Dartmouth's Basketball Team Embarrasses This Alum, But Not as Much as the NLRB Does

The men’s basketball team at Curmie’s undergrad alma mater, Dartmouth College, is an embarrassment.  No, not because they’re terrible, although they are: they have secured last place, alone, in the not-exactly-elite (in basketball terms) Ivy League.  They didn’t win a road game all year.  As of this writing, they’re 337^th (of 362) in the NET and 339^th on KenPom.  They haven’t had a winning record in 15 years, and currently sport the longest active streak (dating back to 1959) of not participating in the NCAA tournament.  They weren’t very good back when Curmie was a student there; they’re worse now.

But “disappointing” isn’t the same as “embarrassing.”  Not being very good basketball players is one thing; being narcissistic little assholes is something else again.  The reason the Big Green’s hoopsters are in the news, alas, falls into the latter category.  The players voted today (as I write this on March 5) to unionize (!), thanks to a heightened sense of self-importance by some rather mediocre athletes and a remarkably inane decision by the NLRB’s Regional Director, declaring them “employees.”  All 15 players signed the initial petition to join Local 560 of the Service Employees International Union, and 13 of them voted to unionize.

The Regional Director in question is Laura A. Sacks of the Boston office.  (Curmie believes people who do remarkably stupid things in their professional capacities shouldn’t be able to hide behind an important-sounding title.  Walking lawyer jokes like Jake Krupski ought to be similarly disgraced.)  The decision itself is inane on its face, but the rationale is even worse.

Here’s the decision; let’s look at a couple of key points.  First off, there is no argument with the college’s position that financial aid is offered exclusively on the basis of financial need; indeed, four players on the team receive none, whereas one gets a full ride.  Athletes don’t get special housing or other such perks.  Again, no one claims otherwise.  A fall term message to players “encouraged” them not to schedule courses during potential practice times, particularly between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. 

Conversely, that message told players they should “[F]eel free to register for courses in the following time slots: 8S/8L, 9S/9L, 10, 10A, 11, 12.”  Here’s where Curmie’s experience becomes relevant, because he knows what that means.  About 90% of all the courses I took as an undergrad were in one of those time slots.  Afternoons, certainly after 2:00, were almost always free.  One doubts that much has changed, even given the considerable interim.

Remember, too, that since Dartmouth is on a quarter system, students take only three courses at a time, so there’s less likelihood of scheduling conflicts at all; unless a particular course necessary for a player’s degree plan was offered only in the afternoon and only during basketball season, problems are rare if not altogether absent.  It’s also unclear why the team couldn’t practice in the evening, as there are multiple places on campus with basketball courts, and much of “practice” is film study or time in the weight room.

Also worthy of notice is the fact that NCAA and Ivy League regulations prohibit teams from requiring too much practice time: “In-season, student-athletes may participate in a maximum of four hours of CARA [countable athletically related activity] daily and a maximum of twenty hours of CARA weekly….  When a sport is not in-season, student-athletes may participate in a maximum of six hours of CARA each week.”

Yet, curiously, Sacks and her minions based part of the decision on the bizarre belief that athletes should be treated differently because the demands on their time exceed those required of participants in, for example, music, theatre, or journalism.  In a word, BULLSHIT.  First off, those activities are year-round; there’s no “off season,” and certainly no time cap.  Curmie was required to spend more than four hours a day and more than 20 hours a week not infrequently (especially but not exclusively during tech weeks) when he was in school, and he's certainly expected that kind of commitment from students throughout his career as a director and technical director in college and university settings. 

The other variation on this theme was that Curmie realized early on that if he was going to be an active member of the debate team, he was going to have to spend a lot more than 20 hours a week.  He opted instead for doing research to help the team when he could, administering one of the divisions of the high school invitational tournament hosted by the Forensic Union, and occasionally brainstorming with more active team members.  But those active debaters spent dozens of hours a week working for the team.  Same with the editors (at least) of the college newspaper, the directorate of the radio station… the list goes on and on. 

It’s also frankly nuts to claim that the Ivy League is taking students out of classes willy-nilly.  Virtually all league games are played on Friday night or Saturday.  Wanna guess, Gentle Reader, how many road games Dartmouth will play this year on a Monday through Thursday while classes are in session?  The answer is… wait for it… one.  Yes, one.  Another came between the end of classes and the end of finals.  Yet somehow, we get an official NLRB ruling with nonsense like “if, for example, the team is traveling on a Monday…”  Is Sacks incapable of looking at a schedule?  Furthermore, there was no rebuttal to the coach’s testimony that players sometimes missed road trips, with his blessing, because of class responsibilities.  In the Ivy League, education matters more than sports.  It really does.

So the whole “taking them out of classes” business is nonsense.  Moving on.  OK, get this: Cade Haskins, one of the students who keeps getting quoted, says that although the college makes it clear that “it is understood by both the faculty and coaching staff that class attendance takes precedence over participation in athletics,” he often prioritized basketball.  The fact that he can’t abide by the rules is an argument in his favor?

