In spite of the warnin’ voice that comes in the night.
And repeats, repeats in my ear.
Don’t you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time that I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
‘Cause I’ve got you under my skin.
From “I’ve got you under my Skin,” introduced in the film, Born to Dance (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), 1936. Words and music by Cole Porter*
There’s plenty of distance between 1936 and today—and Cole Porter’s lyrics are about intimate relationships—but the message of “Skin” represents at least one interpretation of today’s big-time college athletics.
It’s “under our skin,” a prominent and durable feature of our lifestyle. We’re drawn magnetically to it, enthralled by its touch. But “watch for what you wish” is Porter’s rule: there’s danger in the irresistible force of attraction. You know the risks, but you do it anyway, even knowing things will turn out badly. A final plea for sanity goes unheeded—emotions too powerful to resist. In the end, desire trumps logic.
In big-time college athletics, the very thing we’re fanatical about has dysfunctional aspects, not by what happens on the field, but by what takes place away from it. Anyone paying attention knows that. The off-field incidents represent Porter’s “warnin voice that comes in the night, and repeats and repeats in the ear”: things aren’t right.
Who could have imagined the circumstances that took place at Penn State, one of the country’s best public universities? It seems surreal that it happened at all. And it’s not only the fact that many children were abused over the years, but how the university managed the situation, with top administrators implicated in an alleged cover-up. At Ohio State, a national championship football coach loses his job because of players’ behaviors and his response to it. The allegations made by Sports Illustrated about the football program at Oklahoma State are numerous and outrageous in scope, fundamentally contrary to permissible institutional actions. The Rutgers basketball coach was fired for player abuse; then shortly followed out the door by his athletic director—with the AD successor soon accused (in prior coaching roles) of the very same behaviors that led to firing the basketball coach in the first place.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
The most recent circumstance is the resolution of an alleged rape of a Florida State co-ed by the start quarterback, a Heisman Award nominee and leader of a team playing for the national championship. Not at issue was whether a sex act occurred (DNA evidence was brought to bear); only at issue was whether it was a consensual exchange. It boiled down to whether there was sufficient evidence to believe him or her.
The list goes on…booster involvement at the University of Miami, payments to a star running back at Southern Cal, pesticide sabotage of trees growing near Auburn’s campus.
It’s a pattern of troubling behavior.
Perhaps the most stunning thing is that it’s happening at universities, one of the last places you’d think—based on mission, at least—that these behaviors would emerge and take hold. Yet, when you look at the record, does the setting really matter anymore? The line that separates professional and big-time college sports is now blurred, if not overlapping, with differences that seem to be a matter of degree, not of kind.
Look at the level of coaches’ salaries; the offering of financial incentives for winning; the investment in athletic infrastructure, including facility size and support structures; the expansion of suite boxes for high-end supporters; the widespread use of seat licensing, which requires paying a fee upfront for the right to purchase season’s tickets; and the phenomenal inflow of TV revenue from broadcasting rights. There’s an arms-race underway, too, with institutions competing with each other to raise more money, build bigger facilities, and attract the best athletes.
The underlying questions include: How do athletic programs of this magnitude square with the fundamental purpose of higher education? Can schools (and governing bodies) put in place the institutional controls necessary to manage the potential downside of the athletic programs they’ve built?
Without doubt, athletic departments at big-time schools are corporations with athletic directors as CEOs. Conference membership is critical because financial balance sheets are very much tied to affiliation. The recent spate of conference realignments—some bordering on the ridiculous (e.g., Boise State football almost going to the Big East) comes as a result. Who could have imagined that West Virginia, a Mid-Atlantic school, would end up in the Big 12, a midlands conference? Or that the University of Maryland—a charter member (1953) of the ACC—would jump to the Big Ten? It’s driven by the quest to position a university as best as possible, given available options. In exchange, historic rivalries end. “The Backyard Brawl”—Pitt vs. WVU football—played annually from 1906-2012 is over. Instead, Pitt plays Wake Forest and WVU goes against Texas Tech.
Courtesy: Sports Illustrated/CNN
But there seems to be little room for nostalgic interpretations of what should, could, or might be. The real issue seems to be accepting that times have changed; that we’ve entered into new era of big-time college athletics. If that’s an accurate interpretation, then Porter had it right again. Accept it: “Use your mentality, wake up to reality.” What “was” is either historic artifact or (at the very least) has been altered fundamentally in function and form.
An interpretation of that perspective was offered recently in The New York Times article about the financial ascendency of The Big Ten Conference (BIG) under the leadership of Commissioner Jim Delaney. Forbes recently called BIG “the cash king of college sports”: it generated $315 million in revenue as of June 2012. The primary revenue source is TV—from BIG’s ESPN contract and from its own FOX-connected Big Ten Network. BIG’s successes run counter to the reality at many institutions: 90% of schools require university subsidies to balance athletic budgets according to a recent Moody’s study.
