I like football and used to play the game, but I need to acknowledge that it is mostly entertainment. The outcome of any game is approximately as important as who wins the next episode of "Dancing with the Stars."
Whether the University of Hawaii wins or loses does not matter in the sober scheme of things. Football is show business; for the people in Hawaii who care at all about the game, its chief value lies in how much it pleasures and amuses.
Universities used to be about education. Their main mission was to discover, preserve and disseminate knowledge, and to promote a culture of broad inquiry in and beyond the university.
Times have changed. Over the last several decades there has occurred a profound confusion of these values in Hawaii and almost everywhere else in America where Division I football and basketball are played. In many respects, the entertainment tail now wags the education dog at large American universities — and most people prefer it that way.
A major confusion of facts and values was evident at the press conference following the sacking of UH football coach Greg McMackin. Athletic Director Jim Donovan stressed that McMackin "volunteered to retire," but he refused to answer a question that answers itself: When a gun is put to your head, is the decision to give up your wallet "voluntary"?
Donovan also reported that under McMackin, UH football players have made "great improvements" in their grade point averages and graduation rates. He even called their academic improvements "the No. 1 thing" he has seen in 30 years with UH sports. Bigger, that would mean, than getting to the Sugar Bowl in 2008. And still he wants to can the coach?
UH-Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw also sang several off-key stanzas of praise for McMackin’s off-field performance.
"He is," she emphasized, "the only football coach who has come to graduation ceremonies to celebrate the academic achievements of his students," and she stressed her "deep appreciation and affection" for the coach she was punting off the team by noting that they agreed about this: "Graduation is Manoa’s most important objective for our student-athletes."
If these surreal statements were true — if helping players get educated had been McMackin’s most important duty — he would still be head coach. There were 26 seniors on the football team this year, and all of them have either earned a degree already or are on schedule to receive one later in this academic year.
The triumph of entertainment over education is also evident in the allocation of resources by the university and the Star-Advertiser. At a time when many education programs are being slashed, McMackin made $1.1 million a year, more than double the next-highest-paid state employee — and more than 10 times the median salary of a UH professor.
For its part, the Star-Advertiser has a team of reporters covering UH football and other forms of university entertainment, including two columnists who led cheers for McMackin’s contract to be renewed less than a year before they started beating the drum for his beheading. In contrast, this newspaper seldom has anything interesting to say about the dismal state of education in the state — because hardly any people or resources are assigned to that beat.
I know this essay will not change anything. The new football coach will be paid much more than he deserves, the sports pages will remain the most-read part of this paper, and UH executives will continue to utter platitudes about the importance of education for student-athletes — all while keeping one eye on the win column and the other on the team’s financial bottom line.
But for the moment let’s be clear about the imperative that drives UH sports and that drove McMackin into involuntary retirement: The UH football team must win so that the university sports machine can make enough money to keep going — and keep the fans entertained and distracted from a thousand more important issues.
Go Bows?
