Public and yet Private

Id like to talk about what I have noticed as one of the primary obstacles to junior development in the game of golf, men's leagues. For years, many of our municipal courses have relied upon men's leagues, most of which are scheduled on weekday afternoons, for a significant portion of their annual play. While these 9-hole afternoon leagues may get people out on the course, they keep an equal amount off the course, essentially acting as a weekly outing that requires closure of a public facility. While weekday afternoons are when working men are able to play, it is the only time (outside of summer) when juniors have the opportunity to pick up the game. The weekend is the domain of the middle-aged man, thus the weekday has to be the domain of the junior taking up the game.

That said, there is nothing wrong with a league here and there. However, when courses (I have one in mind) book leagues five days a week, they essentially become semi-private courses funded by taxpayers. How can courses that have a mission to spread the game of golf to those in the communities in which they reside justify closing to company leagues every afternoon? Add in the fact that 95% of league participants are non-residents and you have a system which threatens to completely discount the public mission of a municipal golf facility.

As a junior, I expect to face opposition when I try to book a tee time on a Saturday morning. I have been conditioned to accept the fact that my weekend doesnt start until Saturday at noon and that every Friday afternoons are not really mine to use. However, I have also been conditioned into believing that I should be able to play on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday afternoon without much wait and certainly without having to confine myself to the back nine (or to be forced into, unknowingly until I already paid, playing the front or back twice). This is the general understanding and is vital to protecting the ability for juniors to participate in the growth of golf as an international and intergenerational game.

Some facilities, although many of them privately-owned, understand the value of growing the game and understand that junior access is a key aspect in fostering this growth. The Jemsek facilities have long taken the stance that the junior customer, due in no small part to their potential in the long-term, is the most important customer, and have formed their tee time and rate policies in accordance with this belief. While many courses (though again, few municipal ones) have adopted the "juniors play free with parent" twilight program, Pine Meadow, St. Andrews, and Cog Hill were for years the only places to offer such a deal. As a result, I have become more than willing to pay them back and pay full fare now that I am an adult and now for a fact that others feel the same way. Municipal courses are now jumping on the bandwagon,but the fact is that they should have been driving junior programs forward, not simply hoping on for the ride. The layouts at municipal facilities are generally far more junior friendly than the privately-owned daily fee layouts, and their public funding usually allows them to have a rate structure much more conducive to juniors than the $50+ almost always charged at places like Pine Meadow, White Deer Run, and Thunderhawk (publicly-owned, but operated like a high end daily fee). These municipal courses are in the neighborhoods that are filled with golfers of the future, while the high end facilities tend to be out in areas where the land is more undulating and thus the population centers are far less dense (and usually less affluent).

But while I can go on and on about the problems with municipal rate structures, the denial of access that results from daily afternoon leagues is a much more urgent issue. The driving range is only a catalyst for getting juniors into the game. Without providing them adequate access to the courses themselves, we risk bringing this Tiger-induced decade of tremendous growth to a screeching halt. Municipal facilities have a mission that involves much more than maximizing annual rounds and squeezing every last drop of revenue out of the course. They have a responsibility to act as a catalyst for growing the game of golf in the communities that have chosen to support them with public dollars. Unfortunately, many are failing to succeed in this part of their mission.

You Play to Win the Game

What is so great about sports in general, and baseball specifically, is that everyone knows the objective and everyone is forced to feel their way through the path leading to that objective. Although he has received some flak for "faking" an HBP last week in Tampa, Derek Jeter proved in his acting why he is a future hall-of-famer. Acting is simply part of the process, just as is stealing signs off of second or trying to catch a pitcher tipping his pitches. While not the most athletically challenging of our mainstream sports, baseball remains our national pastime because it requires these little things that make us think.

Acting is not cheating. Trying to fool an umpiring crew is as integral to the game of baseball as the sacrifice bunt or the hit and run. From catchers framing borderline pitches to the first baseman immediately throwing the ball around the horn after a close play, having the ability to pander to the umpiring crew is just one of those intangibles that great baseball players all possess.

