"(NFL) scouts are to football what the third base coach is to baseball - an excuse for a whole bunch of old-timers to stay a part of the fraternity and collect a paycheck to boot." - Stewart Mandel
There are two U.S. sport seasons: Football and No Football. As far as I'm concerned, it's even a finer point than that: College Football and No College Football. BOWLS, POLLS & TATTERED SOULS tells me more than I thought I wanted to know about the collegiate game. But, now that I've read this book by "Sports Illustrated" writer Stewart Mandel, I'm so very glad that I did. It's a completely absorbing volume that I devoured over two days. I wish it was longer.
Mandel examines ten of college pigskin's greatest ongoing controversies, one per chapter:
1. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) - how we got to this impasse, who supports it and doesn't, and why it's not likely to change dramatically anytime soon.
2. The team ranking system - its evolution, politics, and how it's affected by the BCS.
3. The Heisman Trophy - its history, and why it's become a media exposure contest not necessarily based on playing ability.
4. The hiring and firing of coaches, particularly the latter - the growth of their salaries and the precariousness of their tenures (or "What have you done lately?").
5. Notre Dame - what makes this independent university so damn special that it has BCS equality with the Pac-10, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big East?
6. The recruiting of top high school players - the stand-alone spectacle it's become, and the impact of the Web.
7. The formation of, and school re-alignments with, conferences - it's all about money, particularly TV revenue $. (Say it ain't so, Joe!)
8. Post season bowls - their history, why there are so many, and the team motivation (or not) to participate.
9. NFL recruiting - the joke that it's become.
10. Scandals - who the perps are and why the NCAA doesn't necessarily have jurisdiction (much less care).
Mandel being an ultimate insider himself, his book should be required reading for all the insider-wannabe fan(atic)s who populate the off-field margins of the sport and who come off their couches in droves to demonstrate vociferously with torches, pitchforks, tar and feathers whenever their favorite teams, coaches, or players are perceived to have been criticized unfairly or gotten a raw deal in the polls or BCS standings. While BP&TS won't make such partisans more reasonable, it will perhaps raise their stridency level and make the collegiate football season even more deliciously confrontational and loud than it already is. I love it!
I myself have followed USC on and off - mostly off - since the late 60s when I numbered among my friends several who graduated from the university and got me interested in the Trojans' game at the time OJ was still a hero and not a bum. I've never been a fan(atic), but rather now follow the extraordinary career of Coach Pete Carroll and his gridiron squads much as one would intellectually admire the craftwork of an expert glass blower or master stonemason. In the doldrum years of such head coaches as Ted Tollner and Paul Hackett, I couldn't be bothered. I'm a Fair Weather Adherent, and proud of it. (Would I switch allegiance to the UCLA Bruins if their new coach proves as succesful as Uncle Pete? Most assuredly not. Who can root for a team whose colors include powder blue for Chrissakes!) But even I found BP&TS enormously satisfying and interesting for the insider knowledge it imparts and will better appreciate the moment at the beginning of the 2008 season when USC charges onto the field to beat the Bandini out of its first opponent, Virginia.
Fight On!
