Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003122949
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Four players on the 1987-88 basketball team have been accused of missing key baskets and playing sloppy defense in four games, in order to alter the point spread to the benefit of professional gamblers who paid them off. Some have denied the charges; some have not. Star Charles Shackleford said he's innocent, but admitted he accepted a $65,000 "loan" from his agent while he was a student, in violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.
No formal charges have been made yet, but whatever the outcome of the investigation, the game will lose some of its beauty and joy.
Point-shaving is only the most recent controversy to surface in college basketball. Stories about recruiting violations by coaches, and drug use, abysmal graduation rates and ticket-scalping by players have appeared with depressing regularity.
A decade or so ago, such problems were limited to a few "bad" programs that were regularly placed on probation. Now they show up in virtually every part of the country where major-college basketball is played. N.C. State is not the only school in the Atlantic Coast Conference that's in trouble. The University of Maryland is facing NCAA punishment for a variety of offenses. The root cause of these problems is money, television money.
The amounts paid by the networks to the NCAA to broadcast basketball have risen to incredible levels. The more games a school wins, the more money a school wins - for playing on television and in tournaments. By conservative estimate, the three-year probation that Maryland now faces will cost the school more than $3.5 million in lost revenues. When that kind of money is added to the intense competition of the game, the pressures on players and coaches are enormous.
That's why the new charges of point-shaving are so troubling.
The other scandals have concerned management and those gray areas that exist between bending rules and breaking them. Point-shaving calls into question the core integrity of the sport, and it attacks the game where it is most vulnerable.
College basketball is played by young men who often do not have the maturity or experience to know the difference between games and business. They live in the television spotlight; they are given attention and lavish praise for their achievements. But under the current system, they are not supposed to accept any money for their efforts and abilities until they move up to the next level.
While the universities act as a free farm system for professional basketball and football, the players are expected to perform purely for the love of the game. That system makes it far too easy for the unscrupulous to manipulate and exploit the athletes. What should be done?
Some have suggested "death sentences" for programs and players convicted of point-shaving; disbanding teams for several seasons and banning point-shavers from the game for life. Others have recommended measures less harsh but equally radical. They say that the largest programs should give up the charade of the "student-athlete," admit that their sports programs are semiprofessional and treat them as such.
As things stand now, neither remedy is likely to be taken. No one is going to stop the broadcast of college sports. But until a more equitable formula is devised to share the wealth generated by those sports, the system is going to be suspect. And if point-shaving is a systemic disease, not an isolated case at N.C. State, a few probationary Band-Aids won't be nearly enough to save the game.
by CNB