Because You Never Asked

MIKEY'S CANINE ADVENTURES

(9/07)

     One of the underplayed issues that gnaws away at my sense of outrage is the sham of big time collegiate sports. Big Media interests, in conjunction with the universities themselves, who share in the spoils of such athletic warfare, have taken advantage of a somewhat different set of concocted loyalties, and made what is really just minor league football and basketball into a multi-billion dollar cash cow that has become as lucrative as the professional sectors of this industry. In a sense, the sporting business, led by Big Media, is now getting 2 for the price of one in football and basketball, with the use of professional athletes at the collegiate level who are working, basically, for free.

     Ha, ha, ha, that’s a good joke --- and a selected few are laughing all the way to the bank.

     The Michael Vick dog fighting story is related to the above thoughts, and no one, either by honest omission or just plain self interest, has seen or wanted to see the connection. Vick is a representative (not exceptional) example of the raw material used in these minor league football-basketball operations masquerading as collegiate sport. This athletic quarry is a primarily black athlete spawned in a social environment far removed from the standard pushed in the American Dream, the standard generally being adhered to by the rest of the students on campus and by the millions of average fans providing the money for Big Media’s huge profits and the gigantic salaries of the few Vicks that can make it at the pro level (that is, the pro level where the players are paid, who’s entrepreneurs are delirious that their athletes are being trained and developed with somebody else’s money, much of it, at least indirectly, by the taxpayer).

     Most Americans have only the dimmest consciousness (if that) that there are large chunks of the nation’s social lamination where the kids don’t grow up coming home to mom and dad with their report cards. Michael Vick, who is emblematic of the great black athlete now being exploited in college by ESPN and the whole lengthy food chain cashing in on their talent, comes from just such a socially flawed environment. Chances are, so does that guy running back kickoffs for the “Gators”, or breaking that long one for the “Trojans”, or slam dunking for the “Fighting Illini”.

     People growing up in these marginal social settings end up having different sensitivities than the average fan who watches him. (For the average person who doesn’t watch him, their respective sensitivities are probably separated by an even wider gulf). “Vick and Co.” grew up in places that were less pleasing physically, less supervised, and poorly endowed financially. But there is one thing these places do have more of than the more mainstream American social settings --- violence. Physical intimidation is a currency with more value in the varying forms of “the hood” scattered across this great land.

     Is it any accident these guys are such good football players?

     Dog fighting has never been a hot dog and hamburger kind of appetite in American culture, but it has a long genealogy of underground practice the Vick incident has shed some light on. Do we really need some sociological study to show that the environment where most of “Vick and Co” comes from finds such “entertainment” far less horrifying than the more prominent sectors of American culture? Vick was nurtured in a place that has been “desensitized” to such violent spectacle. Most of the black athletes who come from similar backgrounds are not necessarily into dog fighting, but are generally more supportive of Vick. They are not nearly as repelled by this practice as the rest of us.

     It’s good that this has happened. All of us, regardless of our proximity to what might be considered “mainstream”, are citizens of an integral entity with parameters for acceptable behavior (hopefully parameters always in some kind of adaptable flux). Michael Vick and the not unsubstantial group he is representative of are now finding this out. Yes Michael, on some levels your lack of sensitivity is understandable, but it does not exonerate you for your failure to grow emotionally. Now you know --- the vast majority of us, the ones who provide the capital for your huge earnings, find dog fighting repulsive and unacceptable. Now you know --- do your time, pay your societal debt, maybe you’ll learn something from this. When it is all over, maybe you can find the kind of employment you want on the other side. Maybe it will all work out. Maybe ---

     And that is my segway back to the thoughts I used to open this essay. What exactly are “Vick and Co.” doing at these universities they spend up to 5 years at? How segregated are they, in a social sense, from the general environment of a big university? How much do they participate in campus life? Do they make close friends amongst the cross section of the student population? Is there a genuine academic aspect to their collegiate experience? Considering the professional aspects of their athletic training, is there enough time for the intellectual development of the “student-athlete“, a point magnified by the probable deficiencies they start with in this sense? Just how much of the values naturally germinating on a university campus actually rubs off on these athletes plucked from a social class with little affinity for such a place?

