COMMENTARY : Big Business Means Bigger Problems for College Basketball

The trouble is, things get big. And complicated.

Take college basketball.

This is the best time of the year for the college basketball fan. It’s NCAA tournament time, and for the dedicated hoops junkie, the tournament is the greatest show on earth.

It’s tempting to suggest that this year, the tournament is better than ever, what with Loyola Marymount’s great run under the most tragic of circumstances, the University of Connecticut’s sudden leap to prominence, the Atlantic Coast Conference showing that its teams still know what to do with the roundball.

But it’s that way every year. There are always great games, Cinderella teams, motivating circumstances. For a continuing combination of entertainment and drama, it’s hard to beat the NCAA tournament.

It wasn’t always that way. Once, the NCAA played second fiddle to the NIT. In the 1960s, it was a chummy little 24-team affair that took only the champions of the top conferences and a few independents as at-large teams. But by the ‘70s, the tournament had caught on, thanks in no small measure to TV, and everybody concerned was seeing definite possibilities where, only a few years earlier, there hadn’t even been pipe dreams.

And the tournament began paying schools big bucks. Suddenly, a lot of schools that hadn’t paid much attention to basketball were hustling high school hoopsters. Athletic programs do not live by football alone, they found. And other schools, smaller ones, or newer ones, that couldn’t afford football teams, soon figured out that shorts, shirts and sneakers aren’t all that expensive. They jumped in.

Best of all, the tournament expanded, providing the great stage for the great play we have today.

Yup, the NCAA tournament is real big-time stuff.

Naturally, there are complications.

Along with the game stories and the features on the players and coaches have come the news items that always accompany the tournament:

--From El Paso: Coach Don Haskins said Tuesday he won’t be leaving Texas El Paso to take a coaching job at Lamar University and attributed his decision to a $500,000 enticement from local boosters. Lamar was reportedly offering a package of about $200,000 a year. But the UTEP El Dorados countered with a $500,000 retirement annuity.

--From Austin, Tex.: Texas basketball Coach Tom Penders, a “hot property” after taking teams to the NCAA tournament three years in a row, planned to seek agreement on a new contract.

His base salary is $92,650, but his total financial package, including benefits--shoe contract, radio and television shows, summer camp--is believed to be in the $300,000 range.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that an alumnus is creating a $1-million endowment, and the interest could be used to supplement the assistants’ salaries.

--From New York: Because of an incentive clause in Jim Calhoun’s contract, the Connecticut coach will be paid an amount equal to 10% of the school’s net earnings from the tournament. The Huskies lost in the East Regional, but Calhoun still stands to make more than $30,000.

--From Las Vegas: Jerry Tarkanian, coach of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, is guaranteed 10% of the money his school makes from the tournament on gate and TV receipts. With his team in the Final Four, Tarkanian figures to take in more than $100,000.

Other coaches have other deals, some in the form of incentive clauses, some for free housing, some for new cars every year, some for . . . well, you name it and it’s probably in some coach’s contract.

Of course, all of these perks seem to make perfectly good business sense.

The players, we are reminded, may be amateurs--well, they’re supposed to be, anyway--but the coaches are pros, entitled to all they can legally get. They are in a business that offers next to no security so they have to make it while they can. It may say in their contracts that they are being paid to coach, but we all know that they are paid to win.

And in some cases, it is explained, state laws put a ceiling on coaches’ salaries, so the side deals have to be included if the school is going to get a competitive coach. And if the school is going to make a name for itself, it needs a competitive coach.

So why does all this stuff have such an oily look about it?

Shoe contract? The kids aren’t going to play barefoot, are they? So if some company wants to pay a coach to require that his team wear its shoes, it’s good for everybody, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with that.

Summer camp? Listen, kids want to get better and they know the camps are where it happens. If the parents can afford it, it’s good for everybody, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with that.

TV show? What better way to woo the fans? They get to feel like insiders, the station sells its time, the coach gets paid to say all the things he normally says anyway. It’s good for everybody, right? Nothing wrong with that.

Annuities from booster clubs? Look, if the schools paid properly, these things would hardly be necessary. But what the heck. This way, the boosters get close to the coach, and that makes them feel important. The coach gets what he needs, and the school doesn’t have to cough up the cash. It’s good for everybody, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with that.

Incentive clauses? Hey, if the school is going to make all that money off basketball, isn’t it only fair to give some of it to the guy who got it for the school?

OK, OK, we all know that in most cases, the school never sees a penny of the money anyway, since it goes to the athletic department. That just means the school doesn’t have to fund the athletic department. Let’s not split hairs here because, quite obviously, it’s good for everybody. Nothing wrong with that.

What it all adds up to, though, is more and more autonomy for the coaches, less and less authority for the schools, which really ought to be paying more attention. Those are the schools’ names the kids are wearing on their shirts, not the coaches’ names.

And if these deals are so good for everybody, why is North Carolina State trying its damnedest to crawl out from under the one it made with Jim Valvano just a few years ago? Why are schools still being put on probation for recruiting violations? Why are coaches still flitting from school to school, leaving behind disappointed and disillusioned players, fans and--horror of horrors--boosters? Why are players still leaving schools, their eligibility gone, without their degrees?

Wouldn’t you think that these coaches and schools and booster clubs that are so good at finding ways to make everybody so happy could find ways to make university ideals and athletic skills more compatible?

Apparently, though, basketball, like football before it, has simply grown too big--and too complicated--at a lot of schools to be under any meaningful control.

And there’s something wrong with that.