Caleb’s Choice

During the last weekend in April, West Point cadet Caleb Campbell was drafted to serve in a different Army. He was selected in the seventh and final round of the National Football League (NFL) draft.

 

It is unknown whether Campbell will make the final roster of the Detroit Lions, the team that drafted him. While the Lions have conducted their off-season training activities (OTAs) in May mini-camp, the cut-down process doesn’t happen until late July or early August. The chances that a seventh round pick will make the roster and remain on the team through the end of the season are less than 40 percent.

 

Campbell will enter the NFL through an Army policy that allows highly regarded athletes to turn pro after their graduation from West Point. This policy, enacted in 2005, a year after Campbell entered the academy as a plebe, allows the athlete to serve a portion of his military service obligation as a recruiter. Cadets who do not play intercollegiate revenue sports, by comparison, have a five year service obligation in the branch they selected at graduation; the higher your rank, the more likely you get the branch you want.

 

I don’t blame Campbell for taking advantage of his opportunity. It’s not like he chose West Point expecting it to fall in his lap. If anything, Campbell chose a more difficult path to the NFL than any player in his draft class. Every West Point cadet, regardless of major, takes a rigorous engineering curriculum along with the drills and hands-on military training during the summer. Football practice, based on a great book, John Feinstein’s A Civil War, is actually a welcome break from the school routine.  

 

I understand the objections to Campbell’s decision, especially since our country is at war, but the Army has historically made special considerations for the top professional athletes. Professional baseball stars, like Joe DiMaggio served their hitches as barnstormers and fitness instructors during World War II. West Point fielded the best football teams in the nation in 1944 and 1945; back then, there was the attractive lure of being an officer versus a draftee. However, pro football did not begin to mature as a sport until after the war was over; today, its popularity is second only to NASCAR. 

 

But the Army and the NFL have to be fair to Campbell; neither wants his decision to become an embarrassment to the man or their organization.

 

If the Army wishes to use Campbell as a recruiter, they should use him to help recruit athletes to West Point; he has first-hand experience with the process that makes him invaluable to the academy and especially Army’s coaching staff.

 

The academy would not have invested alumni money—alumni fundraising pays the head coach’s salary since the federal government would not want him to earn more than the Commander-in-Chief or the Secretary of Defense—if it didn’t believe success on the gridiron was important to its image.  If Campbell succeeds as a rookie, then the NFL also has a feather in its cap: a citizen soldier who is also a fine athlete.  No doubt his team and the league will use that to full advantage.

 

But if Campbell does not make the Lions, or catch on with another team before the start of the NFL season, he should begin his service in the Army Air Defense Artillery, the branch in which he will be commissioned, but serve stateside in reserve duty until the season is over. If an NFL team calls him up that season, then good for him, he should play on.

 

However, if he is not on a roster at the start of next season, he should be placed on active duty and get on with his military career, wherever it takes him. I’m positive that the Army policy was never intended to allow an athlete to limp along on a two or three year search to find a team while being exempt from active duty. That would be unfair to the Army and those who have served.

 

 

The NFL is not like major league baseball, where a player can go down to the minors to perfect their craft; they must prove they belong in the upper echelon from the first day of camp—just as West Pointers must do from the first day of plebe year.

It Pays to Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys or Giants or Eagles or Redskins

The National Football League draft is this weekend and if you’re a pro football fan you already know about the widespread speculation about where your favorite players are going to plying their trade on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays and, if they’re lucky, the weekends in January and February after their college seasons were over.

 

If you’re a football fan, you’ve also listened to analysts discuss the odds of players making it to the big leagues; the lower you’re drafted, the worse they get. You’ve also heard what it takes to get on the field with most teams; talent and fit are the most obvious qualities, though some franchises place a premium on character. In this sense, the NFL is no different from any other business that hires entry level workers.

 

Each college season, there are between 15 and 25 seniors, and a much smaller number of juniors who played football at 120 Division 1 schools, as well as seniors who have similar talents, but played at lower levels of competition.  A best guess is that there are 3,000 young men who played college football last season who have completed or relinquished their college eligibility and would like to play in the pros. Their resumes are their game films, statistics and workout results from a scouting combine and college pro days. Those who are serious about playing on get at least one chance to impress at a pro day and the big schools often invite athletes from smaller schools to come to their sites to try out.  

