Powered Up: Power Struggle

A lot of us--I would venture just about all of us reading this column--grew up wanting to play sports. Myself, I wrote an "essay" in second grade about how I was going to be the quarterback for the San Diego Chargers (besides being not based in reality, it also lacked any real convincing evidence to support the thesis). For the vast majority of us, that dream dies when the teams have a rule that you have to actually be good enough to make the team.

Some don't make the high school team. Most may do that but see their careers end about the time they get that high school diploma. A select few have the chance to go on and play in college and even fewer beyond that.

I want to be clear before I get to my point here: Those who have reached the point that someone is willing to pay (at least part of) their college tuition so that they will continue to play a sport have worked incredibly hard. It wasn't given to them, they didn't just get lucky in the genetic lottery. They worked for it. Incredibly hard.

And they continue to do so in college. In my backup to quarterback the Chargers plan of a job, I've spent a fair amount of time around college athletes. I know how much time it requires. As some have said in recent years, it's basically a full-time job on top of being a full-time student.

So what I'm about to say is in no way meant to denigrate the time and effort and energy these athletes put into playing games that entertain us. Not at all. But, you know, it's a privilege too.

Since Saturday afternoon, when news of the Missouri softball team's protest of the school's administration became the latest nothing-to-do-with-the-actual-game sports storyline at Mizzou, that's been my main thought. It's a privilege to play college athletics. Not a right.

Again, they work hard. And I'm not saying they should be robots. But handing out a release that lets everyone know you're playing a game in protest of the very athletic department that allows you to do it?

College (and college sports) are supposed to prep people for the real world. Where in the real world is that okay? Can you go into work and say you're working in protest of the CEO of your company? Can I write this column to point out something I don't like about Yahoo! or Rivals.com? I mean, yeah, I guess I can. But I'd imagine there would be some consequences. Playing in protest of the athletic director? I've never heard of such a thing. Of course, if there's a place where student-athletes would be emboldened to make such a statement, why wouldn't it be here?

Last November, some (or all, depending on which tweets we are supposed to believe) of the Missouri football players made national news by threatening to skip a game until the University system president was fired. Less than 48 hours later he had resigned and the team played and they won and danced with their coach and everybody celebrated.

And a scary message was sent: You have the power. These games are so important to us that you can do just about anything you want. Threaten to take our games away and we'll bow to your demands.

Why wouldn't Missouri's softball players think they could save their coach's job with such a public statement? If athletes on the same campus can force out the system president (and you can argue all you want, but you won't convince me that's not exactly what happened), then why couldn't the softball team publicly bite the hand that feeds it? If you have any doubt the two are connected, the softball team referenced the athletic department's handling of the football issues in November in the weekend release "and they are doing a worse job at this."

I don't know what the resolution of the whole thing is going to be. At this point, none of us even really know exactly what the investigation of Ehren Earleywine is about. My gut tells me that whatever the chances were Earleywine would return on Saturday morning had decreased by Saturday night. In other words, I can't see how the public protest helped him.

Some are going to read this and think I want the players to fall in line. Shut up and play. And I see how you could get that from this. I'm not saying they can't stand up for their rights and beliefs. Everyone ought to be able to do that.

But before doing it, maybe it would behoove everyone to stop and think: Is this worth it? Or am I doing this to wield the new-found power of a college athlete? Without wading into whether Columbia, Missouri is the center of racism or not, do we buy that Jonathan Butler needed the football team to save his life? With six months of hindsight, has the group that spurred Mizzou's football team into action been pacified? Or even appeared to want to be?

Does the softball players' protest of an investigation that was sparked by complaints FROM SOFTBALL PLAYERS merit further splintering the athletic department and putting Mizzou back in the national news for reasons that have nothing to do with one of the school's two most successful programs?

Being an athlete and standing up for something do not have to be mutually exclusive. We often criticize our biggest stars for not taking enough of a stand on important issues. But there's something to be said for choosing your battles. Personally, I'm a little tired of watching the battles that have been chosen unfold right here at Ol' Mizzou.

Last November, Tim Wolfe said his resignation was the result of everyone yelling at each other and no one listening. Well, it's six months later and nobody's listening. They're all too busy putting out statements and telling us all what they think is wrong. And instead of solving any problems, everyone at Mizzou just keeps creating more of them.