     I’m not a scientist. I’ve done no elaborate studies on this subject. Like anything else in this ever expanding galaxy of chicken soup philosophy, you can mull it over and decide you’d rather believe in Jesus or something even more omnipresent and perfect, like Bill O’Reilly. You can find exceptions galore to what I’m about to say. You can pass, run or kick right over and around its defenses. But ---

     --- in spite of all that, I’m not the least bit bashful in saying that for the average athlete providing the product for this multi-billion dollar collegiate sports business, his socio-cultural connection to campus life and everything this might provide for the broadening of his emotional development, is threadbare --- and the university using his physical talent for its own pecuniary gain, is indifferent with regard to this fact. Score enough touchdowns, slam enough basketballs, make us some money.

     And the sham will only get worse for the simple fact that the financial pot continues to grow. Big Media is constantly pushing for more and more. Here’s something more mathematical to chew on: the more profitable collegiate sports become, the less student the student-athlete will be (x$’s + x$’s = Vick X x). The need for more athletic raw material is growing. Trying to make all these athletes, generally sprung from a social class not prepared academically or socially for college life, into genuine students, would only destroy the business enterprise. The stakes are now just way too high.

     Michael Vick spent a number of years at a fine university. It prepared him well for the NFL --- but did it prepare him for life? How much did the university care?

     The spark for this essay occurred at a small family reunion exactly one week ago as I write. The subject of Mikey and his canine adventures had entered the conversation. It wasn’t long before I was expounding upon much of what has been documented above. One of my cousins, who I shall call Dina, was having none of it. Cousin Dina is no less than a Vassar grad with a razor sharp intelligence and well exercised intellect. She trumpeted the fact that Vick had every opportunity to use the university as a positive influence on his life and had wasted it. He could’ve-should’ve --- and chose not to. He should walk the plank.

     How can anyone not see the rationality in my cousin’s diatribe? Vick failed to broaden his horizons, to further develop his intellect, to open doors that could have enriched his life and made him not just a better person, but probably a happier, more fulfilled person as well. What’s even worse is that these opportunities were almost handed to him.

     And yet, the situation is more “nuanced” than that. For one thing, the ideas expressed in this essay are meant far more as an indictment against the burlesque of amateur collegiate sports, than as an exoneration of “Vick and Co.”. Vick’s culpability is irreversible and his legal punishment should not be mitigated because of the social factors put forth here. But perhaps we can find some mitigation for the way we feel about Vick because of these social factors. Let me put it to you like this:

     If we compare the cutesy, well groomed suburban neighborhood where I grew up, with the snarling, hip hop, boys-in-the-hood neighborhood of “Vick and Co.”, we might  find only one thing exactly the same in both: there are smart people and stupid people; there are ambitious people and lazy people; talented people and not so talented people; competent people and incompetent people, etc. and everything in between. In the case of “Vick and Co.”, everyone from average on down --- and that means almost everyone in any environment --- will be trapped in the vortex of the “hood’s” negativity, sucked down into it, never to escape. With regard to my suburban neighborhood, overrun with third world gardeners, you not only didn’t have to be exceptional in any way, you could actually be a certified dolt and still find a well marked, unlocked door to the good life.

     The exceptional quality of Vick’s physical abilities gave him an opportunity to escape his emotional past --- but it kept calling him back. He squandered his chance and now has to pay. But wouldn’t our nation be far better served if we eliminated all these thousands of athletic scholarships used primarily to provide mega-profits for private media interests, and gave them to eager students from just these same flawed places? Wouldn’t that be a much better way to put an end to the dog fighting environment that horrified almost all of us?           

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info