 

Those 3,000 young men compete for 256 spots in the NFL draft; there are seven rounds of 32 teams, plus 32 supplemental picks that have been awarded to teams that lost players to free agency. Each team also signs rookie free agents after the draft and invites them to a mini-camp in May along with the draftees. And I haven’t considered openings in the Canadian Football League and Arena Football. But it’s safe to say that a player who is in the upper 10 percent at their position will get at least a tryout in a pro camp if they want it.

 

I look at the numbers and I wonder if the odds of success are that bad. A good college football player who consistently plays well at a high level of competition has a better chance of getting a shot at the pros than, for instance, a business or engineering major who wants to work for the Ford Motor Company.

 

According to data collected by CollegeGrad.com, an entry-level job site, Ford expects to have 300 entry-level hires this year. No doubt they will get more than 3,000 applicants for those jobs through on-campus recruitment and their Web site. Those who have spent some time as interns at Ford will have an edge, just as those who played for the major football powers have a better chance of being invited to turn pro. But there are over 300,000 business majors, and close to 120,000 computer science and engineering majors and the most desired companies are more likely to pursue the top fraction of one percent.

 

I like the odds for the football player much better.

 

I know that NFL also stands for “Not For Long.” Every player has to hang up the helmet and cleats at some point, but that’s no different than other fields. If you’ve read this far you probably know of many people who are not working at the same profession they did after college, even if they didn’t continue their education.

 

The difference is that smart football players who stay healthy have a chance to build a nest egg at a very early age to help them move on to the next station in their working life. The smart players are the ones who don’t expect to fall back on their glory days to land the next job—and we don’t read enough about them in the sports pages. We always read about the first-round talent who hooked up with undesirables and lived beyond his means before losing it all; that makes great copy, but it hardly applies to everyone who played the game.

Trip to the ‘Ship: My Visit to the NCAA Woman’s Final Four, Part 1

Prior to attending the 2008 NCAA Women’s Final Four, I had attended only one championship game of any kind: the last-ever United States Football League title match in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Back then, as now, with the Super Bowl and the NCAA basketball tournaments and college bowl games, the game was played on a neutral site. This year’s Women’s Final Four was held in Tampa in a hockey arena; the Saint Petersburg Times Forum, the host site, opened 12 years ago as the Ice Palace.

 

Going to the “ship” was fun, even though a few little things, like a torrential downpour on the day of the semi-final games, got in the way. This Forum is a fairly new arena, but it wasn’t built to handle the crowds that would be rooting for four teams, fighting to add souvenir t-shirts to their collections. All of the teams in this year’s final: UConn, LSU, Stanford and Tennessee had played in at least two finals before, three have emerged champions while the fourth, LSU, was making its fifth consecutive appearance.

 

There were a lot, and I mean a lot of people wanting souvenirs and the Forum’s staff appeared ill-equipped to handle them. They were more used to handling merchandise for the last place hockey team that plays there. I will say, however, that I am the proud owner of the last Stanford t-shirt that was sold on finals night; it just happened to be my size.

 

I also wished the Forum made some considerations on the food. For one thing, they didn’t make any changes from the fare you would get at a regular season hockey game, right down to the “High Stickin’ Chicken” which was every bit as rubbery as a hockey puck. A personal pizza was ten bucks, a ridiculous sum in any sports market, though the concession dropped the price to two for ten bucks by the halftime of the final game. But the cheese on the pizza was as rubbery as the chicken, so the two-for-one was no bargain.

 

Next year’s women’s final will be played in St. Louis at another hockey arena (there has been no pro basketball in the Gateway City since 1976), while the men will be playing at Detroit in a football stadium. I realized cities bid for the privilege of hosting a Final Four, but why can’t they play it at a place that regularly hosts a college basketball team? I’m sure there are fans who would love to see the more storied homes of college basketball like Bloomington, Chapel Hill or Duke, or in the case of women’s hoops, Charlottesville, Knoxville or Palo Alto. The colleges have plenty of experience handling little things like ticket sales, parking and tailgating.   

 

But to their credit, the Forum redeemed itself on finals night. There was beautiful weather, a band, plenty of free and accessible outdoor games, an ESPN broadcast of the final shown against the parking deck wall (you read that right, the wall) to help manage post-game pedestrian congestion and best of all, friendly fans of all teams, including those that were not playing the finals. I wore Rutgers shirts to both games, not only because I believed our Scarlet Knights should have been there, but also because I couldn’t root for UConn, our main arch-rival. Instead I rooted for Stanford; this was their first trip to the finals in 13 years and I could have never gotten into the school when I was shopping for a college.

