Requiem for the Pac-12

 

Of the thousands of baseball games, from t-ball to the bigs, that were played over the past long weekend, one stood out. It wasn’t for some solemn Memorial Day remembrance, but for lowering the flag on a sports icon. In Scottsdale, Arizona, the University of Arizona beat USC on a walk-off single, marking the final conference championship game of the conference of champions. That final hit to left with the runner just beating the catcher’s tag closed out the Pac-12’s existence.

Growing up, New Year’s Day in the Stephens household was nothing special. My parents did not do big New Year’s Eve bashes, preferring to raise a glass on London time, some six hours before midnight. New York City’s inevitable grey, chilly start to the new year hardly inspired long hours running around outside. But come late afternoon, one immovable and sacred ritual held forth: watching the Rose Bowl.

I have no idea why this was so important to my father. His Harvard Crimson had not contended for a bowl berth since before WWII. But we sat in awe of the spectacle on our TV screen: warm sunshine, scrubbed stands, and a mountain backdrop—Hollywood perfect on Hollywood’s doorstep. And there was that sense of continuity; another year of the Pac 10 and Big 10 champions fighting it out as the California sunset closed the first day of the year. And in true movie style, the games seemed to be sequels of either USC or UCLA playing Michigan or Ohio State.

In the era before everyone-gets-a-trophy bowl games, it was also a proud regional display. Long Slavic names barely fit on the Big 10 linemen’s jerseys; tufts off blond hair stuck out from the helmets of the Pac-10’s quarterbacks. Dazed Michigan fans couldn’t understand how the sun lasted so long in the sky at that time of year; Angelenos wondered if the traffic would be bad getting home. Sure I exaggerate and even stereotype for dramatic effect, but look back at the video and you would say I was a lot closer to the truth.

Like so much else, maybe college sports is just morphing into the homogenized world of GAP and Walmart. The irony is that these stores are now more mall geographical points than drivers of taste—the exact opposite regional character. What’s left of the remaining power conferences looks more like the route map of this country’s major airlines—going to all sorts of places in seemingly random ways.

I’m not against some of the bigger changes in college sports, as NIL’s, stipends, and now flat-out revenue-sharing payments are here to stay. And especially for athletes who won’t get to the pros, there will be significant financial support during their student years. More importantly, gone is much of the NCAA’s hypocrisy and flat-out corruption. But are super-sized conferences with “students” swapping teams through the transfer portal really part of college? Are those in the stands really cheering on their team or just a show assembled by money-tossing boosters? It’s a recipe of nihilism swirling in a cauldron cynicism—hardly what today’s youth needs.

Many a columnist has said that college sports have not died but are just changed forever, and I’d like to believe that. But when the teams are just employees playing for money, directed by men and women making even more money, all of whom are subject to the whims of fan fashion and management change, you are left to call it that most American thing: Hollywood. Unlike the movies, the Pac-12 found out there is no happy ending. In fact I’m not even sure how interested I am in watching the Rose Bowl next year, even if it keeps the memory of my father alive.

© 2024 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.