The precedent for this action is a decision a few years back when the Northwestern football team successfully convinced the NLRB that they were employees, but because they compete in a league that includes state universities (Dartmouth doesn’t), federal law apparently makes it impossible for the NLRB to make a ruling against the university in this instance.  Of course, unlike Dartmouth or indeed any other Ivy League school, Northwestern does give athletic scholarships, so, arguably, players are indeed employees, doing a job in exchange for financial considerations.  Still, it’s ironic that it would be Northwestern, a school far more noted for its academics than its athletics, that would be the target for such a unionization effort.

There are more ironies at play, too.  It would be impossible to name an athletic conference that cares more about the importance of education relative to sports than the Ivy League does, and there are few teams in any sport in the Ivy League more inept than Dartmouth men’s basketball… well, with the possible exception of Dartmouth women’s basketball.  If these folks are “employees,” Curmie would hate to see the amateurs.

Oh, but alumni contribute to the college because of the basketball team!  (Seriously, that’s an argument!)  Luckily, Curmie had put down his mug before reading that part, or coffee would’ve come out his nose.  There’s an alumni group, you see, Gentle Reader, that contributed over $300,000 to improve the basketball facilities!  Curmie got a missive from the alumni fund the other day.  That $300k for basketball would amount to about 7/10 of 1% of the unrestricted giving to the college last year (that doesn’t count the tens of millions of dollars designated for other specific uses.) 

It goes without saying that the basketball team at Dartmouth loses a lot more money than it brings in.  Don’t expect to see games televised except on ESPN+, and whereas Curmie’s other American school (his MA is from a British university), the University of Kansas, has sold out 16,300 seat Allen Field House every game for the last 22 years, Dartmouth can’t fill 2100 seat Edward Leede Arena even half full for Senior Night. 

The fact that according to the NLRB decision, “[N]o current members of Dartmouth’s men’s basketball team participate in NIL activities” sort of tells it all.  They’re eligible to do so, but local businesses don’t care enough to pay them as spokesmen.  Why?  Because they aren’t going to attract positive attention.  Curiously enough, the “whiny loser” image isn’t one that advertisers choose to foreground.  They’ll do their own ads or hire actors who know how to read a line. 

But if NIL threatens merely the idea of collegiate sports as we know them (see Curmie’s commentary here, here, and here, for example), the prospect of having to remunerate student-athletes will—nay, should—spell the end of intercollegiate sports altogether.  Many colleges are considering cutbacks to athletic programs as it is.  Curmie wrote last year that another Ivy League school, Brown, “had to cut some varsity sports a couple of years ago: losing money on athletics was one thing; losing that much money was untenable.”  

Whereas part of Curmie says “Good!”, the fact is that cheering on the home team is, or should be, very much a part of student life.  Curmie saw dozens of athletic events—football, baseball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, ski jumping—as a student and doesn’t want future generations of students to be denied that opportunity. 

But if pampering a cohort of mediocre narcissists will cost even more time and/or money than it already does, the tipping point draws nearer.  There are some outstanding colleges and universities that don’t have athletics teams at all, or who play only in Division III or the NAIA: Brandeis, CalTech, MIT, NYU, and the University of Chicago come to mind.  Brooklyn’s St. Francis College recently eliminated all its Division I athletics programs, citing finances.  Indeed, only a handful of athletic departments break even; most lose millions of dollars a year, the shortfall made up by increased tuition and fees borne by other students, a goodly number of whom couldn’t care less about whether the basketball team is any good.

It's also probably worth mentioning that the two players quoted in the Politico article linked above are, predictably, not among the best players of even the remarkably unsuccessful team on which they play.  They’ve totaled 153 points and 50 rebounds in 26 games (let me save you the math, Gentle Reader: that’s less than 6 PPG and 2 RPG between them); both have more turnovers than assists.  They… erm… have little hope of a career in professional basketball.  Yet they seem to be at the center of the self-glorification.  Figures.

To be fair, there will be appeals after appeals, and it’s unlikely that college officials will have to negotiate for the services of hoopsters in the near future.  That doesn’t make the initial Regional NLRB ruling any less ludicrous.  Ultimately, the argument comes down to this: are athletes are treated significantly differently from participants in other extra-curricular (or co-curricular) activities?  If the answer is no, then there’s no case.  If it’s yes, then the rationale is that because jocks have been coddled in the past, they should be even more coddled in the future.  Color me unimpressed.

Curmie is loath to quote Donald Trump with anything even bordering on approbation, but on this one, he’s got it right.  If these guys want to be considered employees, the correct response is “You’re fired.”  Laura Sacks ought to hear those words as well.

