There was a time when 18-year-old boys and girls joined a college athletic team and left four years later as 22-year-old men and women, confident, trained, and effective team members. Coaches had time to focus on long-term development, looking at the big picture rather than short-term gains. Coaches helped individuals identify their strengths and weaknesses, set goals, and worked to help them improve, enabling them to reach their potential. The successful coach had a basic philosophical understanding of the place of sport in the student’s life. Good coaches understood that their athletes were also students and that achievement in the classroom was paramount to success.

I now suspect that this type of experience is more likely to happen in high school and D3 college athletics than in big time sport. Most high school and D3 athletes play their entire careers at the same school and under the same coach. This allows the coach to take the time to develop their athletes. High school and D3 coaches can have a bad year and are not immediately fired. There is pressure to win but there’s usually not a group of alumni beating at the door, especially those that have invested.

How did we get to where we are today in big time sport? Money. In 1999 Gerry Dinardo was the LSU football coach. His salary was $99,000 a year plus bonuses – he didn’t get any bonuses. The team was doing OK, but OK wasn’t enough, so Nick Saban was encouraged to leave Michigan State for a base salary of $1 million. Saban was successful, but many football coaches felt they were just as good. The salary race was on, leading to huge contracts, some coaches now making over $10 million a year. Basketball coaches said, “What about us?”

Meanwhile, it was obvious that not only were the coaches making enormous salaries, the schools were expanding their stadiums, adding expensive luxury boxes, concessions, advertising on the field, huge bonuses from equipment companies, and increased ticket prices. Players run onto the field to face over 100,000 paid guests. At some point, players could not help but think about their situation, endless hours of sometimes brutal practice, fatigue, screaming coaches, and no money for them. Everyone was making money but them. Companies were making money off their name and image. It didn’t seem fair. On top of this, if they wanted to leave to play at another school, they had to wait a year to play. They were trapped.

The NCAA, like Congress, could have done something about this, but they didn’t. They were probably too busy counting their money and their own gross salaries. NIL (name, image, likeness) was born and players started raking it in, some making more than $1 million a year and over $3 million for some women’s basketball players. The transfer portal came along, allowing players to move from one team to another in a year, often chasing more NIL money. Dan Hurley, UConn basketball coach, recently said about half of his players were probably looking to play elsewhere. Is this the end of amateurism, the student athlete?

I watched a basketball game on TV recently; when timeout was called 14 men, all dressed alike, hovered around the players. Were they all coaches? Are they all talking? If you watch a football game you see a host of coaches on the sideline but as many more in the pressbox. The NCAA, in their infinite wisdom, has allowed each school to have more football coaches. Let’s be honest, you don’t need that many assistant coaches. The top 66 football assistants make over $1 million/year and a good number make over $2 million/year.

It is rumored that the NCAA is working to solve some of these problems, but the resolution probably means developing more NIL funding and dropping so-called Olympic sports. We all know that football and basketball are paramount in importance to business minded athletic directors. Sports like track and swimming don’t bring in enough revenue. Is revenue the only goal of college athletics? I have a solution. Clemson University dropped the men's track team because they lost $900K. One football assistant makes over $2 million. Just cut his salary in half and fund the track team. Yes, eggs have gone up, but he will continue to eat well and a group of young men can run track. Cut a few more and fund field hockey, swimming, wrestling, and volleyball. Fans will still come.

Jim Johnson is a retired professor of exercise and sport science after teaching 52 years at Smith College and Washington University in St. Louis. He comments about sport, exercise, and sports medicine. He can be reached at jjohnson@smith.edu