Note to Fans: Take Control

In American society we huddle, don our game faces and tackle difficult tasks. A misbehaving child gets a timeout. Despite a Hail Mary pass, a poor worker is cut from the team while another hits a home run. Someone trying too hard swings for the fence. Off-color jokes are out of bounds. Some salesmen can’t get to first base. Male-female encounters can involve striking out or scoring.

Anyone pondering the impact of sports in American life need only listen to everyday language. Sports and sports images are pervasive. Now, taking the field is the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a major-league collection of university presidents and educators who’ve come off the bench to warn the nation of the necessity of colleges regaining control of the sports programs that skew academic values and priorities.

Its proposals are worthy: improve athlete graduation rates, put athletes through the same academic process as nonathletes, reduce practice time and postseason play for more study hours. Return control of game times, broadcasts and advertising to universities from TV networks.

The networks currently set college game times. During games, even paying spectators in stadiums across the land must wait for a TV man in an orange cap to signal referees that a Ford Explorer commercial is over so play can resume. How did casual student clubs become huge businesses? How did some college sports become, in effect, minor pro leagues often beyond the control and ethics of school presidents? Money, of course. And with pro basketball in particular reaching down to high schools for its draft, colleges have even less incentive to tone down sports mania.

Sports are fun to play, entertaining to watch, healthful, and often useful teaching tools for perseverance, dedication, handling success and addressing adversity. Sports draw crowds. Teams want crowds. So does TV. Crowds have money. Crowds like winners. So do alums and advertisers. Both have money. Schools like money. So do coaches, networks, schools and players. It’s a circle. It’s silly to expect individual parts to change. It’s unrealistic to ask all to change suddenly.

This thoughtful report does provide a priceless opportunity for individuals--parents, players, fans, schools, coaches, alums--to step up to the plate for some genuine self-examination about the role of sports in their lives and the lessons they unconsciously learn and hand off to children. For instance, must we jeer youth refs? Draft teenagers to the pros? Silently condone fighting? Or cheer it? We didn’t slide this far in one sports season, and it’ll take many to correct the scales.

It’s important to start this rebalancing process, for society’s values as well as the impact on individuals. The clock is running.