 

To be fair, most of the UConn fans I met were better people than me, as far as sports loyalties go. Virtually every UConn fan I met at my hotel and the games said that we should not have played each other in the Elite Eight, and that they would have rooted for Rutgers if we had beaten them to get into the finals. I’m not only a Rutgers fan, I’m also a New York Yankee fan. For me rooting for UConn to win the Finals would be like rooting for the Boston Red Sox to win a World Series. I just don’t have it in my heart to do that, so sorry UConn fans. It’s nothing personal, just basketball.

Is Division 1 Basketball a No Win Scenario for New Jersey Tech?

As March turns to college hoops madness, one public college in my home state, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), achieved basketball notoriety by setting an NCAA record of 29 losses against no wins. A team without a conference, NJIT has played Division 1 men’s and women’s basketball for the past two years. NJIT and Rutgers are the only New Jersey public colleges that play Division 1 sports.

I cannot understand why NJIT made the leap to Division 1. It is the third smallest public four-year college in the Garden State after Ramapo and Rutgers-Camden. With only 5,400 undergraduates and a largely commuter student body, as well as the science/technology focus of the school, its hard to see how NJIT could develop a fan base that could sustain a Division 1 basketball program.

NJIT is located in Newark, which has some excellent high school basketball teams, as well as the state-of-the-art 18,500 seat Prudential Center that opened this fall. However, the Prudential has commitments to Seton Hall, which plays a nationally competitive Big East schedule.  That relegates NJIT to play at home in an athletic complex that seats little more than 1,000 people. If NJIT is serious about a long-term commitment to Division 1 ball, it will need a more capacious place to play.

Consistently mentioned as one of America’s more wired college campuses and lauded for the diversity of its student body, NJIT is a very good school. Twenty five percent of NJIT undergraduates are black and Hispanic, extremely high for a science/technology university. Students can also participate in cooperative education, combine school and work, and graduate in four years; most co-op schools such as Cincinnati, Drexel and Northeastern require five.  U.S. News College Guide reported that NJIT had an 82 percent freshman retention rate and a 57 percent six-year graduation rate; that is quite good considering the science/technology focus of the school.  

Besides NJIT, only one other public science/technology school, Georgia Tech, plays Division 1 college basketball. Other institutions such as Virginia Tech and Texas A&M have morphed from science/technology schools into large state universities.

Georgia Tech has more than twice the number of students and a longer history with major college sports than NJIT. John Heisman, the namesake for college football’s Heisman Trophy, coached there for 16 seasons, going undefeated for three. He also coached Georgia Tech in the most one-sided college football game ever played when they defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs 222-0 in 1916. Georgia Tech has won or shared four national titles in college football with the last one coming in 1990.

Georgia Tech has also been successful on the hardwood, playing in two NCAA Final Fours over the past 25 years and sending Chris Bosh, Stephon Marbury, Kenny Anderson, John Salley, Mark Price and Jarrett Jack to the pros. However, only Salley and Price received their degrees.

I have no doubt that NJIT would like to attain the academic reputation, as well as the basketball success of Georgia Tech, but I also believe their administration and alumni would want to see all of their players graduate, instead of leaving after one or two college seasons.

A successful basketball program could pay dividends for NJIT, provided they find a coach who can provide the right blend of athletic and academic motivation to the players. If they win, the other problems, including the facilities and the independent status, will start to go away. As long as NJIT does not become a one-season “launch pad” to the pros, a winning program could set an excellent example for the rest of the student body and achieve the public relations results the president desires.  

All NJIT needs is deep pockets for the right coach, and patience through the growing pains. A lack of money and patience will only continue the no win scenario.

The Rutgers 1000 is Baaaack!

I have lived in New Jersey practically all of my life.

The Garden State has been in fiscal crisis practically all of my academic life and my working life. I realized this almost thirty years ago, as a student taxpayer; the tuition at Rutgers tripled between from my freshman year to my senior year.

All that time the campus looked the same, the complaints about the campus were the same. The complaints about traffic, large lecture classes, deferred maintenance, and so on, were the same.

