Far from the March-ening Madness sit stories the NCAA’s underwriting, don’t-touch-that TV enablers are disinclined to tell.
Ten years ago this week, Billy Packer did what CBS, for better or worse, hired him to do: He gave his opinion on college basketball.
And Packer was of the opinion that St. Joseph’s, which was 27-1, all things considered, did not deserve a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. St. Joseph’s went undefeated during the regular season, then lost by 20 to Xavier in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Of greater significance to Packer, St. Joseph’s didn’t play in a particularly tough conference.
Was he right? It didn’t matter. That was his opinion — and not one so radical as to have caused a mob to storm the bastille.
Well, Madness being madness, Packer’s words ignited Philadelphia’s easily enflamed. Genuine, demonstrative, illogical hate ensued. It was Packer who had left that crack in the Liberty Bell!
Phil Martelli, the St. Joseph’s coach, didn’t exactly serve his school’s higher social and spiritual mission when he addressed students and other supporters with, “Being perfectly blunt, Billy Packer can kiss my ass.”
Anyway, St. Joseph’s made it to the Elite Eight before losing by two to Oklahoma State.
But the madness didn’t end there. St. Joseph’s had a starting senior guard, a personable young man from Newark named Tyrone Barley. This past November, Barley, in a courthouse not far from Philadelphia, was sentenced to 10-20 years. He had robbed three women at gunpoint, then took police on a wild, high-speed chase before he was collared.
After four years on a full college scholarship, that’s all Barley had to show for it: Prison.
But that, too, is a significant part of March Madness. Barley’s felonious endgame is nothing new, nothing particularly shocking, nothing likely to cause a pause, let alone a change for the better. Dime-a-dozen, these days.
Division I basketball, like Division I football, remains predicated on fraud — financial, academic and social, the last in the form of the expensive, relentless recruitment of young, minimally educated and predominantly poor kids — many of them young criminals or soon to reveal themselves as such — to empower our colleges to win ballgames.
The legitimate higher education of these recruits is not a matter of precedent, but accident. And if the kid doesn’t make it as a pro — and that’s the overwhelming majority — he will be returned, uneducated, from where he was recruited and to his own devices, que sera, sera.
It’s criminal. Criminal in theory, in the planning, in the process and finally in the practice. And it’s duplicated, worsened and loopholed here, there and everywhere.
No college student is supposed to peak at age 21 or 22. But for what will be the start of social, financial and familial success for legit students, serves thousands of athletes as their “Finished Lines.”
To that end, President Obama, practiced in shallow, populist, pandering TV-ops (yesterday he appeared on “Ellen”) again appeared on ESPN to fill out his brackets. He’s down with the madness. That Division I college basketball rewards the most corrupt operations doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.
Our President is one of those sports fans — a yahoo — who doesn’t appear the least bit concerned Division I basketball and football now seem to have a better chance to temporarily house and feed young criminals than to produce educated young men prepared to move up and beyond.
Consider that nearly every NFL and NBA player arrested — and that stack grows weekly — has one other thing in common: They’re college men.
To think what a few, stern words from the President on this — something to indicate that he knows the score — might do. Instead, he picked Michigan State to win the tournament.
Ah, yes, the Spartans. The star guard on Michigan State’s 1986 team, senior Scott Skiles, at the NCAA Tournament’s conclusion, reentered jail to serve 30 days for a parole violation. Until then, he had remained eligible to play.
Skiles could have done his 30 days during the basketball season, but that was out of the question. He could have served his time at the conclusion of the academic semester. Forget that, too. When basketball ended, he chose jail. Student-athletic priorities.
And in 2014, even the President of the United States is in on it. Again.
Webber not Fab as role model
Wait a second. Chris Webber’s two-year, early 1990s stay as Michigan’s star center was scandalized by $200,000 in payola and eventually Webber’s guilty plea for perjury, followed by more legal hassles. Yet, yesterday, wearing his No. 4 in a Michigan-gold jersey, Webber starred in an NCAA-licensed commercial for Burger King. World gone nuts.
»Apparently Phil Jackson is the final piece in Jim Dolan’s 20-year plan. And here we thought Dolan didn’t know what he was doing.
»The reports read and sounded the same: “Colts’ owner Robert Irsay has voluntarily entered a drug and alcohol rehab program.” Yeah, he voluntarily entered that program — the day after he was busted.
»Yup, there was Harvard yesterday, playing in their black uniforms. Regardless, CBS analyst Doug Gottlieb referred to Harvard as “the Crimson.”
»Memo to Knicks historical authority Mike Francesa: Phil Jackson did not play for the 1969-70 championship team. He missed the entire season with a bad back.
»For no good reason, a TV ad for a New York City high school basketball tournament sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods features several teams posing in group shots. All the kids are posed with glaring scowls and threatening stares. If a dozen kids who looked like that walked into a Dick’s, the manager would alert security.
New Rangers record out of context
Context is dead. Henrik Lundqvist moving ahead of Mike Richter for most wins by a Rangers goalie ignores the fact Richter played in 73 ties. As reader Sam Ventrella notes, if Richter, as has Lundqvist, played until a game-winner was determined, he’d have had many more wins.
»While the audio from the studio was fine, audio from yesterday’s NCAA games on truTV — Wisconsin-American and Oregon-BYU — was so bad one could barely hear Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel. Quality control!
»On Wednesday, during a Bruins power play, Devils MSG play-by-player Steve Cangialosi noted that Boston’s 6-foot-9 star and former Islander Zdeno Chara, set up in front of Martin Brodeur, is “a tough guy to move.” Chico Resch disagreed: “Mike Milbury did.”
»Yesterday’s NCAA Tournament debate between Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless on ESPN’s “First Take,” was so gaseous, so torturous, one was unsure if it would have better served as a crime deterrent or punishment.