For college coaches, it's not just tunnel vision, but a lack of vision
In the first episode of The Walking Dead, small-town sheriff Rick Grimes wakes up in a dark hospital room, unsure how long he’s been asleep or why he seems to be the only person around. As he stumbles around the hospital, avoiding gruesome zombies that are trying to eat him before walking outside to encounter humanity in a state of decay, it quickly becomes clear to that he must become a different person or die.
College coaches can probably relate.
On the eve of the 2015 season, many of them have become strangers in a strange land. They are now residents of a world where players are empowered by social media and the courts, where administrators are no longer interested in putting their careers and reputations at risk to endorse values that are out of touch with modern sensibilities, where media members are not so quick to canonize them because they draw up good football plays.
Illinois’ Tim Beckman was not cut out for that world, and without the decisive work of Virginia Tech athletics director Whit Babcock to shut down a Paleolithic fine system, Frank Beamer’s legacy may have been further down the road to ruin.
Let’s just say it was not a good week for the profession. But it was also a valuable warning for every coach who proudly boasts of approach their multimillion-dollar jobs with “tunnel vision.” Maybe you should take a good look around, boys.
Beckman was fired Friday, just a week before Illinois’ season opener, after an external review of the program revealed that he improperly influenced medical decisions and put pressure on players to compete while hurt or postpone medical procedures. For someone coaching unpaid amateurs, there are few allegations that could be worse.
On a much less severe scale, the Virginia Tech coaching staff was clearly well on its way to implementing fines for athletes, based largely on the fact that their scholarships have been increased by roughly $5,000 per year as part of the NCAA’s new rule to offer so-called "full cost of attendance.” It was right there on monitors in the Virginia Tech football building: $10 for missing breakfast, $50 for a dirty locker, $90 for missing a class that meets once a week. Not only was it against NCAA rules, it was about as tone-deaf of a move as a coaching staff could make.
In some ways, it’s hard to blame coaches for not understanding the nuances of the O’Bannon trial over the name, image and likeness of college athletes, the inherent cost of attendance complexities and the debate over whether their players should be allowed to unionize.
But this week should serve as a wakeup call for the entire industry to adjust or become a relic who longs for a day that no longer exists.
Without the power of Twitter, it’s possible nobody would have known that Beckman was abusing his players in unfathomable ways. The destructive culture that Beckman fostered at Illinois, placing some psuedo-macho value on the ability to tolerate pain over medical prudence, had gone unchecked until former offensive lineman Simon Cvijanovic raised those issues over social media. He used social media to bring light to a kind of selfish cruelty that has no place in sports, and his efforts will go a long way toward demystifying the idea that self-detriment is a form of toughness.
Beckman issued a statement saying the findings of the investigation are “utterly false” and suggested he might take legal action.
(To be fair, it’s unclear how Illinois would have dealt with Beckman had he been a winning coach instead of one with a 12-25 record, but at minimum this is a reminder there are no secrets anymore.)
As for Beamer, his error was born of a more commendable old-school value: The best way to discipline is by taking something away. The problem is, his idea took away the wrong thing at the wrong time. Just because players are finally getting a little bit of money to put in their pockets doesn’t mean it should be used as a tool for guys who make millions. Nothing could be more destructive to the NCAA's argument that these are amateur athletes rather than employees who need the protection of a union to negotiate their rights.
These are perilous times for college sports. Lawsuits are in the pipeline that threaten their model at its core; the model that allows administrators and coaches to get rich while players get their scholarships and now a few hundred bucks a month in spending money.
It’s fine to make the argument that college athletes get a great deal as it is, especially given how they’re trained, fed and treated on campus. But it’s naive to pretend that the values guiding the enterprise aren’t in transition. It’s reckless to think college athletes in 2015 aren’t aware of their worth and their ability to create change by speaking up.
It should be noted that the vast majority of college coaches are tremendous people and leaders. They care deeply for their players and would not engage in the kind of behavior that got Beckman fired or embarrassed Virginia Tech.
But it’s also true coaches, especially successful ones, are largely used to operating in their own world without significant oversight or sensitivity to public perception. That’s dangerous, and a failure to learn and evolve it’s not good enough anymore. The stakes are too high for college sports and the optics of what happened this week are not good.
It’s a strange world in many ways, but it's the one that now surrounds them and allows them to make more money than ever. Adjust or get left behind.
Follow Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken.