College Sports.

Good Morning Sports Fans:

I read an interesting article in this mornings Newspaper. It concerned remarks made by Bobby Knight, who many of you will no doubt remember as the fiery coach of, among others, Indiana University and Texas Tech.

Coach Knight was often criticised for losing his temper before, during and after Games in which he felt an injustice had been done. Its strange that we, as observers of the National Scene, remember Coach Knight for these outbursts of temper, but all too often forget Coach Knight's records. His 902 wins puts him in Elite company, but more importantly, I think, the Graduation Rate of his players put him in an entire seperate category. He not only insisted that his players graduate from the College, but must also attend classes, behave themselves, and become Gentlemen. I realize that in today's world those are old fashioned values, but to me they are the Hallmarks of a Good Person, which I believe Coach Knight to be, regardless of his temperment.

Now Coach Knight is in the news again, this time for having the audacity to criticise new University of Kentucky Head Coach, John(never mind your arrest record, can you dunk a ball?) Calipari. It seems that Coach Calipari has had not one but two Colleges Basketball Programs put on probation by the NCAA, those of Massachusetts and Memphis, each of whom had their Wins wiped out by the NCAA for an entire season.

I think the facts speak for themselves when comparing these two coaches, Knight has won more games that any other Coach (902) while Calipari has won something over 400 games. Knight has won Three NCAA Div I Championships, Calipari None.... and the list goes on. I didn't start out to write a post extolling the virtues of this or that College Coach, intending instead for this to be an introducion or lead in to the main thrust of this babble.


.....Which Is.

New Coach John Calipari will be paid approximately THIRTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS for coaching the University of Kentucky over the next eight years, that is presuming, of course, that he doesn't win the National Championship. If he does, doubtless the University will reward him with a new contract, for who knows how many Millions of Dollars. How many of you would like to have a job paying Four Million Dollars a year for teaching a bunch of kids how to play a game? A bunch of kids, who in all probability will, for the most part, not be educated in anything other than this game when they leave College (Most of which not by Graduation).

Folks, have we lost out Cotton-Pickin Minds? While all this money is being spent on these "youths" to play a game, there are thousands of young men and women who would be a credit to any institution of "Higher Learning", who will NOT be able to attend College, due to a lack of funds. This is a damned disgrace.For the cost of the Sports Program, at most Colleges, we could Educate one Hell of a lot of deserving students. Students who might go on to help this country become better and stronger and smarter, to the benefit of us all.

I suppose I should say that while I loved to play Basketball when I was High School age, I, nonetheless had to earn my College Degrees via the G.I. Bill, not just because I wasn't a good enough Basketball Player to Merit a Scholarship (I wasn't), but because it never even dawned on me to consider such, having been taught fairly early on two valuable lessons. One.. You get what you work for. and Two, Employers like to hire reasonably intelligent people, and the ability to Dunk a Basketball is rarely considered a prerequisite for employment.

Does anyone think that this Country will one day wake up and realize we had better get busy and Educate our Kids in order to compete with Smarter Countries of the World who already are doing so ? I'm afraid I'm pretty pessimistic on that subject.

Think About it.
Cheers

TOP (The Old Pessimist)