Work or play?

Conference meetings just another sign of hypocrisy

Just imagine if top football players from Syracuse, Pittsburgh and other Big East schools jetted to a luxury resort in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and huddled in meetings three or four days. Found time to play a round of golf. Maybe some tennis. Or duck their toes in the Atlantic.

You can bet NCAA boss Myles Brand would have his investigative gumshoes on site before the fun broke out. That’s too rich for the talent. But if college officials duck away for an expense-paid trip, that’s not a problem. And sports administrators clearly are living better than their athletes, based on the lush sites where the major conferences recently held spring/summer meetings.

This is just another wonderful example of the hypocrisy of big-time college sports.

A quick study reveals conference officials and school athletic administrators favor swanky getaways to socialize and weigh business issues. And they don’t mind trekking a long way from home. The notable exception is the Big Ten, which came in from its suburban office for recent meetings in Chicago.

When the Big East schools met this spring to mull the pending departures of Miami and Virginia, they did so on the northeast Florida coast -- almost 1,100 miles from the conference office in Providence, R.I.

In plotting to lure the two football powers, administrators from the ACC schools met at another resort not too far away on Amelia Island, Fla. Farther west, vacation hot spot Destin hosted both the Southeastern Conference, based in Birmingham, Ala., and Conference USA, which is headquartered nearly 1,000 miles away in Chicago.

The Sunshine State isn't the only attraction. Recently, the Big 12 Conference held its spring meetings at The Broadmoor, a five-star resort in Colorado Springs., Colo. The common denominator in the itineraries is the resort good life, the access to golf and tennis.

That’s fine. Nothing wrong with mixing business and pleasure. But next time athletic departments cry about losing money, about lacking funds to share with athletes even if the NCAA allowed, just remember the lengths they traveled to reach such decisions.

Heat plays no favorites

Kudos to Dusty Baker for hastily turning the lovable Cubbies into legit contenders in the National League Central. If you’re talking about NL manager of the year, Baker is right there with Felipe Alou, Bobby Cox, Bob Brenly and our longshot favorite, Jack McKeon.

But his foot-in-mouth theory about blacks and Latin Americans holding up better in summer’s heat than a white player is being disproved on football practice fields, both college and NFL.

During a pregame chat with reporters a few weeks back, Baker opined, "It’s easier for most Latin guys and it’s easier for most minority people because most of us come from heat. You don’t find too many brothers in New Hampshire and Maine and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ... We were brought over here for the heat, right? Isn’t that history? Weren’t we brought over because we could take the heat?"

Well, except that medical experts say heatstroke hits all races equally. Just check out those players recently carted off football practice fields.

Down in Jacksonville, Fla., 220-pound wide receiver Donald Hayes and defensive tackles Larry Smith and John Henderson collapsed at the Jaguars' camp. All three are black. Smith and Henderson are 300-pounders raised in the South.

Florida State has had three players treated for heat-related illness: freshman tight end D.J. Norris, and fullbacks B.J. Dean and James Coleman. The last two are black, but all three weigh in the neighborhood of 250 pounds. At Alabama, 280-pound defensive lineman Antwan Odom, also black, was hospitalized briefly after he collapsed at practice.

It isn't about race -- it's just big guys losing the battle with heat and humidity.

California Dreaming’

Judging from the circus-like qualities of the gubernatorial recall election in California, it’s not surprising to find a few sportsmen among the nearly 200 candidates signed up to run. Oddly, there isn’t a Dennis Rodman, Steve Garvey or Al Davis in the bunch.

Instead, the marquee name is Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former Mr. Universe and Junior Mr. Europe who spent four years as chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under the first President Bush. Also on the Republican side are former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth and William Simon Jr., whose late father is former secretary of the treasury and president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Ueberroth's claim to fame is turning a $225 million profit while organizing the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Simon’s father also oversaw the L.A. Games from his USOC post.

Down the road, don’t be surprised if the candidates challenge Ueberroth over his less than stellar performance running Major League Baseball. The commissioner was at the center of collusion grievances successfully argued by the players’ union, which eventually cost the owners $280 million.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote, “The owners’ mendacity in the 1980s collusion effort to depress the ballplayers’ income was in many ways as damaging to baseball as the Black Sox scandal of 1919."

Mike Fish is a senior writer for SI.com.

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