Big college sports are a dirty business

Fellow Register columnist Randy Peterson wrote a thoughtful column recently on Baylor University firing football coach Art Briles after an investigation found the school failed to take proper action on allegations of sexual abuse by players.

Pete writes: “What we learned Thursday, or at least we hope we learned, is that crimes of this nature will no longer be overlooked and passed off as momentary lapses of judgment.”

I admit I am more cynical than my old friend. I believe exactly nothing will change.

Nothing will change because we learned that Baylor was covering up — I mean, "failing to take proper action" — on rape accusations this year, as in 2016.

That's five years after we learned that former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky molested children for at least 15 years while the school's top officials, including then-venerated coach Joe Paterno, did practically nothing.

That was supposed to be the wake-up call.

That was supposed to be the moment college athletics put basic decency ahead of touchdowns and three-pointers.

Peterson: Briles' firing is loud statement for college sports

The Baylor debacle only proves college athletics and the NCAA as a whole are incapable of learning any kind of meaningful lesson about their culture, because it is a bottom-line business.

In 2014, Forbes magazine estimated that the five biggest conferences in college sports — the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC and Pac-12 — made a collective $1.1 billion from TV deals.

Combine that kind of money with the inane macho tribal chest-beating that comes from sports in America, and it’s easy to see how simple morality becomes overridden by greed.

Please, let’s not pretend our Iowa schools are immune to this kind of thing. It’s a nice fantasy to believe we’re a wholesome culture free of this debauchery.

To quote former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: “There are also unknown unknowns.”

And the knowns can be ugly, even in Iowa. Remember Pierre Pierce, the former University of Iowa basketball player?

Back in 2002, he was charged with raping a female student athlete at Iowa.

Then-Hawkeye coach Steve Alford, who made about $1 million a year, stood up for him. Pierce pleaded to misdemeanor charges and was suspended for what would have been his sophomore season.

Pierce was allowed to red shirt and preserve his eligibility. In big-time college sports, lessons in good character should not come at the expense of playing games.

In 2005, Pierce attacked a former girlfriend with a knife at her West Des Moines apartment. Alford finally kicked him off the team.

Pierce pleaded guilty to burglary and assault with intent to commit sexual assault. He spent 11 months in prison.

He went on to make six-figure salaries playing basketball overseas.

Alford learned his lesson, though. Some objected to his hiring at UCLA in 2013 because of the Pierce history.

He finally apologized. Of course, he had just signed a seven-year deal worth $18.2 million. That pays for a lot of apologies.

There’s a wide continuum in college sports sleaze, from Alford covering for one accused rapist player to Briles pleading ignorance over a series of rape charges to Paterno covering for a serial child molester.

But covering for criminal behavior is a regular refrain in college sports.

Six women sued the University of Tennessee, claiming the school enabled sexual assaults by student athletes dating all the way back to 1996.

One charge involves sainted Peyton Manning, a Tennessee alumnus, two-time Super Bowl champion and star of every pizza and insurance commercial from 1997 to 2016.

University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino is trying the ignorance defense with allegations the school’s recruiters provided strippers to prospects.

It goes on and on.

We are well past the point of justice being crushed under the wheels of the team bus in the name of nothing more than winning some damn games. Big-time college football and basketball treat women as currency.

No, I don’t believe college sports will change.

The money is too big and the souls of the men who control the games are too cheap.

DANIEL P. FINNEY, the Register’s Metro Voice columnist, is a Drake University alumnus who grew up in Winterset and east Des Moines. Reach him at 515-284-8144 or dafinney@dmreg.com. Twitter: @newsmanone.