The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
The Hundred Yard Lie struck me with its tone. The language was brash and straightforward, and the title could have just as well have been one that Charles Barkley later made famous: I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. This set-up allowed Rick Telander to be honest about his message—it was opinion, but he had the credentials to back it up. That said, the book was full of points that I both heartily agreed with and vehemently denied.
The Hundred Yard Lie first hit home when it went into detail about the background of many college football players. I have always bristled at the argument that “any college student would take money from a booster if given the opportunity,” because I am nearly certain that I would not do so. To consider the contrast in my upbringing with those of many players, however, means that I no longer place the blame squarely on the athlete from the inner city that came from very little. Telander’s conversation with the high school team from the slums of Houston was a powerful one, giving insight as to why many athletes break the rules.
Though few of the proposals at the end of the book were viable, in my opinion, an article in the USA Today put forth what I found to be a much better solution. The piece wasn’t perfect, but the idea of a choice was a strong one: allow incoming players the selection of either a scholarship or a yearly salary the value of a scholarship. Instead of attending class, players solely dedicated on trying to go pro can make a yearly wage of around $50,000 to focus on football. It wouldn’t cost the schools any more revenue and would distinguish between the student-athletes and the pure athletes.
The “cult” of the college coach was another anecdote that furthered Telander’s argument that the system is a broken one. Football coaches—barring a few exceptions—have adopted what the author referred to as “Lombardi style.” Who has spent any time around football at any level and hasn’t noticed the hard-nosed, in-your-face coaches? The popular mantra of coaches is to break players down to integrate them into what the head man thinks the team structure should be. It is a snapshot of one of the book’s larger themes: the system abuses players. The flood of crime in the year prior to Telander’s book may have come as a result of mental hardship; players are conditioned for violence, and that sometimes comes out off of the field. Crime among college football players has not gone away in the years since the book’s publishing—one only needs to look at recent Athens County police reports as proof of that—and the reasons behind it are worth taking a longer look at.
The biggest gap in Rick Telander’s plans for reform was the lack of attention paid to what big-time football gives back to the non-revenue sports at a university. He made some powerful arguments about the hypocrisy of filling up 100,000 seat stadia with paying customers while the participants received no payment in return, but fell short of detailing all of the services that a football program provides. Telander skated over this tricky point, giving it a passing mention; he notes that “Minor sports may suffer financially at first until universities acknowledge that those sports should be a part of the school system itself.”
This lofty answer is all well and good, but does not touch how schools could afford to continue to fund scholarships for non-revenue programs or whether Telander recommends that they keep doing so at all. Omitting this key detail is a mistake that so many pundits make when putting forth the case that college athletes should be paid. The author’s points about the hypocrisy of the revenue structure of big-time college football—that corporations sell out luxury boxes while universities themselves don’t see a dime—were damaged because he fails to take seriously the services that the teams can provide to other university teams and the student body. He tries to claim that students really don’t care about their team and that donations are not affected by having a squad, but I grew up close enough to Penn State with its 40,000-seat student section and library funded by its football coach to realize that Telander did not give this point the impartiality that it required.
Before reading this book, I was purely in the athletes-should-not-be-paid camp. Some of Telander’s hard-hitting analysis softened this viewpoint, but until I hear a legitimate solution to the problem of funding minor programs, athletic departments should continue to use the revenue programs for the benefit of the lesser teams.
The theme from this book that stayed with me the longest was the naivety of the defenders of the system as it currently stands. From then-Toledo president Frank Horton’s response when asked if the recent outbreak in college crime among student athletes was a problem—“if the person who shot the other was a doctor, you wouldn’t condemn all doctors”—to Texas’ well-intentioned but misguided attempt to criminally prosecute boosters, it is clear that many in charge do not understand the key issues. While I disagreed with a lot of what Telander was saying, the lesson that a journalist could learn from his book was evident: whenever one sees a wrong, in sport or society, it is the writer’s duty to speak out. Plenty of contemporary issues in college sport are deserving of a deeper discussion; after all, the system that the author hammers on is still intact over 20 years later. The Hundred Yard Lie forced me to think in a critical way about a controversial topic, and that is a goal that any aspiring sports writer should strive for.
