Cyndi Lauper Is Right – Money Changes Everything In College Football

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Everybody wants more money. I want more so I can buy a beach house. I have always wished for more no matter what phase of life no matter how much money I was making. This isn’t just me. It’s you, too.

Money fuels life. It enhances life. And it destroys it. Money intoxicates, corrupts, tempts, and causes us pain, and enables us to fly around and see the world, gets us invited to high-brow cocktail parties or leaves us at home alone, or scrounging for grocery money, or eating a sirloin steak.

One of my favorite singers, Cyndi Lauper, produced one of the best songs ever about money, “Money Changes Everything,” which bluntly communicates how money makes people do different things, change partners, become selfish, and betray lovers. These are the lyrics:

She said I’m sorry baby, I’m leaving you tonight.

I found someone new, he’s waiting in the car outside.

We think we know what we’re doing, but that doesn’t mean a thing.

It’s all in the past now.

Money changes everything.

They shake your hand.

And they smile and they buy you a drink.

They say we’ll be your friends.

We’ll stick with you till the end.

But everybody’s only looking out for themselves.

The words to this song capture the emotions, desires, and selfishness now complicating college football.

Everybody’s only looking out for themselves.

Last week’s demolition by Ole Miss of Wake Forest showed us how. It wasn’t the fault of Wake players many of whom are good athletes; they tried their best but ran up against faster, stronger, and more athletic players.

They didn’t quit. They just got beat.

But the real news and relevance to money transforming lives wasn’t the clobbering of Wake Forest. It was what happened the next day.

Wake announced it was giving back the $1 million they would receive for playing at Ole Miss next season. Some Wake fans thought it was quitting too soon after getting crushed admitting they can’t compete with that team.

Partially true, I suppose. Maybe coach Dave Clawson just doesn’t want his team getting whipped so badly because he knows a year from now the talent disparity between the two teams will probably be more stark. From a wins and losses perspective for the next several years, he knows the program he’s leading is in serious trouble – and that’s relevant to his job security and the size of his house. Maybe this decision is the first of several Clawson makes that reveal he doesn’t feel Wake Forest football has a future without drastic structural changes including switching to a less competitive conference. Maybe he’s already planning his exit after this season. Maybe he will start dedicating the rest of his career to fixing this college football fiasco where the almighty dollar dominates, beguiles, deteriorates, and devastates. Maybe he’ll retire and live in his beach house full-time.

Anything seems possible right now for Clawson and the entire world of college football. These are desperate times; expect desperate actions.

But deciding not to play Ole Miss next year has more to it, I believe, than not wanting to get beat up by a better team next year. I think he also was irate the team’s coach, Lane Kiffen, had his defensive players fake injuries at least five times to slow the Wake offense, which thrives on running plays quickly so the defense can’t make adjustments.

Clawson was angry and lost respect for Kiffen because the latter had the much better team yet still lowered himself to the fake injury tactic. A guy who does that in Clawson’s mind lacks class, and this Williams College graduate, articulate for sure, isn’t shy about speaking out when he thinks something is wrong; the man is awesome, talented, and admirable but he has a bit of a self-righteous vibe about him, an impulse to jab at people passive-aggressively. He doesn’t want to compete against that kind of coach if he doesn’t have to. He’s a proud man. Getting embarrassed gnaws at him.

He is so against doing that that he took $1 million out of his program – which he could have used to pay more talented players to join his team.

This is a telling and startling decision I can’t recall ever happening before.

Clawson is disenchanted with the transfer portal revolving door chaos because Wake Forest is not well positioned to benefit from it. Other schools have more alumni to pitch in to pay more for better players. The blunt truth is he doesn’t have much to sell players anymore. A Wake Forest degree isn’t as valuable to players as it may have been before. When you can make a million dollars to leave Wake and play for NC State or whomever, why would a player care about getting a bachelor of arts degree from Wake that it will likely take them 20 or 30 years in the workforce to possibly make a million dollars?

