Holy Cow, just when I’m getting into my “love college football”/”hate pro football” stride, punk-athletes once again show off their true colors. Unfortunately, the colors of their schools are the one’s being tarnished. Damn how I so wanted to rag on Jerry Jones instead….

Do I need to go into the “scholarship = free college education” schpeal again? I think not. Just this: “Hey you punks, don’t blow your future by getting kicked out before you get a diploma that might support yourself and family in the future”. Idiots.

As much as I might enjoy a good drubbing of the Jaybirds, this isn’t all about that college in Lawrence Kansas. Yeah, they had their turn in the press; yeah, the KU Sports Information Director earned his salary this week by burying the news; yeah, the university websites ignored the incident(s) entirely: University of Kansas and KU Athletics; yeah, the coaches practiced their no harm-no foul/if-it-gets-too-bad-I’ll-get-off-Scot-free-and-go-to-another-university defense and thus far have chosen not to discipline their punk-athletes for misbehaving (and that’s a problem with the rest of America right now too); and yeah, another athletic director (this time Lew Perkins) will try to extinguish this flame as quickly as possible, and keep his job.

KU has been as good trying to stifle and cover-up their “incidents” as every other university does in the USA. The student newspaper, The University Daily Kansan certainly did a couple brief articles: Players involved in second fight and Students, teams react to fights . KU student-run television reported the incident (don’t they all look like criminals – hoods, hide the face, unmarked white van). Foxsports did a piece: Report: Kansas fights were years in the making. YahooSports has a couple “lets cover it up and ignore it” articles: Kansas football, basketball players clash and KU football, basketball players scuffle on campus; and of all people, Dick Vitale threw in his 2 cents with Bad decision, harsher price.

First, let’s do my disclaimer: now this posting by no means aims to classify allstudent-athletes as “punk” or “stupid”. As the old saying goes: It only takes a few bad apples to make the whole bushel basket stink…or maybe something like that. Of the vast majority, student-athletes are good, wholesome, hard working, and dedicated…generally speaking. But then a few don’t really give a crap. Thus my reference to “stupid-athletes” or “punk-athletes” intends to describe those crapping few amongst the legions of smart and stellar college student-athletes.

This KU story truly does read like Westside Story, but then most stupid-athletes don’t know what that is (it’s a musical play BTW), or could they even understand the plot. Let’s see here, the football guys would be the Jets, the basketball guys…well they look like Sharks. We will fight about this girl named Maria Jaybird. Oh! Sorry – any stupid-athlete reading this that doesn’t have a clue, please link over to the “Crib” notes: West Side Story. And another thing…West Side Story is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. You see Shakespeare was this eloquent guy a few hundred years ago that talked funny and then grew into sponsoring those staged events each summer at your hometown City park. And Romeo and Juliet you ask? That is not a name of a shampoo, lotion, or other personal hygiene product. They were lover characters in your home town City park that thought smooching behind the band shell (or dorm) would lessen the chance of having to play the family feud game. OK, class dismissed for today boys.

Nearly every university has its problems with student-athletes. I’m not just picking on KU. The fundamental problems can be linked to a shift of lesser moral priorities in this country. No longer does the university promote themselves as primarily a place to achieve academic success, seek career opportunities, and start fulfilling life-long goals. Today, promotional materials of any university will include athletic successes on an equal playing field as their academics (as if that is going to make them a school more attractive to the academically-minded, there’s-more-to-life-than-sports type of student).  Today, taunting, in-your-face scowls, dumb celebrations, tough guy chest bumps, and ridiculous body gestures after a brief success are common on the field of play. What does that accomplish? Who does that impress? Ever been to a pee-wee football game and watched a 7-year-old kid emulate what they saw on TV over the weekend? We can say the same about gang-fighting between same-school football and basketball athletes. What did that accomplish? I for one certainly look forward to working with this kind of intelligence in the real world someday.

Colleges now ignore the goodness factor of their student-athletes. They want talent to showcase, facilities with spit and polish. Go to a D-I college campus, see how the many schools now invest in artificial turf, fancy press boxes, stadium clubs, new stadiums – anything that caters to an athletic revenue stream and national recognition. Then go into the heart of that same campus and note the buildings needing repair, parking lots undersized, classrooms overcrowded and all with out of date resources. We’re now back to that priority shift again…and embarassment caused by and to the universities.

The John Q rooting public is quick to accept “incidents” involving punk-athletes as merely a few rapids in that revenue stream. You can blame the morality shift on the bum-athletes, the coaches, the athletic departments, the university administrations, the governing boards of the universities, and the national media (ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and even your local news eat this kind of stuff all up, report it to death, and get viewership dollars…that they then have to share back to the universities with all the punk-athletes). I certainly blame all those folks as being the eunuchs of the college athletic industry. And I also blame those fans that discount the public relation responsibilities student-athletes have to all ages, whether they asked for those or not.

Infrequent is the time when a kid messes up that he’s disciplined enough to make him not want to do that again. Gone is time when a kid reallymesses up, he’s kicked off the team. Bob Knight used to take discipline stands with his athletes that involved suspensions and dismissals – he was booed and heckled at every game because of his perceived arrogance…but his kids toed the line, they respect him still today, most stay in touch with him, and nearly all I can think of are good, productive, contributing, and valued citizens of this country. Like him or not, he did discipline right.

I hope we don’t get all wrapped up in 4th down conversions and 3 point shots. But we all know the universities will…it brings in the money and heaven forbid they give a deserving academic student the same scholarship that bad-apple kid will waste. I wonder what would happen if scholarships were used to pay off/back a 4-year college career once a diploma is presented? If you don’t finish…if you’re kicked out for any reason, you don’t get “reimbursed” on graduation day. And while we’re talking pie-in-the-sky stuff here, the pro teams would need to cooperate by not employing anyone without a 4-year college degree (yeah, sure). In my career, a college degree is required – why not in the field of athletics? It might make today’s stupid-athlete take college a bit more serious and once again let me call them “student-athletes”.

KU’s incident is yesterday’s news. As stupid as it was, disgraceful it was to a fine university, you know next week all will be dismissed with a slight head shake. Football and Basketball Jaybirds will not become Jailbirds. And some other university will have its turn in the stupid incident spotlight commanding center stage and end up making more publicity (money) than they think possible. I can’t wait (not really)…maybe now I will go slug something.

In the mean time, I am not letting KU off the hook. Please allow a stupid-recital version of a poem/song from Westside Story to commemorate the events of KU’s week (forgive me, Leonard Bernstein):

Man-gin-o
I just met a coach named Man-gin-o
And suddenly his game
Will forever push the blame
To Self or Perkins
Man-gin-o
I just punched a basketball player named TyMyShoes
And suddenly I found
Self making not so wonderful a sound
Can it be
Man-gin-o, oh geez
Say it loud and there’s internet news playing
Say it soft, we’ll cover it up and it might go awaying
Man-gin-o…Bill Self
I’ll never stop saying
Man-gin-o
Bill Self, Lew Perkins…
punk-athletes
Say it loud and there’s mixed marshall arts playing behind the dorm
Say it soft, a dislocated finger brawling will be the norm
Man-gin-o
I’ll never stop saying
“I see no reason for discipline-my burly guys got whupped by basketballers”
The most beautiful sound I ever heard
the Wallbash Cannonball (check out Marcus Watts)….

Here’s the real lyrics: Maria