March madness

Okay. I was watching the NCAA tournament games. The coaches were passionate. The kids were playing their hearts out. The fans were screaming. It was very exciting.

Then I thought about the hotel rooms, the food, the flights, the eye-popping graphics, the 7 talking heads it took to tells us what we were seeing, all the awards these players had won, the detailed stats kept on each one, the special uniforms and footwear, the interviews. You get the picture.

Then I thought about how much it cost for fans to travel, stay, eat and buy tickets to these games. I wondered how many of them made a donation of any kind to the academic component of these schools.

Then I wondered about the student who spent 4 years of hard work, working other jobs, to reach the goal of summa cum laude or Phi Beta Kappa or to become a Rhodes Scholar or a Woodrow Wilson Scholar in a major other than sports management. What kind of PR did they get from their schools and the media? What kind of recognition from their peers.

Then I thought that if someone paid me a million dollars and gave me the staff and budget to recruit around the country and the responsibility for managing only a handful of individuals, I could put together a pretty damn strong national program.

Then I thought: I've done something like that, and done in at a salary which over my whole lifetime doesn't add up to one year's salary of a big time coach.

Then I thought: I have a headache.