Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity Paperback – Illustrated, September 1, 2010

Ken Armstrong's and Nick Perry's SCOREBOARD, BABY like Paul Gallico's classic, FAREWELL TO SPORT, is replete with disturbing facts and allegations. The authors tell an equally disturbing story of college football, crime and complicity -- exposing a community's collective convoluted values -- while back in 1937 Gallico said "Colleges have managed to get themselves involved in a dirty and subversive business." The tale of this business is one of several dimensions and has been told in these and the other revelatory books listed below.Over the years, revelatory books, reports, essays, and sporadic news stories have had little if any impact on the powers that be in Washington who give every indication of being asleep at the switch. Members of Congress and presidential administrations overlook the fact that there are all too many communities and universities throughout the nation where deep investigative reporting would unearth similar problems and societal passion for professionalized and highly commercialized intercollegiate sports competition. Since there is much in our colleges and universities that is already amiss, the depth of these sports related problems and the intensity of this passion could very well be predictive of the decline and eventual fall of higher education in America from its position of world leadership.The SCOREBOARD, BABY narrative could serve as a fitting metaphor for the crime, complicity, and convoluted values associated with professionalized college sports in America with a one-to-one mapping of the book's cast of local characters, organizations, and citizens onto corresponding entities on the national scene. Why so?Looking the other way and declining to act on abundant evidence of widespread wrongdoing is commonly seen to be the best way to keep your job as an elected official, as a government or a college administrator, or as a news media reporter. Likewise, appalling silence and indifference can be expected from non-sports-addicted university faculty, students, and parents, as well as from 'good-citizen' taxpayers across America.For more, see Serena Golden's August 20, 2010, story based on a Q & A with the authors, ['Scoreboard, Baby' at the insidehighered website], "Scoreboard, Baby Notwithstanding, Things Do Not Bode Well for College Sports Reform in Washington," [Splitt Essays at thedrakegroup org website], Rick Telander's September 3, 2010, Chicago Sun-Times story about the Big Ten's spiel that it's expansion isn't about money," [Derisible by '10' at chicagosuntimes website], and Michael Barone's September 6, 2010, commentary on America'soverstressed system of higher education, [The Higher Education Bubble: Ready to Burst? at the rasmussenreports website].Book List: James Michner's SPORTS IN AMERICA, Walt Byers' UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT, Allen Sack's and Ellen Staurowsky's COLLEGE ATHLETES FOR HIRE, Murray Sperber's SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER, ONWARD TO VICTORY and BEER AND CIRCUS, Rick Telander's THE HUNDRED YARD LIE, John Thelin's GAMES COLLEGES PLAY, Andy Zimbalist's, UNPAID PROFESSIONALS, Jim Duderstadt's INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS AND THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, Don Yaeger's and Doug Looney's UNDER THE TARNISHED DOME, Allen Sack's COUNTERFEIT AMATEURS, John Gerdy's SPORTS: THE ALL AMERICAN ADDICTION and AIRBALL, William Dowling's CONFESSIONS OF A SPOILSPORT, Mike Oriard's BOWLED OVER, and Mark Yost's VARSITY GREEN.Frank G. Splitt, MemberThe Drake GroupFormer McCormick Faculty FellowNorthwestern University

Armstrong and Perry have a novelistic style, a penchant for facts and interviews, and an eye for detecting crap. I wish we had that here in Chapel Hill.True, in Raleigh, The News & Observer has been tracking down the Tar Heel story of corruption for over two years, but the administration and coaching staff keep dodging the tackles.Not so in SCOREBOARD, BABY.The cast of characters and photos tell part of the story in Seattle. The rest of the story comes from strong police work and and brave women. The men in authority simply bow low to King Football. What a freakin' mess they created!U-DUB used to be a powerhouse and famed coaches won the games and lapped up the adulation. Football players were "hired" to do a job and their crimes were covered-up. Then came a gum-chewing female cop and her cohorts. They found the victims, gave these victims strong support and built cases that should have brought convictions. Instead, the freakin' aura of U-DUB football prevailed in the media and in the prosecutors' offices.Maybe it was the Seattle freakin' rain that blinded these men?If you are one of those Carolina Blue-blood fans in Chapel Hill, it might be good to read the U-DUB story of cheating, rape, and coddling of players, for the next book you will read might be a sarcastic book titled THE CAROLINA WAY.

The question of ethics and what a collage education is worth has reached its peak in this book, where college football players are protected, coddled, and treated like celebrities ... for a price. And the price is: winning at all costs. But losing their educations and souls in the process.Though the book is about the U. of Washington, it could be about many schools which have abandoned a clean college game to gain money and prestige. In this case, several of the young players committed serious crimes from rape to armed robbery. And yet they were protected by the school and the legal system in order to see the scoreboard sizzle.An excellent read, we see that the results of this thinking are very sad. Many players never got an education. And when their ball time was up and they faced the real world, there was no university standing behind them to cover up their mistakes anymore. Some died young. Few received an adequate education. Many, as is the rule, never made it to a lucrative professional career.The book is a cautionary tale warning us about what college ball has become.

Shocking! I was in complete disbelief after the first couple of hours of reading and could not put it down.Actually, I shouldn't have been too surprised because I remember back in my college days there were two football players in my Algebra class one semester and they rarely came to class but "miraculously" passed. These two guys could not speak proper En glish and one was arrested for breaking into another student's car but somehow managed to graduate.After reading this book I now know why failing high school students with "disciplinary difficulties" get into very expensive schools not because of academic skills but for having good hands and quick feet.I was sick at my stomach after reading this account of how school administrators, professors, coaches, sports broadcasters and even the police conspire to protect "errant" young atheletes who get into "mischief" which includes brutal rape and they get away with it.Our American educational system is in deep deep trouble. I lived in Europe and the average 16 year old in Holland speaks several languages and knows more about American history than our own college graduates. Sad sad sad……...

A very thought provoking read! About seriously bent priorities involved in sports in general! This win at ALL COSTS attitude left me reflecting on "The American Way" and the extent some will go through to get ahead! But left room to hope that ethics still have a place, because of books like this!