On the same token, so is Joe Maddon's objection to the call. He has every right to argue Jeter's being given first and in fact, one of the joys I get in watching baseball is in watching the managers come out to argue their case. Those who dont appreciate the game of baseball in a pure sense cant comprehend the value of the argument in the way the game is played. Since the game's early days, the "humanity" of officiating has been a part of the game. Trying to get the umpires in one's favor is something all teams try to do and something that the great teams have down to an art. The casual baseball watcher may see the argument as a waste of time as it rarely leads to a tangible change, but it is far from irrelevant. The points made and the manner in which they are conveyed have an impact on the umpires themselves as well as the players a manager may be trying to motivate. Because the game is more about a daily grind than about the single day hype of the NFL, a manager's best means of keeping players motivated is to have them ride in his emotional footsteps. Tight games require the calm of a manager in thought so that his players might not get over-hyped for just a single game or a single inning. On the same token, blow-outs often lead to ejections because managers know they need to send that wake-up call to their team ASAP before a string of losses results.

Baseball's greatness lies in its intangibles, the little things that often go unnoticed in the box score found in the morning paper. Acting and arguing are certainly among these. There is a craft to these matters that goes far beyond the images seen through a camera lense and the calls that result from a given action. So brace yourself because here it is: Way to go Jeter. Thank you for playing the game the right way and although I still hate your guts, I respect the way you play the game.

Response to Cog Hill Critics

In addition to the poor September date, part of the problem is that the BMW isnt "our" tournament as Chicagoans. Whereas the Western was a staple in the Chicago summer calendar, the BMW is now on this midwestern rotation that, although weighed in favor of Cog Hill, doesnt emphasize Chicago as the tournament's hometown as had the Western. Where the WGA went wrong was in deciding how to move the tournament around. Instead of moving the event from city to city around the Midwest, the BMW should rotate among the multitude of championship-worthy courses that Chicagoland has to offer. What's surprising about the WGA's decision is that it counters a similar decision they made with regards to the Western Amateur. After spending all those years allowing one of the nation's premier amateur events to waste away at Point O' Woods, the WGA came to their senses and put the event in a Chicagoland rota. As a result, the Western Am has seen a bit of a revival in attention over the past few years, with this year's event truly being a staple on the North Shore summer scene.
With the star power of the Tour and the history of the Western (BMW), the WGA should do just as they have for the Amateur and return the Western Open to its roots in the Chicagoland area, emphasizing Chicago as the event's hometown and the Evans Scholars as the tournament beneficiary (no amount of advertising can make the concrete connection between the BMW and the Evans Scholars as well as had the inclusion of the Western Open name). Sometimes having an old dog try out new tricks just doesnt work. The Western is no exception.

Although Tiger's failure to reach the top 30 in the FedEx cup standings and make the Tour Championship is no doubt a disappointment for Tiger and the PGA Tour alike, Tiger's poor play this season presents a great opportunity for the World's (barely) number one and for the Tour. While many have assumed that Tiger is now done for the PGA Tour year, his elimination from the playoffs does not preclude him from participating a an event or two during the Fall Series, the group of events left out of the FedEx cup rotation and thus in dire need of a marquee player to garner some attention.

Playing in a Fall Series event would not be a move unbefitting of a world-class player. In fact, during the inaugural year of the Fry's Electronics Open at Greyhawk (no longer a part of the series), Phil Mickelson highlighted the field and the eventual winner was none other than Masters champion Mike Weir. Tiger's participation in perhaps the Disney event or maybe Vegas would do wonders for these struggling events while at the same time giving Tiger a chance to show he is a changed man to those inside and outside of the golf world. Playing in the fall would show a level of humility in Tiger that we have not seen despite Tiger's vows to change after the personal issues he dealt with last winter.

Perhaps more importantly, for Tiger at least, is that the Fall Series gives Tiger a chance to get his game in order. Sure, the Ryder Cup, HSBC Champions, and the Chevron provide deeper field, but none of these provide him with a full-field, PGA Tour event in which to shed the winless mantra that has followed him since that fateful post-Thanksgiving crash last November. The extra rounds in the tour setting could only help Tiger regain his form and at the same time would do wonders in his simultaneous struggle to regain respect on tour and in the world at large.

