The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1468055
66 THE WOLVERINE JUNE / JULY 2022 W hen John Beilein and his Michigan basket- ball team exited the 2018 NCAA Tournament fol- lowing a Sweet 16 loss to Texas Tech, the former coach finally had time to exhale for a minute. And then … he didn't. Within days, he lost Ignas Brazdeikis and Jordan Poole to the NBA Draft. Neither was considered a first-round pick, but it didn't matter. They felt they were ready, and as was their prerogative, they opted to move on. Beilein, coming off heart sur- gery months earlier, was on the road for about a month straight looking for potential replace- ments. Nobody should have blamed him when he decided enough was enough and took the Cleve- land Cavaliers job. A few years later, even younger guys like Villa- nova Hall of Fame basketball coach Jay Wright have called it quits, while Michi- gan coach Juwan Howard is scrambling to put together a roster in an era in which players are openly complaining about NIL (name, image and likeness) packages and the like. Welcome to college athletics in the 2020s. We can't wait to see what's next (and yes, that's sarcasm). We said recently, given the choice, would you rather be an NBA coach or a college coach in this day and age? Espe- cially at a school committed to doing it the "right way," but still trying to figure out how in this new era? It's hard to blame U-M football coach Jim Harbaugh for flirting with the NFL. And if Howard remains a hot commod- ity in NBA circles for the foreseeable future — he's already been mentioned as a candidate for the Los Angeles Lakers this year — well … In the past, this basketball recruit- ing issue would be packed with quotes from kids about how much they love the program and how U-M is a "40-year- decision, not a four-year one," the pitch Wolverine coaches would give about the value of a Michigan degree. But those good old days are over. Now it's about which booster is going to find the loophole to allow them to secure high school juniors with huge NIL deals before they even sign. That's a real thing, folks. And it's nuts. Yes, players should have been given a bigger piece of the pie long ago. When the NCAA is clearing $1 billion a year, over three quarters of that on March Madness alone, no kid should have to worry about "pizza money" (poor Chris Webber. Yes, that's also sarcasm). At one point, all they wanted was stipends, and that shouldn't have been too much to ask. Then greed got in the way. But the correction here is crazy — it is, as noted, a free-for-all. It's largely the NCAA's own fault, but between the transfer portal and pay-for-play prom- ises under the guise of NIL deals, this isn't amateur athletics anymore. Let's not pretend, either, that the guys who played 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago were so mistreated — like they were working on assembly lines in sweatshops. Of the literally thou- sands of players we've spoken to over the years, the vast majority thought of their college days as the best of their lives. And yes, they'd do it again for free (free scholarship, room and board, ed- ucation, training table, etc.). It might have been Pollyan- naish of us as kids in thinking about the purity of the sport — playing for the name on the jersey, and so on. But if it was overly optimistic to us, it was to a lot of the guys who came through the program, as well. So good riddance to outgo- ing NCAA president Mark Em- mert, who essentially got paid $3.5 million per year to look the other way while rogue college programs did whatever they wanted. He, as much as anyone, helped lead us to this point. As Sports Illustrated columnist Pat Forde wrote, if Emmert's last moment in front of the camera was watching Kan- sas basketball — a program that won it all this past season while facing allega- tions of major violations going back to a 2017 federal investigation of corruption in college basketball — being crowned champions, it would be so apropos. "While this is certainly a reflection of Kansas's institutional choice to be utterly disdainful of its own culpabil- ity, it also is a glaring reflection of the disrespect so many schools have for the NCAA as a whole," Forde noted. Unfortunately, we don't have faith in the next "leader," either, whoever that may be. As long as the money's com- ing in, there will be another "yes man/ woman" in place. So, good luck to those trying to do it right in this era. As much as we com- mend them, they're going to need it. ❏ Chris Balas has been with The Wolver- ine since 1997. Contact him at cbalas@ thewolverine.com and follow him on Twitter @Balas_Wolverine. INSIDE MICHIGAN CHRIS BALAS Welcome To 2020s College Athletics The free agency free-for-all brought about by the transfer portal and NIL opportunities for players has created new challenges for college coaches such as Juwan Howard, especially at schools like Michigan that are committed to doing things "the right way." PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN