By Ric Anderson
I'm part of a conspiracy to undermine college athletics. Have been for some years.
I didn't know that until this week, but Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops set me straight when asked why he hates telling sports writers about injuries among his players.
"The media, they're the ones that put us in a difficult position," he said. "All they're trying to do is put information out there for people who are gambling on college sports."
I'll be darned. Now, granted, I wasn't stupid enough to think some readers didn't use betting lines and injury updates for gaming, but I always believed there were a whole lot of people who weren't wagering so much as a dime and still cared about the day-in, day-out happenings in sports.
I thought I was writing for them, not gamblers. And you know what's funny? The NFL orders its franchises to disclose injury information on a weekly basis, partly to serve the league's fans.
"There's a legitimate public interest in knowing," said Greg Aiello, an NFL spokesman. "Fans want to know. They're interested in whether the quarterback is hurt or if he's not hurt."
I also had this inkling that disclosure actually helps keep gamblers at arm's length. Turns out that the NFL thinks so too.
"The rationale is to eliminate so-called inside information," Aiello said. "If someone had access to that, it could have some kind of value in the world of gambling, and we eliminate that by exposing the status of our players each week."
Could it be that Stoops is off-base in maintaining secrecy? Say I'm an OU sophomore with one kid, a pregnant girlfriend and an '89 Nissan with 129,000 miles on it. Think I might like a four-figure payoff simply for telling a guy that our quarterback hurt his Achilles in practice?
Bill Saum, the NCAA's point man in anti-gambling operations, says it's naive to think collegiate athletes aren't approached by gamblers. A recent boom in Internet gambling and sports gaming in general, he said, increased the risk of athletes giving away privileged information.
"The next question would be, did they know whether they did it?" he said. "It could be a kid across the hall in the dorm who's asking."
Still, the NCAA hasn't adopted a uniform policy on injury disclosure, so I suppose Stoops should do what he wants. Nobody's stopping him, or Kansas State coach Bill Snyder or Kansas' Mark Mangino, for that matter.
But you know what? I see a lot of moms and dads and kids in college football stadiums, and I don't think all of them have money on games. And if I'm in this conspiracy, I'm sure not getting much out of it. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my secondhand Mazda, but you'd think I could get a kickback or two.
So as I respect Stoops, I just can't see where I'm the black hat. The gamblers are, I think. And I figure that the more you freeze out people like me, the more you invite them.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/100403/end_anderson.shtml
I'm part of a conspiracy to undermine college athletics. Have been for some years.
I didn't know that until this week, but Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops set me straight when asked why he hates telling sports writers about injuries among his players.
"The media, they're the ones that put us in a difficult position," he said. "All they're trying to do is put information out there for people who are gambling on college sports."
I'll be darned. Now, granted, I wasn't stupid enough to think some readers didn't use betting lines and injury updates for gaming, but I always believed there were a whole lot of people who weren't wagering so much as a dime and still cared about the day-in, day-out happenings in sports.
I thought I was writing for them, not gamblers. And you know what's funny? The NFL orders its franchises to disclose injury information on a weekly basis, partly to serve the league's fans.
"There's a legitimate public interest in knowing," said Greg Aiello, an NFL spokesman. "Fans want to know. They're interested in whether the quarterback is hurt or if he's not hurt."
I also had this inkling that disclosure actually helps keep gamblers at arm's length. Turns out that the NFL thinks so too.
"The rationale is to eliminate so-called inside information," Aiello said. "If someone had access to that, it could have some kind of value in the world of gambling, and we eliminate that by exposing the status of our players each week."
Could it be that Stoops is off-base in maintaining secrecy? Say I'm an OU sophomore with one kid, a pregnant girlfriend and an '89 Nissan with 129,000 miles on it. Think I might like a four-figure payoff simply for telling a guy that our quarterback hurt his Achilles in practice?
Bill Saum, the NCAA's point man in anti-gambling operations, says it's naive to think collegiate athletes aren't approached by gamblers. A recent boom in Internet gambling and sports gaming in general, he said, increased the risk of athletes giving away privileged information.
"The next question would be, did they know whether they did it?" he said. "It could be a kid across the hall in the dorm who's asking."
Still, the NCAA hasn't adopted a uniform policy on injury disclosure, so I suppose Stoops should do what he wants. Nobody's stopping him, or Kansas State coach Bill Snyder or Kansas' Mark Mangino, for that matter.
But you know what? I see a lot of moms and dads and kids in college football stadiums, and I don't think all of them have money on games. And if I'm in this conspiracy, I'm sure not getting much out of it. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my secondhand Mazda, but you'd think I could get a kickback or two.
So as I respect Stoops, I just can't see where I'm the black hat. The gamblers are, I think. And I figure that the more you freeze out people like me, the more you invite them.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/100403/end_anderson.shtml