Watching Tiger grow as a player and as an individual, I would be the first to say that such a decision to play in one of these backwater events is unlikely to be made even by a changed Tiger Woods. However, if Tiger is truly invested in making himself a better man and a better golfer, there is an opportunity here for progress to be made.

Recruiting, Bribing, Does anyone know the difference anymore?

In today's two primary collegiate revenue sports, the concept of recruiting a team of top players suited to the individual campus and team is a thing of the past. Instead, recruiting has morphed into a process in which the nation's "top" players run programs through what is in essence an auctioning off of their services, with the highest bidder receiving that all-important letter of intent and the accompanying press release boasting of the victory. Rather than being treated as prospective STUDENT-athletes, top high school football and basketball players are being treated in a fashion no different than a free agent is treated in professional athletics. As a result, the programs not only with the willingness to try and elude NCAA investigators, but also the resources to do so, are the programs that ultimately get the top recruits. No longer is recruiting about schools finding the right players and players finding the rights schools. Instead, its all about placing the bids necessary to get the names.

That said, successful programs have gone about the process the right way. One thing we here in Madison should take pride in is the way in which our Men's basketball program (I dont know enough about the football program) has consistently taken the high road in recruiting, sacrificing the chance at that one blue chip recruit in favor of putting together a team of talented individuals willing to put in the effort and make the necessary sacrifices in order to put a winning product out on the court. While the resume of success is clear throughout Bo Ryan's tenure at the top of the program, one thing that is notably absent is the presence of the so-called "one and done" player. In Madison, Bo Ryan sees his team as being composed of players who are students first and athletes second (they are not called athlete-students, are they?). Graduation is a goal on par with an NCAA championship and class is every bit as important as practice.

Unfortunately, this is a philosophy on the decline. Perhaps this is being aided by the NBA's addition of a 19-year-old age limit, requiring high school seniors to wait a year before entering the draft (although more and more are choosing Europe, the reality is that most are opting for the "one and done" college experience). Whereas many of the top high school players had previously just acknowledged reality and jumped straight for their future in the NBA (at their own peril), they are now flooding college coaches with new opportunities to suddenly and immediately change the competitive abilities of their program with one letter of intent. If the new policy was exposing wayward-thinking high school seniors to the value of higher education, I would be all for it. However, the reality is that the new rules are flooding college basketball with young players who ignore the student side of student-athlete and simply spend a year wandering in the world of college basketball, still intent on preparing for the draft and having the goal of an NCAA championship in their minds only as a secondary thought. As for the chance to get a fully-subsidized college degree? Forget it, too much effort. And amidst all this, lets not forget that they are taking up a scholarship that could have just as easily been used to fund the education of someone who truly wanted to pursue knowledge and not just a lottery pick.

Even more troubling than the ignorance of academics in the collegiate basketball experience is the way in which these so-called "one and done" recruits have brought the evils of the NBA and of professional sports free agency as a whole into the recruitment process. Today's recruit is no less laden with perks than Lebron James was this past summer. Just as teams flocked to Cleveland on Lebron's terms, coaches flock to communities across the country promising every possible benefit in the hopes of getting that blue chip signature. And while the majority of the promised benefits remain within the confines of NCAA regulations, more and more recruits are finding themselves flooded with monetary promises, only getting around NCAA investigation through the use of the modern AAU coach, a role that has gradually morphed from mentor to de-facto agent. This is where the NCAA has tried to step in and is where they truly should be focusing their enforcement attention. Nicer dorms, better class schedules, higher food stipends, these are merely the benefits a collegiate athlete should have in return for their providing the University with positive attention and increased revenue. Payment in the form of cash or promises of goods such as cars, homes, and other luxury goods, these are the perks of a professional athlete, NOT A COLLEGIATE ONE. The growing influence of AAU "coaches" in gaining their players direct access to these goods is endangering NCAA athletics' survival as a bastion of pure amateur athletic competition. Sure, the popularity of collegiate athletics necessitates the growth of a business component to Men's Basketball and Football. That said, we must stop the growth of this "business" within collegiate athletics before we lose the distinction between the final four and the NBA finals, between the BCS championship game and the Super Bowl.