I know that the extra tuition I paid did not end up in the professor’s pockets; it was used to make up cuts in state aid. Higher education received a lower priority in a recessionary economy.

I did not like it; I paid triple the tuition to get the same education, but I learned to grit my teeth and bear it. So did my classmates; the alternatives were less attractive.

I know that the extra tuition did not support the football program. In the late 70’s, early 80’s, the team had started to play the major football schools. Rutgers had to play the major games on the road, or at Giants Stadium (sorry Jet fans) in the Meadowlands. Rutgers Stadium was too small to host the major powers on campus. It still is, even with twice the seating we had back in our student days.

I understand the economic arguments against stadium expansion—but Rutgers will not be taking the wraps of a new stadium today. Public construction projects have a bid process, a design process, a construction management process. We are talking about a project that will not be completed for two or three years. My major concern is that that Rutgers sticks to the budget; there won’t be any wiggle room for cost overruns.

A better economy, and a better football team, can pay it off. Ardent fans are willing to pay the price for success, now that they have a taste of how it feels to get behind a winning team.

What are the alternatives?

Play at the Meadowlands?

That’s less possible than it was thirty years ago; the current and future stadiums support two National Football League teams. There are only so many days that they will allow college football to tear up their field.

Two third of Rutgers alumni reside in New Jersey. The current Rutgers Stadium is, if nothing else, in a convenient location for alumni to fill the seats—and it brings them back to campus. The Meadowlands is far less convenient.

Rutgers allows 8,000 students to attend games free of charge; this is unique in college football. After I graduated from Rutgers in 1982, I went to graduate school at the University of Illinois, a school that had a Rose Bowl team. I paid $60 a season for my seats—in 1982. That was the same price for Rutgers Young Alumni—in 1995! The game ticket is still a bargain compared to other major college programs; the fans and the athletic department have made that so.

The Sports and Exposition Authority will not allow Rutgers students to attend games in an NFL stadium free of charge; the debt on that facility will not permit it.

Go “down league,” as the Rutgers 1000 has suggested in the past?

The opportunity to play for a national championship puts “meat in the seats.” I sincerely doubt that Rutgers would reverse direction after receiving three consecutive bowl bids and playing to capacity crowds.

Obviously, fans cannot count on the quality of play at season’s eve, but expectations for Rutgers football have risen higher. Optimism breeds enthusiasm, which fills the seats.

Who, at Rutgers, in the 21^st century, would be excited about a “Championship Subdivision” schedule, now that the Scarlet Knights have a chance at something better, something more likely to change the perception of the school for the better?

Alumni who graduated before me might be pleased; they were used to watching the Scarlet Knights battle Princeton. They should be careful what they wish for; Rutgers went 4-6 for the 1960’s against their in-state Ivy rivals. From 1960 through 1975, the last season Princeton won the big game, Rutgers went 6-9-1. From 1960 through 1980, the last year of the rivalry, the Knight’s record against Princeton was 11-9-1

So much for the good old days.

I’m not bothered by the resurrection of the Rutgers 1000; colleges need collegiality and all views on the football stadium debate, pro and con, should be heard. However, I have serious problems with messages like these (below).

Rutgers—a slum campus covered by asphalt and litter; deteriorating classrooms; mounting deferred maintenance costs that reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

400 courses have been eliminated. Hundreds of staff positions have been abolished. Key projects have been put on hold. Teams in Olympic and participatory sports have been eliminated.

These comments are no help to Rutgers, or the Rutgers 1000’s cause. They bury the very school they chose, inhibiting students they would like to see on campus from considering the school and, making things more difficult for fundraising and admissions.

Believe it or not, no prospective student or donor is drawn to bad news; they want to be part of something special.

Like an emerging football program.

If the views of the Rutgers 1000 had been in the majority at Rutgers, the university would have spared themselves the investments that they have already made in the football program.

Students and alumni certainly had enough time to voice discontent, long before Greg Schiano settled on the Banks of the Raritan. If anything, dissenting students and alumni could have staged a more significant protest by boycotting the football games, even while the team is winning.

Instead, there are more student fans than there are student seats and a waiting list of 9,000 ready and willing to pay for season tickets.

The Rutgers 1000 leadership might argue that those waiting to buy tickets should reconsider their priorities; that would be consistent with their mission.

Even if that denies thousands of fans access to an activity, in which they want to participate.

College or Pros, What Pays for Young Baseball Players?