When the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences expanded, Delany is quoted as saying that he felt BIG “was in danger of ceding strategic ground.” With the intent of becoming a national conference, “We felt threatened,” Delaney responded. The subsequent actions—inviting Rutgers and Maryland, schools with uneven athletic success to join BIG—make sense when understood in territorial terms rather than in terms of athletic prominence. It propels BIG into metro New York and Washington-Baltimore, valued media markets, where many BIG alumni reside. Both institutions were ripe for the taking, too: they faced significant athletic financial shortfalls ($190 million at Rutgers since 2005) that included cutting varsity sports to make budget (7 sports at Maryland).
BIG’s track record shows clearly that it’s a revenue-generating juggernaut. Others are following suit, extending the boundaries, pushing to generate more and more revenue.
But if one is willing to forge a bit of separation from how to do that, it’s possible to tackle another—more important—issue, namely, what doing it means in larger terms. When framed that way, the philosophical question of ought surpasses the tactical matter of how. Author Sherilynn Kenyon expresses the general concept well in 8 words: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
For some, the status of big-time college athletics is accepted uncritically. For others, like me, it represents what Porter describes in “Skin”: intoxicated by magnetic attraction we move in a singular direction, even though we know—all too well—that dangers lurk, including where things may end up. If Porter’s lyrics ring true it might be because we’re smitten—too fixated and too committed to the selected path…to rise above it, to consider alternatives.
To be transparent, none of this is impersonal to me. I choose a career in academics at a major institution: the thought of balancing big-time academics with big-time athletics was incredibly appealing. The life quest became reality. For 35 years I’ve purchased season tickets and cheered consistently for “my teams.” Being a part of that whole scene has been a defining feature of my adult life.
Based on what I’ve witnessed over the years, however, my fear is about the future: What’s in store if we don’t reign in the system? It just seems logical to do everything possible to protect what’s special about big-time college athletics and, at the same time, to carve away the things that threaten it.
What’s lacking today is a serious, meaningful, and consequential dialogue about where we are, why we’re here, and how we might proceed in a more restrained, reasonable manner—a dialogue that befits the nature of higher learning. Proceeding that way is consistent with what universities do. Engaging in thoughtful consideration of complex issues takes place regularly on campuses. Besides, what universities teach doesn’t only come by way of what faculty do in the classroom: universities also teach by how they act institutionally.
Let’s be real, though: even the thought of adjusting the course—let alone actually doing it—will require courageous and political leadership. It will mean moving in a new, altered direction. Is there sufficient conviction to do that? Do the principals—those who run our major institutions, manage our major athletic programs, and oversee our major athletic conferences, including the NCAA—see the problem as severely as it’s presented here?
The recent announcement made by the NCAA offers some hope: a new governance model may be in place in 2014. If adopted, it would give the “power conferences” more autonomy and authority to manage their own affairs. But, even if it’s implemented, there’s the question of how expanded power will be exercised. Without recalibrating the system first, there’s the possibility that it could exacerbate the very issues that dog the system now.
How do we avoid that outcome? Without doubt, we must run universities like a business; but, above all else—and this is the core matter—we must, first, understand what business universities are in and, then, act accordingly.
It will take conviction and ingenuity to reach a new settling place. If we take Porter at his word, though, the odds are stacked against it:
…just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
‘Cause I’ve got you under my skin.
______________________________
*BACKGROUND ON “I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN’: With its hackneyed boy-meets-girl plot (typical of Hollywood offerings in the ‘30s) time hasn’t been overly kind to the film, Born to Dance. The film’s songs, though, are another story: they are masterpieces of the ballad era, “standards” in today’s terms. The launch appeal was magnified by how the music was presented to theatre audiences in late 1936 and early 1937—through the inaugural use of stereophonic sound. Tunes like “You’d be so easy to love” are as recognizable today as they were then—the product of brilliance—crafted by the great American songwriter, Cole Porter, who wrote the music and penned the words.
With beautiful melody and memorable lyrics, the film’s feature song is Porter’s “I’ve got you under my skin,” which was nominated as the Academy’s Best Song that year. Still fashionable after 75 years, the ballad has been recorded by at least fifty major artists, including Frank Sinatra and Perry Como in early years and by Diana Krall (my favorite, cut #9, The Very Best of Diana Krall, Verve Records, 2007) and Rod Stewart in contemporary times.
We gain insights into “Skins” lyrics by understanding Porter’s life and style. Born into wealth, he lived extravagantly, here and abroad, distancing himself from the poverty and distress of The Depression Years. A purveyor of self-excess, he hosted lavish parties at his Paris home. With rumors of frenzied sexual forays and rampant drug use, Porter was both creative genius and pleasure-seeker. Much of his life involved balancing the two, a quest made more difficult in 1937 when his legs were crushed in a horse-riding accident. Refusing to have his legs amputated, Porter lived in excruciating pain, his work a refuge from physical agony.
Porter’s edgy lifestyle no doubt provided fertile ground for imagining the lyrics of “Skin.” He offers a powerful, enduring message in the song, often best understood in retrospect, after going through an emotionally difficult experience—after being in a bind or in a mess. Upon reflection Porter’s words often ring true.
“Skin’s” message applies equally well to organizations and institutions of all kinds, including big-time college athletics.
