Dec. 8—Is intercollegiate football at the highest level worth continuing at the University of New Mexico?
Probably not, but good sense has little to do with the politics of running an institution of higher learning.
No university president wants to be remembered for disbanding the football team. No member of the board of regents can abide an angry earful about trashing tradition or relinquishing visibility. A mere mention of the football team on ESPN excites a faction of the alumni, even if those same people don’t buy tickets to the games.
Football will always be important at Alabama and Texas, Notre Dame and Michigan. The game matters less and less each season at UNM and other schools that are not part of power conferences and cannot afford good players with a brand of their own.
College bowl games begin this month, but UNM made news only because head coach Bronco Mendenhall resigned after one season.
He quit the Lobos to coach Utah State, a school in a smaller market with a profile as low as New Mexico’s. No one should blame Mendenhall for jumping to what he hopes will be a better situation. He works in a system that treats players and coaches more as mercenaries than as students and mentors.
There was a time when a football coach’s brief tenure at UNM was the sign of a successful program. But that was long ago.
The best coach ever employed by UNM lasted only a year longer than Mendenhall. Marv Levy became head coach of the Lobos at age 32. He finished 7-3 in each of his two seasons, 1958-59, before leaving for the University of California.
Cal passed over well-known coaches to hire Levy, a phi beta kappa scholar who pressed his players to work hard in the classroom. He seemed like a good fit in Berkeley, except he didn’t win many games. Levy’s record at Cal was 8-29-3.
He stuck with his profession after that disaster, eventually becoming head coach of two NFL teams.
Levy’s glory years were with the Buffalo Bills. He led them to four consecutive Super Bowls, all losses. The Bills haven’t played for a world championship since Levy coached them three decades ago. He is 99 now, a pearl of a gentleman and the oldest living member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
New Mexico could not have retained Levy even if its richest booster had approached the coach with a blank check. Cal was a step toward the big time, and Levy took it.
Now Mendenhall sees Logan, Utah, with one-tenth the population of Albuquerque, as a more promising destination for a college football coach. He probably is right, too. Utah State University is the biggest business in Logan and its athletic teams are the town’s primary source of pride and entertainment.
Following college football has become a chore for people with a wealth of options on how to spend their time and discretionary income. Collegiate players these days drop in and out of universities so rapidly that many casual fans turned to other diversions.
Seeking the best business opportunities and the most playing time, certain players will transfer to two different universities before the start of a season. The old days were worse for the athletes, if we’re being honest. A coach could hold up transfers of players even as he planned to bolt to another school.
Many college coaches still care about academics in this era of football factories with revolving doors, but their efforts often are overlooked. The CBS News program 60 Minutes last season aired a profile on Colorado coach Deion Sanders without ever mentioning academics.
A charismatic hall-of-fame player in both college and the NFL, Sanders rebuilt Colorado’s football program in two years. The Buffaloes won one game the season before he arrived. They are 9-3 this year after Sanders brought in more than 70 new players.
Many fans loathe Sanders and love rooting against him. The animosity helps his team pack stadiums. If Colorado can hang onto Sanders, 57, the school’s transition from doormat to moneyed contender has a chance to last.
UNM and dozens of other schools lack the resources and tradition to replicate the turnabout at Colorado. Bound by fear or habit, the have-nots will keep playing football anyway.
The biggest upset would be if they ever admitted the game has passed them by.
Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.