When There Aren’t Enough Ambulances to Chase…

There are far more important stories than most of what Curmie writes about, and this post is an ideal example. But one of the reasons Curmie chooses the topics he does is that he believes they illustrate something about where we are and where we’re going as a society. Another is that there’s already lots of analysis out there about anti-drag idiocy or what ought to be done in the Alec Baldwin case. That doesn’t mean Curmie won’t come back to those “bigger” stories… just not right now. 

Anyway, Curmie came across this story a couple of days ago and forwarded it on to netpal Jack Marshall, who, as expected, had a similar take to mine. But Curmie does have a couple of things to say, himself. 

There’s a lawsuit out there, filed by lawyers James M. Moriarty, John Louis Cesaroni, and Stephen M. Kinseth (Curmie thinks it’s important to get the names of Walking Lawyer Jokes out into the open), on behalf of two Brown University basketball players: Grace Kirk, a current member of the women’s team, and Tamenang Choh, who played on the men’s team from 2017 to 2022. They’re suing not only Brown, but all the schools in the Ivy League (so also Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale) because the league does not allow its members to offer athletic scholarships. 

That, of course, has been the policy of the Ivy League since its inception about 70 years ago. Imagine! A group of colleges and universities that think their primary mission ought to be education rather than athletics! Oh, the humanity! Ivy schools also don’t give merit-based scholarships in anything else: not for talent in the arts, or perfect scores on the SATs, or debate, or, well, anything. Scholarship money is based on a single criterion: financial need. The Ivies are expensive, but they go at least some ways to balance that with generous financial aid packages—Curmie knows of at least three Ivies (there may be more) at which a student with an annual family income of less than $100,000 will pay no tuition at all. 

The point is, you’re at one of the nation’s finest educational institutions. Perhaps your skill at sports helped you get in, but now you’re just like everyone else… and everyone else has an impressive résumé, as well. 

Ah, but you see, other excellent universities, like Duke and Stanford, give athletic scholarships. Three responses:

1). So fucking what?

2). Let me introduce you to Kyrie Irving, a literal flat-earther who played at Duke. Gentle Reader, do you really think Duke would have admitted anyone that demonstrably stupid if he didn’t have ball-handling skills and a jump shot? Or that Irving’s presence in a classroom (assuming he ever attended) didn’t slow the progress of students who actually belonged at a premier academic institution?

3. Finally, here’s a thought: go to Stanford or Duke or an equivalent school instead of Brown. Ay, there’s the rub, to quote some Danish guy who couldn’t hit a free throw. You see, to get a basketball scholarship at, say, Duke, you’ve got to be really good. Virtually every player at a top-flight basketball school will go on to play professionally—if not in the NBA or WNBA, then overseas. Curmie doesn’t see that future for Choh and Kirk.

Choh’s last year was pretty good; he averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds on a sub-.500 team against so-so competition. Kirk managed only 53 minutes for the entire season, playing for a team that went 4-10 in a pretty lower-level league.

To be fair, Kirk was definitely a star at the high school level, and no doubt could have received an athletic scholarship somewhere. But she chose Brown because it offered “the perfect balance between academic rigor and high-level athletics.” Now, apparently, it has dawned on her that signing with another university might have been a better financial decision, at least in the short term. Well, duh. Someone smart enough to get into Brown couldn’t have figured that out years ago? 

Curmie is all for students doing things outside the purely curricular. It is, of course, ridiculous that so many (read: “most”) colleges and universities conceive of themselves as athletics programs that offer a few courses on the side. It’s also worth mentioning that very few athletics programs, certainly none in the Ivy League, make money for the school. Quite the contrary, in fact. Brown even had to cut some varsity sports a couple of years ago: losing money on athletics was one thing; losing that much money was untenable. 

The plaintiffs also contend that “Regardless of whether considered as a restraint on the price of education, the value of financial aid, the price of athletic services, or the level of compensation to Ivy League athletes, the Ivy League Agreement is per se illegal.” Poppycock. None of these arguments have any legitimate standing, and the league allows athletes to partake in Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) opportunities, giving Ivy League athletes financial opportunities not available to the hot-shot historian or physicist: athletes’ skills are more public and therefore more saleable. 

Curmie isn’t sure what the impetus for this suit was.  Unscrupulous lawyers, who will collect for billable hours even though there is (Inshallah!) little chance of success?  The arrogance of Gen Z, unwilling to accept anything less than their narrowly defined image of perfection, and unwilling to accept the consequences of their own decisions? Or of collegiate athletes (“it’s more expensive for athletes this way, so let’s make it more expensive for everyone else”).  Curmie tends towards the old favorite: “D: all of the above.”

In the post linked above, Jack Marshall leads with “Some slick lawyers somehow talked some dumb and greedy jocks into launching a class action suit,” and concludes with “It’s an unethical lawsuit in a general sense but not in the legal sense: lawyers can bring contrived suits if they make a ‘good faith’ argument that the law should be changed, even if, as in this case, it is an uncommonly stupid argument.” Jack has always been kinder than Curmie.