Greg writes:
>A response, posted on this list:
>
>"If for some reason OSU should decide it is not prepared to work as
>hard to field a DivI hockey team as many other schools, then so be it,
>but don't try to field such a team by bringing everyone else down."
That was me, btw. Dave Smith, HOCKEY-L goon :-), made some good points, and
while I agree with most of what he said, I want to add a little more.
>The respondant's attitude wouldn't surprise me if it were a minority
>opinion, but nobody on the list has come forward to challenge it, and
>that is disturbing. Does *everybody* out there equate de-emphasizing
>athletics with respect to academics with "not working hard"?
But this is not what we are talking about. By not working as hard, I mean
that OSU has clearly shown a much lower commitment to hockey than most other
DivI hockey schools. If OSU chooses to follow this path, then I find it very
unfair and self-serving for it to support the cutting of coaches (if they did
support this) simply so that they can continue to treat hockey like a DivII
sport but keep it at the DivI level. Academics never came into play here.
> Another
>example of this sort of reaction came from Jack Parker last year, when
>the number of hockey scholarships was cut back. Parker said (this is a
>paraphrase, but one which I think is accurate) "the NCAA is forcing us
>to compete with not enough players". I guess by Parker's definition
>that means the non-scholarship schools have for years fielded teams and
>won championships with NO players!
Parker has a very valid point. Hockey teams dress at least 20 players a game
and play at least 19. By cutting the number of scholarships, you are forced
to play kids who you could not offer a scholarship to. I don't see basketball
being forced to offer fewer than 5 scholarships.
And, the so-called non-scholarship schools are, of course, still finding other
ways to get their players aid even if they do not call it awarding athletic
scholarships. Most of these schools have rich endowments and can easily give
hockey players academic or financial scholarships, and they do.
>Everybody knows that the NCAA is starkly hypocritical in cutting back
>the resources of other sports while allowing the big-time basketball
>and football programs, whose infractions and excesses provided the
>public impetus for the "academics first" movement in the first place,
>to do whatever they want.
That's exactly right. Problems in hockey and other sports have been few and
far between. Why should they pay the price? If we saw problems in hockey
even remotely approaching those in basketball and football, I would likely
agree that something needed to be done. But basketball and football get to
go along their merry way because they make the NC$$ money, and everyone else
suffers the cutbacks so that it can appear as if the NC$$ is doing something
to police college athletics. This just isn't fair.
> But just because the NCAA can't keep its
>hands out the till long enough to do the right thing with those sports
>is no reason to dismiss the general attempt to reassert academic
>integrity in college athletics.
I don't think anyone is dismissing the idea at all. Make changes where they
need to be made. Don't say "We need to police college athletics better" and
then ignore the sports that are causing the problem. If basketball and
football didn't exist, I doubt we would see the changes that have been taking
place lately. No one would be clamoring for them because the problems don't
exist in the other sports. I suspect hockey people would have a little easier
time swallowing the cutbacks if they were being applied across the board, but
while football was allowed to keep their coaches, hockey lost theirs. Where
is the justice?
I want to add that I think that the academic integrity in college hockey
is just fine as it is. There is no epidemic of players missing classes,
getting phony grades or favors just because they play hockey. And even if
there was a problem, cutting back on coaches - the guys who are there to try
to help their players both in hockey and school - makes no sense as an
attempted solution. Weak analogy, but that would be like cutting back on
guards at a maximum security prison even though you have the money to hire
them.
Hockey doesn't have the number of coaches they have just to have them. Every
coach fulfills an extremely important job, from developing and running practice
to recruiting to serving as academic advisors and counselors to the 25-30
players on a typical team, as well as scouting opponents, preparing game plans
and coaching in games. Merrimack has survived with one head coach and two
full-time assistants, but this will kill them. It is rare as it is that all
three coaches are ever behind the bench for a game, and often there is only
head coach Ron Anderson. Asst. Stu Irving spends most of his time on the
road (it's a surprise to see him around the office), and Anderson regularly
makes 10 hour drives to see prospects on his days off. Rick Mills coaches
the JV and handles much of the personal work dealing with the players that
Ron and Stu don't always have time for when they're away. I honestly don't
know how they're going to shift the many responsibilities next season. One
way or another, the players will suffer.
Not to mention that many good young coaches like Mills may be driven out of
college coaching because they can't manage to support a family on a part-time
assistant's salary. Is this the direction we want hockey to take in the USA?
---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
|
