It was Bobby Bowden’s birthday on Wednesday, and it got me to thinking about something the late, great Florida State coach said before the final practice of his final game at the 2010 Gator Bowl.
A bunch of us reporters were standing around the practice field at Jacksonville University listening to Bobby reflect back on his 44 years as a college head coach. Bowden, who was 80 at the time, was asked why his career lasted so long.
“I’ve been around coaches where their job means everything to them,” he answered. “I’ve always thought those coaches better be careful or ulcers or nervous breakdowns are going to get them. You see so many coaches who resign because they get burned out. Well, you can’t burn ol’ Bobby out. I’ve tried to keep coaching in perspective. I’ve never made football my God.”
The University of Michigan and Jim Harbaugh should take Bobby’s quote to heart.
Never, ever let football become your god.
As important and as lucrative as winning college football games has become, it should never be so important that it supersedes everything else you’re supposed to stand for as a coach and as an institution of higher learning.
We used to think of the University of Michigan as a bastion of academic excellence, as one of the nation’s premier research universities and arguably the most esteemed public university in America. Now when we think of Michigan, we think of just another sewer-dwelling, win-at-all-cost football factory that will do anything and everything in its power to win a national championship.
The Wolverines, in their race to get to the top of the college football rankings, actually have sunk to the bottom of the cesspool known as college athletics. The university is in the middle of a cheating scandal in which football staffer Connor Stalions allegedly orchestrated an elaborate and illicit off-campus scouting and signal-stealing scheme. Michigan has not denied that this happened and, in fact, originally suspended Stalions and then accepted his “resignation” a few days ago
The NCAA is conducting an investigation and other Big Ten coaches have urged conference commissioner Tony Petitti to act immediately and punish the Wolverines. The reaction of Michigan administrators should be one of shame and anger for what has happened within their own program, but instead the university is digging in and reportedly threatening legal action if the Big Ten suspends Harbaugh and/or makes the school ineligible to win the conference title.
Michigan’s administration, its fan base and, of course, pandering state politicians are screaming for “due process” when, in fact, all they really want is for this case to drag out long enough so that the No. 3-ranked Wolverines can potentially win a third straight Big Ten title and a possible national championship.
Isn’t it ironic that the university’s own honor code instructs students not to cheat in their academic endeavors so as to create “an honorable environment … and to ensure that no unfair advantage is gained”?
Regrettably, it seems, honor is only demanded of Michigan’s student body but not its college football program; a program in which the coach (Harbaugh) already has committed NCAA violations for clandestinely bringing recruits on campus during the COVID pandemic and then misleading NCAA investigators about the transgressions.
The saddest part of all is that this sort of behavior is not only expected but accepted in today’s world of college athletics, where winning-addicted fans have signed off on the old NASCAR philosophy: “If you ain’t cheatin’, then you ain’t tryin’. ”
Even some influential media figures such as ESPN’s Paul Finebaum and Fox Sports radio/TV host Colin Cowherd originally gave Harbaugh and Michigan a free pass on the illicit signal stealing but have slowly changed their stances to match the shifting winds of public opinion. Sigh. The media used to be society’s watchdogs, but too many media influencers have become multimillionaire lapdogs for the big-money sports leagues and marquee programs they cover.
It’s pretty pathetic when we have come to expect less from our college programs than we do our professional sports teams. The New England Patriots and the Houston Astros were universally criticized for their respective spying and sign-stealing scandals, but in college sports cheating is no big deal. We actually blame the NCAA rule-makers more than we blame the NCAA rule-breakers. We just shrug when the Kansas basketball program gets nabbed for buying players and the school responds not by firing national-championship-winning coach Bill Self but by signing Self to a lifetime contract.
As fans of college sports, shouldn’t we all demand a higher standard of conduct?
Shouldn’t university presidents stand up and hold their own coaches and programs accountable?
Why do we accept this moral decay in college sports and essentially give our tacit approval to the erosion of core values such as honor and integrity?
Why do we allow sportsmanship and character to be sacrificed at the altar of illicit winning?
Why has victory become more important than virtue?
And most of all, why have we allowed the septic tank of college football to become our god?
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
