Stan Geiger

The Big 12-10

It was a joke back in the day: The Big 10---with eleven teams---was the conference that couldn't count. Now we've got a Big 10 with twelve teams, a Big 12 with ten teams and a Pac 10 with eleven teams. Marvelous.

At any rate, the Big 12 is still in business but it seems to need a new name. How about the Big 1? That sounds fitting to me because, from the sound of things, Texas owns the conference. And that, from the sound of things, was the thorn in the paw of Nebraska for years that ultimately led it to bolt to the Big 10.

In the days of my youth, OU and Nebraska met up annually in a late-season football game with much on the table. It was a game to look forward to; I liked that game. The Big 12 divisions meant the two teams would only compete from time to time. Now the two teams might never meet again, lest they happen to meet in a bowl game. I don't like that.

But hey, screw the fans; it's all about the money.

And to what end? I mean if Texas brings in millions more off athletics, is the money going to go to anything that might benefit the common good? Is the money going to go to reducing tuition for attending students? Is the money going to go to some kind of research that might produce something of value? Is the money going to go to reducing taxpayer subsidies?

Not bloody likely. History indicates any additional money brought in from athletics will go to pad the pocketbooks of coaches. Mack Brown, for example, will be able to make $10 million a year instead of a paltry $5 million. Dude, I'm stoked!

I played some as a younger man, a little basketball and a lot of baseball. I had a lot of coaches over the years. I'll steal, and alter, a line from Dwight Eisenhower he uttered with regard to his then-VP Richard Nixon: If you give me a week, I might be able to think of a coach I had that was bright enough to get his shoes on the right feet without referring to an owner's manual.

Today, coaches are revered. They are revered beyond all reason---and they are paid accordingly.

We have a couple of basketball coaches at our state's two top state-funded universities. Both of them, according to reports, make well over a million bucks a year in base salary alone. I wouldn't care to venture a guess as to their total compensation. I would have to have access to their inch-thick contracts full of whatever.

A fellow died a few days back---a few months short of celebrating his 100th birthday. That fellow was John Wooden. He was a basketball coach at UCLA for many years. I'm old enough to remember John Wooden's success. He won 10 national championships. Seven of those championships came consecutively.

I offer major kudos to KTUL's Chris Lincoln. He reported Wooden's top-paid year in a recent telecast. It was the 1974-'75 season. Wooden was paid $36,000.

Now, for you youngsters out there, 36 grand wasn't bad pay for the day. In fact, it was damn good pay for the day. Stated in current dollars, I'd say, oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 grand. And that's a pretty good neighborhood.

John Wooden had maybe the best resume any college coach could dream about. He was making maybe $200,000 a year---at his peak---in today's numbers. Take the two goobers I mentioned before, add up their combined accomplishments and you get something just short of squat. They are both millionaires by virtue of nothing more than job title.

Something is wrong---really wrong---with the picture.

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