Observations on the college sports scene since 1970, a growth to the nth magnitude


Forty-three years went by in a blur. I have been at this so long, I can even remember when a team not from the Southeastern Conference won the college football national championship.

Here at the final buzzer, it is natural to think of the beginning, and the tumultuous path of change that college sports have traveled since 1970, and the question that always seems to echo:

Who knew ... ?

Who knew that everything would get longer? Games. Seasons. Bowl names. Basketball shorts. Everything, except patience for disappointing head coaches.

Who knew the Pac-8 would end up the Pac-12, and the Southwest Conference would go the way of the passenger pigeon, and the Big Ten would have 14 teams? It once all seemed so stable. Realignment was something you had done to your car.

Who knew that an NCAA basketball tournament with 25 teams would one day have room for 68? Or that Midnight Madness would one day be pushed back to September and March Madness would leak into April?

Television revenues for the tournament were $550,000 in 1970. Who knew that barely four decades later, that number would be off by $670 million or so?

Emerging as giants then were John Wooden and Dean Smith. Who knew there one day would be games to watch at the Smith Center and on Wooden Court?

There was no shot clock, no three-pointer, and no complaints about lack of scoring. Jacksonville put up 109, 104, 106 and 91 points on its way to the 1970 national championship game lost to UCLA. Who knew that the more they put in rules friendly to the offense, the lower the scores would go?

Who knew how the horizons for freshmen would change? How they went from ineligible to play in 1970 – the quaint theory being they needed time to become acclimated as college students – to the frenetic age of one-and-done?

There was an amazingly successful new coach at Penn State, Joe Paterno. Who knew how that would end? Who knew that, in college football, 11 bowl games in 1970 would one day inflate to 35?

Two guys named Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler were just beginning to go at it at Ohio State and Michigan, and who knew what that would turn into?

Notre Dame had just dropped its ban against going to bowl games, having zealously guarded tradition going back to the Knute Rockne days. Who knew that by 2013 they'd be talking about turning Notre Dame Stadium into a plaza?

Mississippi had a dashing quarterback named Archie Manning. Who knew what his bloodlines would mean?

In 1970, Saturday meant a college football game on network television. Or maybe even two. Who knew that one day it'd be 25 on a gazillion channels?

In 1970, the Final Four was in Maryland's Cole Field House, capacity 14,380. Who knew that the NCAA would decide one day that the last place it wanted to play its most important basketball games was a basketball arena?

Who knew AAU basketball coaches would turn into power brokers of uncertain repute, and the White House would one day call for a football playoff? Who knew that coaches would have salaries like movie stars, and the debate on recruiting rules would have to include what to do about Twitter and texting?

Who knew it would all get so big, so expensive and so enormous? That eighth graders would be offered scholarships? That a free education would be considered so trivial, many wanted salaries for the quarterback? All this, while we wondered where the perspective went.

And still, with all its flaws and excesses and woes, college sport is as not-to-miss compelling now as it was 43 years ago. At the core, it is still about young people, even as grownups work so hard to muck it up. That means it is still about unpredictable drama, tender emotions and the fearless and eternal courage of youth.

Who knew the time would go so quickly? Or that in the end, you'd love one more Script Ohio or Roll Tide, in the way the child wants one last ride on the merry-go-round?