The long and winding route through the years to college football’s playoff(s) and a genuine national championship provide lessons to leaders and organizations willing to learn.
Football clearly is the most physically grueling of the major American team sports, played only once per week for a dozen games. Compare that to basketball and hockey in which college and professional league teams play two or three times per week and baseball, which they play daily. The pro seasons last six months. So, naturally, football has far fewer games.
In complete and total contrast to virtually every other sport in America, the powers that reign in college football actually resisted scheduling more games in a playoff series, but their motivation remains identical to that of the barons of other sports – sheer greed!
In this case, it’s the purveyors of the major bowl games who for decades selfishly prevented throngs of college fans from the joys of a system producing a true national champion. Conversely, no-account, two-bit bowl games have proliferated in recent years, springing up like weeds (also due to greed)… which brings us to the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl – I’m not kidding! Even among the more elite bowls, we now have the Play Station Fiesta Bowl. … Is Tidy-Bowl still a bathroom-cleaning product? If so, why not have a game called the Tidy-Bowl? It even could take place in Flushing, N.Y.! Extend that theme to its logical conclusion and invite the two worst teams in college football to play! … Sorry, I just had to say that!
Back to crowning a true, as opposed to mythical, national champion in college football… When reform finally began, it took two decades to progress from coaches and sportswriters voting a probable “champion” to actual playoffs, starting with four teams. It seems that all any serious observers still want is one more level – to start with eight teams and end with one. Having just four teams leaves room for error; plus, college football has five major conferences. Surely, among the eight top teams, the real champion emerges!
The other day is the first time I heard it proposed (on sports radio) that the playoff series actually take place at the home fields of the highest-ranked teams remaining. … That must be the worst nightmare for the powers that be representing the bowl games!
So, what can education, business, government and more learn from all this? Here are four answers, in my opinion:
- Don’t let other people run your program.
- Don’t allow sheer tradition to dictate your actions.
- Give the public what it demands.
- Be true to who you are and what you do.