The success of the NCAA collegiate system

For years, the United States has colossally dominated the international sports circuit. Be it basketball, cycling, swimming, women’s soccer, golf, and several more, Team America has unanimously produced more top notch talent than any nation has. Why is that America ranks amongst the best consistently despite the greatest of efforts from other nations? In a Game of Thrones in today’s sporting world, can anybody rival America’s superiority? Sometimes yes, but mostly no. Then what is the secret formula to the nation raveling success rate? The answer: the power of an established collegiate system – NCAA: National Collegiate Athlete Association.

Michael Jordan, the game of basketball’s greatest athlete ever, was a product of the University of North Carolina system. Tiger Woods, the infamous former World Number 1 golfer and the richest athlete to play a sport, went to Stanford where his golf roots blossomed. Mark Spitz, the golden winner of seven gold medals at a single Olympics in Munich ’72 went back to Indiana University after his unsuccessful venture at the 1968 Olympics. Every player in the United States Women’s soccer team graduated from a university before plying their gold medal winning trade at the Olympics. Incredible, isn’t it?

The news doesn’t end there. Just almost every mediocre college game in Basketball, Baseball and American Football has a full house audience. Tickets are priced abnormally for the most anticipated matchups where students/alumni/parents/general public wait hours in line just to watch their beloved teams play. The matchup between Louisiana State University versus University of Alabama in the 2012 BCS National Championship had ticket prices listed nearly 1000 USD for a nose bleeder. 2011’s NCAA Basketball championship game between Butler and Connecticut drew over 70,000 people to the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas while the average attendance of a Kentucky NCAA basketball game is over 23,000 – more than the Ranji Trophy championship game – while many Indian universities fail to even report sports statistics for their calendar year. Crazy, isn’t it?

At first, it seems so simple to understand this American college festivity. Go to college, express team spirit, stay in touch with your alma mater and attend games in electrifying atmospheres. But for Americans, it’s much more than just that.

I attended a football game between Oman and Brazil in 2009 where the likes of Kaka, Daniel Alves and Robinho came to town. Football is huge in the Middle East and the national teams are venerated for their victories. Yet, the atmosphere was nothing unparallel to the game day spirit I witnessed at the Ohio State versus Michigan football game in Columbus, Ohio. Robinho, Kaka versus a bunch of unknown collegiate athletes? Hilarious, if more sports fanatics actually paid 100 USD to watch these college going kids than a relatively meager ticket cost of 10 USD for internationally renowned football names.

These collegiate athletes do not just become successful sportsmen or women. In a statement on NCAA.com, Mark President spoke about graduation and quality of academics as a key in the success of athletes. He said, “Our academic reforms continue to bear fruit. We are not satisfied, but we are proud that we have reached another milestone, as now seven of every 10 student-athletes in our highest-profile sports are earning their degrees.” At Notre Dame, the nation’s best American Football program, 97% of the athletes graduate with a degree. Almost every year, one NCAA athlete is a recipient of or at least in top contention for the prestigious Rhodes scholarship which is awarded to global scholars from the University of Oxford. As the years have gone by, the criminal associations with these athletes have also come down to a staggering low at present where most athletes were able to obtain non-sports associates jobs that easily. Finally, an alumnus of the NCAA sports program starts with an above average starting salary in non-sports professions, donates more money than an average global millionaire and has engaged in aiding the society than what many social workers can only dream.

Many of us in India compare our political system to that of America and believe that we fail to allocate endowments to sports. True. Our infrastructure is unsatisfactory, agreed. But we do have our sport – Cricket.

Cricket is by far the single most important sport in the nation and it gets every possible funding as possible. Indians breathe, breed and die Cricket. Yet, our authority in the game declined after the World Cup which barely existed for a year. (Wait, for how long has America bagged the most number of Olympic medals?) Even Cricket’s success ranks unfittingly low compared to that of NCAA athletes. And to measure popularity – only a handful of Indian cricketers’ facebook pages or twitter accounts have as many followers as compared to these NCAA prodigies.

Years from now, America will still produce the prodigious talents in every sport. The only question for the world to answer is will the rest compete? We don’t need to continue to blame our existent systems, irrespective of however corrupt they are. As candles are blown away each time we crib about our politicians or what not, America is continuing to strive miles ahead in sports despite corrupt politicians being prevalent there as well. It is disgraceful to label our athletes as unworthy talents. Instead, it’s best to learn from how success was actually achieved.

Now that the secret formula has been revealed for quite some time, it is a requisite that the nations go back to their drawing boards and develop their athletes from the grass root levels. Be it infrastructure, equipment or education, a collegiate system plays a massive role in grooming the future of sports in any country, and it is essential that nations learn from the Land of the opportunities – ‘murica! Start from the grassroots, quit cribbing about politics, and make college a bigger place than just classroom education. For all we know, a decade from now, our Olympic teams might actually rank in the top 20.