By David MorrisonThe Daily Northwestern
Northwestern teams provided me with two concrete examples this weekend of the superiority of college sports to professional sports.
On Friday, the baseball team, which was mathematically eliminated from Big Ten tournament contention two weekends ago, beat Purdue to bring its conference record to a whopping 6-23.
Talking to coach Paul Stevens after the game, you would have thought the Wildcats were on the verge of a national championship.
Stevens answered questions energetically, gesticulating wildly and saying, “I’m so proud of these guys it isn’t even funny.”
Despite going through his worst year at the helm of the team, Stevens maintained these sentiments throughout the season, repeatedly praising his players for their efforts.
In the pros, teams with no chance at postseason play deliberately tank at the end of the season, positioning themselves for a high draft pick. Coaches of struggling teams, if they’re not fired, reach a certain point in the season where they begin foisting the blame on players.
On Saturday, the men’s golf team came up two strokes short of qualifying for the NCAA Championships, ending a disappointing season in which they were often just a couple of strokes short.
Watching coach Pat Goss after the round, you would have thought he had just won a major award.
Goss was clearly emotionally involved, exchanging hugs and handshakes with players and their parents, from Chris Wilson, one of the senior leaders, to Andy DeKeuster, a sophomore walk-on who didn’t swing his club in competition for the team this year.
This is from a coach who writes instructional articles in national golf magazines and whom Luke Donald, a former NU star and a top player on the PGA Tour, calls when his swing has the yips. Goss doesn’t need to show this commitment to his college players, but he does.
Pro players who are on underachieving teams can always rely on the big payday awaiting them in the offseason if their contract is running out and they performed well individually. They only have as much investment in the team’s results as it benefits their individual fame.
The point in athletes’ lives when they rearrange those letters and put the “me” in “team” seems to come shortly after the day they sign that first contract.
This leads to the selfish behavior that manifests itself in contract disputes, self-aggrandizement and calling out teammates.
I wouldn’t put money on Kristen Kjellman and Aly Josephs sniping at each other if things don’t go as planned this weekend in Philadelphia.
College sports show a much deeper sense of camaraderie and emotion, which evokes the same feeling in their viewers.
What else could turn seemingly mild-mannered CBS announcer Gus Johnson into a blabbering mess but college sports?
When Ohio State’s Ron Lewis hit a 3-pointer with less than five seconds left to keep his team alive in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, it elicited this response from Johnson (approximately): “Lewis has been awesome, lets it go … GDFODSAFNOGHWIR!”
The last part is muddled because Johnson was screaming unintelligibly.
Something tells me Johnson would have reacted a little differently to a buzzer shot in the second round of the NBA Playoffs.
Since I’m sure none of you has ever read a “professional athletes are so selfish” column, let me just say that I realize the circumstances are different between college and the pros and to put the two worlds in such Manichean terms might be like comparing apples and oranges.
But there is something about college sports. It is the closest thing we have to the essence of competition and collective striving for a goal, which, though it sounds corny and pretentious, is comforting.
