PETER A. FRENCH Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics; author of "Ethics and College Sports" The scandals that regularly erupt in intercollegiate athletics seem more to be because of the fact that universities, the NCAA, coaches and athletics directors insist on clinging to a mythological conception of their enterprise. It is a business, the entertainment business. No matter how hard university administrators and the NCAA try to pretend otherwise, March Madness has no imaginable educational or academic purpose. There is nothing wrong with that -- universities, especially those that receive public financing, have some obligation to entertain the public, as long as they manage their academic and athletic enterprises with this in mind. Taking the distinction between education and entertainment seriously would direct attention away from the graduation records of basketball players and the salaries of coaches. Basketball players can be -- and should be encouraged to be -- students if they want to, but there should be no special academic admissions arrangements just to get or keep a good point guard. Academic budgets should not have to support athletics departments. If a university's intercollegiate basketball program is not self-supporting, it should be terminated. The most proficient basketball players also should be paid what it takes to get them to play for the university's team. It is not an ethically acceptable excuse to say that the athletes, in the hope of professional careers, will continue to come to universities and provide their services, even though they are not afforded the rights of others in the entertainment industry. MICHAEL JOSEPHSON Board member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation; president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics and Character Counts John Wooden, the only basketball coach ever to win 10 NCAA championships, loves to tell a story revealing his view about the job of a college coach. He describes a news conference in which Amos Alonzo Stagg was asked at the end of a successful football season whether his team was the best he'd ever coached. Stagg responded, "I won't know that for another 20 years." In case his listeners miss the point, Wooden points out that a coach is, first and foremost, a teacher, and that he was always more concerned about improving the character and life skills of his athletes than about winning championships. If that seems far removed from today, consider the results of a survey conducted by the Josephson Institute for the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 2009. College basketball coaches were asked: "Which of the following forms of tribute would you be most proud of? (1) A celebration of your exceptional success as a coach, the championships you won, the records you set, and the athletes you coached who excelled as professionals; or (2) A celebration of your success as a teacher with testimonials of athletes who say you positively impacted their lives and made them better people?" Ninety-five percent of the Division II and III coaches and 92 percent of the Division I coaches said they wanted to be remembered for making their players better people. Unfortunately, Division I basketball is not about education, it's about glory and money. Though coaches may want to be teachers, their employers will judge them primarily on their ability to win, keep alumni happy and bring in revenue. The ironic thing is that most Division I programs lose money; only a small percentage wins championships and only a tiny minority of the athletes will earn a living playing basketball. It is great entertainment but such a wasted opportunity. JOHN CHALLENGER CEO of outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Around the country, employers are up in arms about what March Madness means for productivity, as some workers take longer lunches at the sports bar or spend work time watching games online, which can affect the productivity of the company as bandwidth-hogging video slows everybody's Internet connection. My firm undoubtedly contributes to the anxiety through its annual estimate of the cost of March Madness in wages paid to unproductive workers. (The latest estimate was $1.8 billion for the first week of the tournament.) But attempting to quash March Madness diversions would be worse. Employers should view the tournament as a much-needed break in an increasingly stressful environment filled with anxiety over job loss and pressure to do more with less. Furthermore, as portable technology makes it easier for work to creep into our personal lives, it is only natural that people will attend to hobbies and personal matters at the office. Instead of lamenting March Madness, employers should embrace it. Those who organize free tournament pools, for example, are likely to see a positive effect on long-term productivity, morale and loyalty. These benefits far outweigh the short-term impact March Madness may or may not have on the workplace.
