Grambling Strike: My thoughts



My eyes can't stop looking at the shoulder pads.

There are other bad images if you watch the ESPN video story on the Grambling Football Team's strike this past week. The floor tiles in the weight room coming up. The mildew on the walls and the ceiling tiles in the locker room.

But I can't stop looking at the shoulder pads.

Those are touching someone's body every day.

In a letter to the athletic department (that was obtained by Pedro Gomez of ESPN) the football players outlined exactly what they believe was wrong with the current state of affairs. Among their concerns were:

1. Mildew and mold in the athletic complex. Apparently this was noticed by other programs; when Lamar came to play at Grambling, the Lamar players refused to enter the locker room at halftime.
2. Care of equipment and gear. See shoulder pads above, and also the mentions of the floor being in poor shape. Hell, they want better detergent to clean their uniforms and practice uniforms so they don't get, um, staph infections. Silly little demands like that.
3. There are inconveniences like lack of Gatorade and Muscle Milk and poor maintenance of the practice fields during the summer. Practicing in fields of grass where the grass was knee-high. Oh, and the long ass bus rides to away games. And the lack of a team hotel for Friday nights before home games. And the fact that they were not housed for summer camp and had to commute from home to practice and back during camp.
4. Of course, the firing of Doug Williams came up as a point of contention as well, and that the team was not addressed by the president or athletic director for a month after the firing.

Part of what troubles me is this, though:

The next complaint is about money donated from friends of football

and the alumni association. Money from both organizations is being rejected.
The funds donated can help take care of some of our expenses. The funding
can supply Muscle Milk, Gatorade, help house us or even get the complex
cleaned and updated. All things that are much needed. The funds are rejected
by the university, because the organizations that donate the money want to put
their money toward a specific cause, not the university or athletics as a whole.

Now, I know that I've been out of higher education for a couple of years now, and I understand the sentiment on some level behind not wanting to allow funding to go towards specific causes when the entire institution is hurting for cash. I really sympathize with that, especially given that the budget has been cut by nearly $20 million over the last six years.

BUT...when people want to give money to a specific part of the institution, I've always been of the mind that you allow the funds to be earmarked for that special project and you gladly accept the money for two reasons:

1. You want that area getting the funding to get its funding and maybe—maybe!—it means you don't have to take money from another area to patch that budget hole.

2. If you allow that donor to give to a pet project of theirs, maybe you can work on them in the future for something else. You're not just raising/cultivating funds; you're trying to promote a financial friendship for your institution.

Requiring everything to run through the foundation, while noble, is also a pigheaded and stubborn way to approach trying to help your institution. I know, I know; in times of financial crisis, you can't have athletics (football in particular) look as if it is getting something when everyone else is suffering; when faculty are being asked to take on extra classes with no additional pay; when staff are being forced to take furloughs so their salaries can be reduced in a more "noble" fashion.

But why, in a time of financial crisis, would you turn down ANY money from ANY source? If Doug Williams managed to raise the money to buy a new floor for his football team and get the floor purchased, why the hell are you locking it up in a closet instead of installing the damn floor and smiling because that is one line item you no longer have to worry about?

That's how you keep things on beam and don't allow your once proud program to become a talking point for every pundit (including yours truly) in the country with access to a video camera, a microphone or a computer.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in the next few days. Can an accord be reached? Or will this scene become even uglier and sadder than what it already is?