a year, seems to focus his million-dollar time a little more on athletics. Consider, too, how much more genteel Williams is than Country Club Calhoun. When asked about his $1.6 million salary, Williams at least indicated his family is suffering under the economic buckle, as his son recently lost a job.

Country Club Calhoun, though, earned himself a new nickname, as he was out there rubbing it in our faces again. Mr. "I-make-more-than-that" gave this to a presser, scribed by Brendan Punty of the Newark Star-Ledger:

Calhoun was asked a question about playing first-round opponent Chattanooga and eventually rambled into watching good friend and College of Charleston (which is a Southern League member with Chattanooga) coach Bobby Cremins.

"I watched (Chattanooga) against (Charleston) because of my friendship with Bobby Cremins," Calhoun said. "Same country club down in Hilton Head that I'm a member of."

"Actually, I shouldn't say that, 'I'm a member of a country club,'" Calhoun said grinning. "Probably not a good idea to advertise, I'm sorry. The public course that I go to and play with him -- $35 greens fees down in Hilton Head -- sure."

Unbelievable, Connecticut. He's yours. You can have him, and his 22 percent graduation rate when it comes to African-American players only.

Link to Country Club Calhoun...

The argument, for the past three weeks, has been that the salaries of Div. I college coaches are justified because they bring in huge profits for the university athletic departments.

These cash-cow sports teams, we are told, have no negative impact on the academic side of the university. In fact, they have a positive impact, the advocates gloat.

Well, what happens when they lose money? And the loss is announced the day after the University hikes tuition by 6 percent and promises to cut 160 jobs?

Let's find out, because according to sports reporter Ed Daigneault in today's Waterbury Republican, UConn football lost $63,406 on its trip to Toronto. The Huskies wanted to break even, but they had to purchase more than $340,000 in unsold tickets because fans didn't give a rat's ass about a second rate bowl game, according to Daigneault.

Link to the rest of this brilliant piece ...

The New Haven Register editorial board, facing bankruptcy itself, has seen the light. In an editorial from Friday, Feb. 27, titled "Top UConn Coaches Should Give Back," the Register said:

It took a political gadfly to ask a question at a postgame press conference that would normally never be uttered in the self-adoring world of University of Connecticut sports.

Since the state faces a deficit this year of nearly $1 billion and as much as $8 billion over the next two years, would Jim Calhoun, coach of UConn’s men’s basketball team, consider taking a cut in his more than $1.6 million salary?

"Not a dime," snapped back Calhoun, who also earns big bucks from commercial endorsement deals. "We make $12 million a year for this university. Get some facts and come back and see me," Calhoun shouted before telling his questioner, Ken Krayeske, to "shut up."

Actually, Calhoun, the state’s highest paid employee, should get his facts straight. Depending on how the money is calculated, the men’s basketball program brings in $12 million a year in revenue, but has more than $6 million in expenses.

Asking the state’s highest paid employee whether he would take a pay cut is not unreasonable when Calhoun’s boss, Michael Hogan, president of the University of Connecticut, already has effectively done that.

Hogan, who earns $613,908 a year, last year turned down a $100,000 bonus in response to the state budget cuts at UConn. Hogan was already contributing $1,000 a month of his salary to a UConn scholarship.

Krayeske’s question to Calhoun should also be put to UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, who had a salary of about $1.31 million in 2008, and UConn football coach Randy Edsall, who got about $1.38 million.

That editorial apparently ran in Middletown and Torrington, too - (h/t to Shoe on that one).

More media from Chronicle on Higher Ed...

The National Collegiate Athletic Association pretends to exist for the benefit of student athletes, but every passing day reveals the subtle and obvious exploitative games the NCAA plays to extract profit for coaches, athletic departments and corporate sponsors from these amateurs.

This past week, an Ohio judge cried Constitutional foul and struck down the NCAA's rule preventing young superstars from obtaining legal counsel in negotiating contracts, according to a February 12 report in the New York Times.

"For the 360,000 student-athletes in the N.C.A.A., it’s the tip of the iceberg that they actually have legal rights," said Richard G. Johnson, the lawyer for collegiate baseball pitcher Andrew Oliver.

The NCAA declared Oliver ineligible as an amateur because after the Minnesota Twins professional baseball club drafted Oliver, he retained an attorney to help him negotiate a contract. The NCAA said it was a no-no.

"Two No. 1 teams at the same time really become a way, in part, to brand the university," Hathaway said Friday in a telephone interview. "And I mean that from a standpoint of excellence. When people think of two No. 1s, the University of Connecticut, obviously you think of excellence, you think of commitment. Those are the same thoughts we want people to have with the university with everything we do."

Ostensibly, Hathaway and his athletic director cohorts argue that this increases the visibility of the school, and it then attracts the best students and faculty from across the world.

Jesse Jackson says that we should include graduation rates in collegiate football rankings in order to refocus the need for academic success in sport.

During a press conference at the International Bowl festivities on Friday, January 2 in Toronto, I asked him if he thought that we should pay college basketball and football players.

He wasn't ready to go the pay route, but acknowledged considerable issues with the system. I'll post the video from the interview soon. I really wanted to ask him how Fred Hampton would have viewed college sports today.

Maybe Jesse Jackson needs to read the story about Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks, in the December 1, 2008 edition of Sports Illustrated. The cover of this edition of SI highlighted a story about Oklahoma football whupping Texas Tech.

