Beyond the White and Gold

When athletic director Dan Radakovich made the decision to fire Chan Gailey, he made no mention of the woeful streak against our in-state rivals or the failure to meet high expectations. Radakovich made little mention of the game in general; he focused on the business aspect of college football.

He made it clear that Gailey was a good technical coach, but often lacked the dominant personality that has guided so many of the more successful programs in recent history. Gailey was, in Radakovich's words, a hard sell to the media and the fans.

It seems clear that there was one unavoidable thing driving much of this: money. Keeping Gailey would divide the fans even further and probably do nothing to invigorate a growingly apathetic fan base. It would bring in less revenue to the administration, donators and boosters would have little incentive to give money to a school that could not produce and it would lead to a lesser program.

If a coach who has brought a team to six consecutive bowl games is still under fire because he is not able to fit into a business model, what does that imply about the state of college football?

Tech's administration is able to pay out Gailey's contract while simultaneously paying another person to actually coach the team. This could cost Tech up to $2 million dollars per year for the next four years. Still, Radakovich moved forward with his plans because he felt as though a newer and more exciting coach would be able to produce the necessary revenue to pay for the salary.

This shift is not specific to Tech; it's everywhere. College football has become just another business, with schools endlessly thinking of ways to make money. Success is not just a means to give something special to the students and the school, but an opportunity for record-setting profit. Forbes has recognized the trend and ranked the 20 most profitable college football teams. They all turn an eight-digit profit, with schools like Notre Dame and Texas earning upwards of $40 million dollars a year.

This disturbing movement has permeated all parts of college football. Bowl games are now less about the prestige and more about the potential payouts. BCS bowl games guarantee each participant more than $15 million dollars.

This, of course, is not all going to the profit of the university. The money they gain can go out and buy a better head coach with better assistants, send out a better recruiter to fly better recruits on a better plane. Thus, when these schools visit each BCS game, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

So Tech, a school that has yet to reach a BCS game, must now focus on the economics of the game so that they may one day be able to have enough money to one day become another competitor in the crowded national championship race. There are no scrappy underdogs in college football.

An argument can easily be made for Missouri, Kansas and UConn teams this season, but taking a look at the teams that have made the big bowl games, it's all the same: USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Florida, the list is nearly the same year to year.

Despite the school's profit, the student athletes are not able to recognize the business aspect of it. To them, throwing a football does not require money. The amount of money should not determine how good a team is: it should be talent, skill and, of course, coaching. They may be called naïve or even ignorant, but most are able to see college football the way people years ago saw it: a game.

The clear distinction between college and the pros grows blurrier each day with the evolution of the game. Teams now have student-athletes on the field who are also making money for the school just for suiting up. Ticket prices at college stadiums grow each day to accommodate all the costs associated with running such a program. Luxury boxes are built for the highest donors and the most prominent boosters.

We have reached a point in college football where we have to ask ourselves, is this really the way we want this game to continue?

Radakovich may or may not have made the right decision when he fired Gailey, but he did make one thing obvious: he wanted Tech to compete at an elite level, and that elite level could never be reached without a little bit extra money in the bank. Gailey was just an economic casualty along the way of another university eying the profit margin in order to maximize benefits.

It goes without saying that the next coach at Tech, and most other universities with vacancies, will now know the dangers of what is to come stepping in as the leader, the boss.