Which coach was it? Bill Frieder of Michigan, I think. It was one of those shrill voices recently raised to protest the astonishing notion that athletes should be able to read and write before they go to college.
Frieder had testified after a basketball game that the new rules would just encourage cheating and would keep poor kids out of college and, furthermore, tests are culturally biased.
”And another thing,” he was saying, winding down, ”they get labled as being stupid. Proposition 48 kids. How do you think that makes them feel?”
I had never thought of it that way. A college jock considered to be dumb? How cruel. Steps must be taken.
Fair is fair. Coaches don`t want kids tested to see if they should be in college. Okay. Here`s what we do.
We stop printing box scores. That`s a start.
Coaches should not know who is high scorer in the game. That reflects on all those who didn`t score well and might not be considered college caliber.
Just because somebody scores 40 points a game in high school is no reason to assume he will continue to score 40 points in college.
Maybe the ninth man off the bench, with a season average of .03, is just as capable.
Coaches ought to be given the same challenge as a chemistry professor who, upon seeing a lab full of eager young faces, has to sort out which ones can be trusted with matches.
Basketball coaches shouldn`t be allowed to ask even how tall a prospect, because such measurements discriminate against the School of Accounting.
Besides, we must protect the identities of the athletically ungifted in case they are projected not to be able to hit a Winnebago with a beach ball.
I am sure coaches would hate to be responsible for some scholarship reject being laughed at on campus. ”He`s clumsy,” people would whisper behind their hands.
Coaches should all smash their stopwatches. Right now. Today.
”What`s young Bubba run the 40-yard dash in?” head coaches would ask their recruiters.
”Don`t matter,” they would shrug. ”Some studies indicate that timing foot races is culturally biased.”
No more peeking into weight rooms. Coaches are not allowed to know if a prospect can pull his own weight or if he needs a hand cart.
In fact, every strength test, vertical leap measurement and hand-eye coordination exam should be thrown out.
Coaches can`t put a radar gun on a fastball, a tape measure on a pole vault or a weight scale under an offensive tackle.
This is the only fair way to do things. No entrance testing for academics or for athletics. Every one takes his chances. I can see it now.
A literature teacher complains to the football coach. ”You are keeping my most promising student away from his studies. He spends all his time trying to assume a three-point stance without falling over.
”The other day he was practicing in the library and knocked over six stacks of books, from Balzac to Trollope.
”He probably was never meant to be a college fullback. He only looked big because he had to wear a lot of sweaters to keep from getting a chill.
”I tell you what. I`ve got a huge, thick-necked specimen here on scholarship who can carry five Victorian novels in one hand. But I don`t think he can read the title of any one of them without moving his lips.
”Maybe we can make a trade.”
Nature has a way of working these things out.