While seeing college football grace the cover of a major magazine, seems indicative of its importance in the professional sports hierarchy, the grandest evidence of the NFL using the NCAA as a free minor league in this edition comes from a pro: Brooks himself.

Long-time football writer Peter King scribed a story about all of Brooks' thoughts and preparation that went into one tackle in a game, called "What the 'Backer Sees." This gem of a piece explains how Brooks, a veteran defenseman, views the NCAA:

For years, Brooks has mentally catalogued the moves and tendencies of college players he might have to tackle one day. On that October afternoon in 2004, (running back Adrian) Peterson, then a 19-year-old Oklahoma freshman, burned Texas for 225 yards. On his third carry of the game, he broke off a 44-yard misdirection play.

He runs from color.

It may be surprising that a 10-time Pro Bowl linebacker would study players who are still three or four years from making it to the NFL. But even now, the day before he faced the Vikings, the 35-year-old Brooks settled into his den again to watch Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and running back Percy Harvin in the Gators' rout of South Carolina.

"Some people relax or get recharged by going to the Europe or going to the beach," Brooks said. "For me, it's studying young kids. The one edge I feel no one will ever have over me is the mental edge of knowing players."

If that isn't enough, how about this story in the Saturday, January 3, 2009 New York Times: "Barely Teenagers, Already Groomed for Stardom." The piece, filed under "NCAA" on the Times' website, discusses a new developmental all star game for talented middle school kids who seem bound for professional glory.

NCAA As Pro Sports...

Is NCAA Division I football a minor league for the NFL? The collegiate career of UConn running back Donald Brown answers that question affirmatively.

Brown led the nation in rushing this year, and capped his All-America 2,000-plus yard season by plowing the University at Buffalo defense for a career best 261 yards Saturday, January 3, 2009 in the International Bowl in Toronto.

More than 40,000 flocked to Toronto to pay to see Brown rack up more than 260 yards rushing. ESPN2 broadcast the game live, showing cable TV and sports land that Brown was now one of college's all-time great rushers. The press breathlessly reported on his decision to go pro.

The AP played it cutesy:

"OK, tell them, bud," Coach Randy Edsall said, slapping Brown on the back at the postgame interview table.

"I'm not coming back," Brown said. "I'm going to pursue the NFL."

He then apologized for saying three weeks ago that he planned to return to Connecticut for his senior season.

The nation's leading rusher said he made the commitment to return to stop speculation and negate a potential distraction for his team heading into the game.

The AP skirts the larger issue - instead of calling a fib a fib, the AP pawns Brown's school-sanctioned, coach-condoned dishonesty as taking one for the team. If he said he was going pro, we wouldn't win, therefore, it is okay for him to tell a white lie. What of the academic integrity of the school?

Is NCAA Division I College Sports Professional Fun?

A t a recent freshman experience class for student athletes at the University of Connecticut, some wiseguy frosh asked athletic director Jeff Hathaway when they would get paid.

“I love all of you,” Hathaway said, and he told the students they are not at UConn to get paid.

Hathaway related this tale to about 50 UConn Law students at UConn's Davis Courtroom Wednesday, November 19, 2008. Hathaway and NBA lawyer Jeffrey A. Mishkin spun yarns about managing the cut throat world of Big East sports for a half hour or so, then opened the floor to questions.

My hand shot up, and I wondered if the scads of money - literally billions of dollars flowing into college athletic coffers from television and marketing contracts - forced us to abandon the myth of college athletes as amateurs.

"This is a difficult question," Hathaway said. "There are 343 Division I institutions, all of them are very different in a lot of ways.” Even in the 16-team Big East, public, private, Catholic, and secular schools compete, all with differing size budgets. It would be trouble dividing revenues, Hathaway said.

“Who gets paid and how much?” Hathaway asked. “There are only three sports that generate revenue for our school. I don't believe there is a time we will pay our athletes."

Mishkin, upon hearing my question aimed at Hathaway, expressed relief that I had nothing for him. Not so fast. The NCAA is the de facto minor league for both the NFL and the NBA, I said, do the NFL and the NBA owe a duty to college athletic programs?

No. But first Mishkin admitted the theory that Division I basketball and football players are athletes has been “strained." Yet he agreed with Hathaway that college athletes shouldn't get paid. Nor will contracts happen unless athletics and academics dissociate.

More on the myth of amateur athletes, and Obama, too...

M en's college basketball players, like those at top-ranked UConn, should be given a stipend for transportation to and from college and home, according to University of Connecticut men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun.

NCAA rules prevent that, and I will support Calhoun and call on the NCAA to change those arcane regulations.

At Calhoun's post-game press conference last week, Jan. 25, after UConn's brawlball win over Big East rival St. John's University, I blindsided him with this: At what point do we call NCAA Division I basketball a minor league and ask the NBA to subsidize the operations of programs like UConn?

None of the 40 or so reporters made a peep while Calhoun thought how to answer the question that begs asking. Are these kids professional entertainers in training or amateur student athletes?

Thousands of people pay $50 or more a night to watch UConn men play. Major television networks make billions in ad revenues off of college hoops. Corporations throw millions to UConn in sponsorship ads, hoping to be associated with Calhoun's success. The NBA relies on NCAA schools to provide an inexpensive, mature stream of players.

Room for Reform at UConn, Continued...