This Aint Nothing to Fight For

The middle part of the twentieth century was characterized by constant changes in the social and political orders of nations worldwide. Grass roots movements coming from the student, religious, ethnic, and political communities were at the heart of organizing the actions that led to this social change, bringing to an end such injustices as Jim Crow, apartheid, and the Iron Curtain. Although these successes have necessarily left today's generation of young people with a distinctive cause to rally around, it is the actions of today's social and political leadership that have left us with a generation unwilling to participate in the political process. Instead of being a battle of ideas, today's political arena involves a battle against those ideas of the opposition. Today's politicians ignore what they believe in and instead focus on pushing back against that which they believe against. No longer is democratic participation about fighting for what you believe in. Rather, American democracy has become about fighting against what you despise. Without a tangible cause to take up, today's generation of young adults is left with no motivation to participate in the political process.

To but it bluntly, the politicians of today have acted much more like children on a school playground than distinguished citizens elected to a council supposedly comprised of the best and the brightest. In my mind, there can be little or no distinction between the irresponsible policy of constantly yelling "no" taken on by the GOP and the illogical decision by Democratic leadership to give in to the whining of the right. Because the majority of my dissolution from the political process stems from what I see as a failure on the part of my party's (Dem) leadership to pursue the change necessary for our nation to progress into the future, regardless of the actions the minority may take in response. We as a party were given a mandate with the 2008 elections not to pursue bipartisan (that term should be barred from the english language, but I will save that for another time) cooperation, but rather to fix the economy, reform the health care system, and clean up the messy conflicts in the middle east. The elections, and the "super majority" that resulted from them, were a message from the people that the policies of the left were the policies the nation felt necessary. Change was what we were craving, not compromise.

Instead of pursuing this mandated change, party leadership tried (in vain) to work with the GOP, a decision that played right into the hands of a minority party that had made a calculated decision to simply use the legislative process as a means of slowing down legislation and thus forcing this "change" to be whittled down by debate day by day. Time was the friend of the GOP and the Democrats in Washington allowed them to use it. But what should they have done? Was there another way in which this "change" could have succeeded without the cooperation of the right? YES, the answer is simply to ignore the whining and go ahead full steam with the legislation necessary to accomplish the goals set forth by the electoral mandate. The attention paid to the GOP not only lent their ill-reasoned objections an undeserved level of credibility, but more importantly caused legislation to become so bogged down in debate that it could not achieve its desired effect when signed, sealed, and delivered in its final form. The democratic leadership could not ignore the whining and is about to pay the price come November.

If there is one thing I could commend the GOP on, it is its political strategy. As awful as it sounds, the GOP know exactly how to make a majority party fail in its time running our nation's government. They are experts at bogging down legislation, flooding the airwaves with negativity, and ensuring that the nation hear there side first and the opposition only in response. Even with the president now residing on the opposite side of the aisle, the GOP continues to control the message and thus remains able to halt the progress of governmental action and administration. That said, their calculated decision to bring the US government to a 2-year halt is not only irresponsible, but downright traitorous. Rather than trying to quickly and effectively guide our nation out of economic recession, bring the two wars (that they started sans 9/11 leading to Afghanistan) to a responsible close, and reform a health care system that was and continues to bankrupt the nation, the GOP has chosen to make a calculated political decision to ensure that the Democrats fail in their leadership and are thus relegated to a loss of control come November. National progress has become secondary to party power in the minds of the GOP and to a growing extent even to the Democrats.

