It Will Stay Broken

Shank does a column on the current state of college sports:

NIL. Congress. Eligibility. Is the college sports system broken?

It’s a huge week for big-time college sports. We’ve got bowl games every hour, with a national championship at stake. Meanwhile, NCAA basketball repeat violator John Calipari (two Final Four appearances vacated) is delivering lectures about the evils of NIL and the transfer portal. Cal, who has coached for eight NCAA and NBA teams, is shocked, shocked, that college basketball players keep transferring.

The vaunted NCAA — overseer of the once-glorious Pac-10, Big Ten, and Big East — has yielded to a Wild West of “straight cash, homie” and regionally random, power conference monopolies. The system is irreparably broken, yet more popular than ever.

God bless to folks who still love it. I understand the lure of rooting for Old State U, “boola boola” and all that. If you live in a yahoo town with no real professional sports, it’s good to have a legacy college program in your midst. This explains football mania in Columbus, Ohio, State College, Pa., Athens, Ga., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. When March Madness takes hold, it’s the same deal in Lexington, Ky., and Spokane, Wash. All of America loves a nice little 16-seed beating a 1-seed and CBS’s shining moments can make grown men weep.

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All of which brings me to recent conversations I had with a couple of former Ivy League basketball players: Harvard’s Charlie Baker and Dartmouth’s Peter Roby. They played against one another a half-century ago. Both are tall enough to eat candy off my head. Both graduated in 1979.

Most of you know Baker. He went on to become governor of Massachusetts for eight years, and today he serves as president of the NCAA, a lucrative ($3.15 million per year) yet thankless five-year gig that will take him halfway into 2028.

If you think Charlie Baker's going to fix anything, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to see you. Charlie Baker is the ultimate corporate yes-man who will never, ever rock the boat or come up with any innovative ideas that are his own.

The Class of 2029

Shank welcomes the college students who are new to Boston:

New to town, college students? Here’s a few suggestions to assure you’re getting the full Boston sports experience.

Welcome to Boston, college class of 2029. Most of you are scheduled to be here for the next four years and some of you might stick around considerably longer. Maybe forever.

The last week, we’ve seen your out-of-state license plates on the Mass. Pike and Storrow Drive: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan. Hope you’re comfy in your new digs and enjoying the stimulus and fast-paced living of our cities and suburbs. Keep your heads up and ears open.

Warning: There’s a chance you’re going to become a Boston sports fan. Don’t be surprised if you adopt the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins while you’re studying and playing in your college homestead.

It happens all the time. Out-of-towners live the Fenway, Gillette, and Garden experience and carry it into adulthood. We see (and hear) them when the Sox, Pats, C’s, and B’s play in Baltimore, Charlotte, Tampa, and Texas. Boston teams are supported at venues across America and much of it comes from folks who fell in love when they lived and studied here from the ages of 18-22.