If your son is a professional baseball prospect, you might want to know what makes more sense for him: continue playing at the collegiate level, or turn pro right away. The price where it pays to go pro might surprise you.

 

Of the four major U.S. sports, only baseball and basketball draft high school and college players together. However, the basketball draft lasts only two rounds and includes players from overseas professional leagues, while baseball provides far more opportunities. The Amateur Baseball Draft lasts ten rounds and includes only high school and college players.

 

While baseball offers immediate professional opportunities to high school graduates, a minor leaguer ballplayer usually needs three of four years of seasoning to be ready for the major league roster. A player who signs a contract in 2007 and immediately reported to a Rookie League or Class A team should be on the major league roster on or before the 2010 season.

 

First year salaries for a minor league ballplayer range from $850 a month for the first contract season to $2,150 when the player reaches Triple-A, one level below the major leagues.  Given the low salaries, the decision to skip college has to depend on the player’s signing bonus and the quality of the college programs that are offering scholarships. It might not pay a ballplayer to pass on a top college program if the academics are strong enough to help them with life after baseball.

 

What is a good guideline for a signing bonus for a high school baseball player?

 

My rule of thumb is that the signing bonus should equal or exceed the projected cost of four years of college plus the major league minimum salary.  This assumes the player would remain in college through his senior year—although it is common for baseball players to drop out without completing their degree. At worst, if the player does not make the major leagues, they should the opportunity to save enough money to pay for college while he toils in the minors.

 

Following this rule of thumb, a high school player would need to receive a minimum signing bonus of $600,000.

 

The $600,000 minimum is based on:

 

• The combined costs: tuition, fees, room and board and essentials at a top private university and traditional baseball powerhouse such as Stanford, the University of Miami, or the University of Southern California approached $45,000. It is quite likely that these costs will approach, if not surpass, $200,000 to complete a bachelor’s degree.

 

• A 2010 major league minimum salary of $400,000, as stipulated in the most recent agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the owners of the all 30 Major League Baseball teams. The 2011 league minimum is not known at this time; it is tied to a future cost of living increase.

 

How many players chosen in the 2006 Amateur Draft earned the recommended minimum signing bonus of $600,000?

 

Only the top 60 players received a signing bonus of $600,000 or more. Only 27 were high school players, the rest were college prospects.

 

What about the ballplayer who has finished some of their college education or completed his degree?

 

A college player’s signing bonus should, as a minimum, cover the remaining costs of their college education, plus the wages they might have earned by using their degree, but not playing baseball.

 

The player with a community college degree has already invested in their education; he can use his community college degree to find work, continue his education at a four-year college, or turn pro.   The community college graduate might need as much as $100,000 to complete a four-year degree at a private college. His entry-level salary, after completing his bachelor’s degree might range from $35,000 to $55,000 depending on grades and course of study and, this player might still need three to four years of seasoning in the minor leagues.

 

This player would need a signing bonus in excess of $180,000, but he has a chance of getting a larger bonus if he stays in school and performs well the next season.

 

The scholarship player who completed his degree can play ball, or use his education to do something else. Like other prospects, he may need some seasoning in the minors–and his salary after three or four years of non-baseball employment could approach, maybe exceed $50,000, almost the same as tuition and expenses for college. His bonus should also be in excess of $180,000.

 

How many college draftees earned the recommended minimum signing bonus of $180,000?

 

There were 150 prospects who received a signing bonus of $180,000, or more with the lowest ranked player selected at the top of the fifth round of the draft.

 

What is the major tradeoff?

 

The top high school baseball prospect must consider the risk of postponing college against their chances of making a major league roster within four years. It is quite difficult for a professional baseball player to attend college in the off-season because of travel and seasons that overlap into the fall and spring semesters. Top prospects are also encouraged to play winter ball; that also overlaps into study time.

 

However, the number of high school players who can command the big bonuses that make it pay to go pro is an elite few—and that number fluctuates from year to year because it is based on the annual level of talent in the pool of draft-eligible players.    

 

The top college prospect must consider the opportunities to complete their education and increase their signing bonus after each season of amateur competition. The college prospect will have a degree, but he will be off to a later start in his professional career, especially if he needs seasoning in the minor leagues. However, the college graduate has more options for life after baseball.

 

Unless the player becomes an established major league star, it would be better for him to build a post-baseball life off a college degree than return home to lament glory days.