With political considerations now weighing down the progress of government, the democratic process no longer results in the legislation required to foster sociopolitical change, instead simply resulting in the people of one's choice holding the power. No longer are we two sides of the aisle, now we in essence are more like two sides of the trenches, unwilling to work together for the betterment of the nation and relegated to a constant battle for success at the voting booth. How are young people supposed to take a personal responsibility for using the political process to foster change if that process has been so corrupted as to become virtually useless? How am I supposed to fight for change when all I can change is the faces on tv? Today's political arena no longer allows idealistic young people to work to achieve societal change and is thus destined to face a dilemma in the near future when the best and brightest of our generation is no longer willing to take the route of public office and our government is without those best able to keep it going.

Much of the bickering in recent years has surrounded around the growing debt that those on the right (except when talking about taxes or spending that they support) claim to be setting the stage for an unfathomable burden being placed on future generations. Amidst this talk of letting down our children and grandchildren, our political leadership is engaging in behavior that is letting down the very future generations they claim to be trying to protect. Today's young people are no less idealistic, no less willing to participate, and certainly no less intelligent than generations before them. What is creating the lack of participation is not a lack of want, but rather a dangerous dissolution directly attributable to the childish acts of those in public office today, regardless of party affiliation. When it comes to the political arena, its simply not worth fighting for.

Pigskin Priorities

In the wake of last week’s announced division of the Big Ten conference with the inclusion of Nebraska in 2011, much of the conversation has surrounded the impact such a division will have on the rivalry between Michigan and Ohio State in football and the way in which a conference championship game could create a situation in which these storied programs face each other in two consecutive match-ups. However, what the mainstream discussion has failed to shed light on is the way in which the new Big Ten will impact the competition in the twenty-four other sports in which the Big Ten sponsors competition, both revenue-producing and otherwise.
Amidst all of the discussion surrounding the new face of Big Ten football, the other major revenue-producing sport in collegiate athletics has gone largely by the wayside. Not only does Men’s basketball provide the single highest revenue-producing event for the NCAA, it also is a sport in which teams are sponsored at 346 Division 1 schools, as opposed to just 120 in D1 FBS (lets just face the fact that FCS is a separate division altogether, in reality). With the Final Four being such a pivotal event for the NCAA, there is no doubt Men’s basketball is at least worthy of some consideration when it comes to realignment. Yet, amidst the dueling invitations sent out (reportedly) by both the Big Ten and the Pac-10 (soon to be Pac-12), Kansas was nearly left in a conference devoid of any major basketball foe, a fate detrimental to one of the most storied programs in that sport’s history.
Regardless of the earlier rumors and potential disasters, Big Ten realignment will create a problem for the Big Ten as Nebraska will not only serve as a punching bag for the far more accomplished programs that make up the current conference (save Penn State, another addition late in the game made solely for football revenue), but also as an additional travel burden for schools like Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, and others now faced with the prospect of a 2-3 hour flight for each trip out to Lincoln.
On that note, travel is a problem that will create havoc for several sports now faced with conference competition in Lincoln. Whereas football has the luxury of playing just a single game each week (played on a weekend no less), sports such as Basketball (Mens and Womens), softball, baseball, and others compete multiple times each week and are reliant upon efficient travel in order to maintain their ability to balance athletics with academics completely and effectively. The addition of a yearly trip out to Nebraska is a headache that student-athletes in these sports simply cannot handle.
Although football and its enormous revenue production tend to blind us to the realities of collegiate athletics, lets not lose sight of the fact that these are amateur STUDENT-athletes we are talking about, not professionals with large contracts and a private line to the local NetJets hangar. Football may drive the profitability of modern athletic departments, but sports such as rowing, golf, tennis, and field hockey remain the essence of collegiate athletic competition. These students play for the love of the game and devote a significant amount of time toward pursuing their dream of a conference and/or national title. Adding the burden of travel and other consequences of the new Big Ten setup is simply an exploitation of their hard work and effort in an attempt to put one sport amongst twenty-five in a better position to succeed. This may make financial sense, but in the end it makes little sense in terms of bettering the lives of student athletes across the board. There comes a time when profits must be set aside and other considerations must take hold. This seems, to me at least, to be one of them.