An education, a degree, isn’t worth as much. This is a major national trend. Going to college isn’t as in vogue as it once was. Ten years from now plenty of colleges and universities will close due to lack of enrollment; kids and parents won’t feel the money spent will deliver a big enough payoff. Of those that survive they’ll pay football players more to help them win games with less emphasis on improving academic standards.

Understandably, players want to make money now rather than sweating it out in the working world for decades. It’s an easy short-term choice.

A bachelor’s degree is no guarantee you’ll make any money. Being a talented college football player pretty much is.

I have a bachelor of arts degree from Wake. It’s taken decades to make money and for many years it wasn’t much – massively less than the $1 million an 18-year-old can now make playing football.

Something’s askew here. The kids are getting rich. The value of education is going down. The adults have lost power. If you’re one of the lucky ones talented enough to make millions as a teenager, it’s great in the short term. You’re set up for life in one sense – if you don’t squander it.

But what about becoming a learned person, able to read classic literature and continue a lifelong intellectual journey? What is that worth? A million dollars?

No, not technically. However, I believe the gift of intellectual curiosity and non-stop learning makes life stimulating. The mystery of it all can be explored mentally with the pursuit of knowledge, insights, connecting dots, and wisdom. I like learning and I wouldn’t as much had I not experienced a college education. A college education exposed me to a wide range of subjects that I didn’t care about until then; I’m more intrigued to learn. But a player making millions playing college football can read the same books I did in college. And besides, skills are becoming much more important to employers than undergraduate degrees and a desire to read great literature. If you can ask ChatGPT smart questions that deliver valuable information to your business quickly, why do you need to have read “Paradise Lost” or have studied anthropology?

So why bother going to college?

Does it matter anymore if you become wiser, more capable of connecting the dots of this complex world, a smarter person who makes valuable contributions to society?

What are those contributions to society and why doesn’t society pay you a million dollars for what you contribute?

Part of the answer is these players entertain us on Saturdays. We watch.

Nobody watches a sports blogger type or a prompt engineer type query. Watching a safety crash into a tight end is exciting; watching a person type on a computer is dull. There’s no physical contact, and the potential for injury, to lure us in.

Where does all this leave us?

At a crossroads feeling uneasy and exposed for liking to watch physical contact on a football field among 18-22 year olds. It’s a confusing and exceptionally unsettling time. No one knows how this college football feeding frenzy fiasco will get resolved re-conceptualized or reconfigured. Maybe nothing will change for the next five years. If that’s the case, Wake Forest has very little chance of consistently winning which is sad for you and me but this transfer portal part sure as hell isn’t about what we want. At the opening game of Wake’s season, an ad was posted on the jumbotron essentially asking everyone in the stadium to donate to pay the Wake football players more money. It felt crass and weird. I don’t want to pay Wake players to win; I just want them to win.

If I stop watching college football games to try to do my little part to reduce the money being grabbed, it won’t matter because most people will continue tuning in. And the players will keep getting rich.

At young ages.

Far too early in life, I believe, for them to understand and appreciate the value of that amount of money and how hard it is to earn in almost all other professions over a 30-year career.

Money is an emotionally charged and manipulative ever-present allure. The craving for money is tied to our innate desire to feel secure and comfortable. We all want more of it but when we get it we want more of it and inevitably it doesn’t bring us total satisfaction and often the opposite. The players will keep pressuring coaches for more cash. More coaches will quit because they’ll get fed up with the greed that distracts and pollutes the purity of the sport. It’s now all about money. The player says: Pay me or I’ll transfer. The coach says: If I can’t control my players, I can’t coach my team the way I want. And if I can’t do that, I can’t win and then I’ll leave or get fired and make less money.

In a typical business if an employee says pay me or I’ll leave, most of the time the business will tell them to leave. The boss won’t care as much as a college football coach because the money they make won’t be tied as directly to keeping the employee around.

College football is different. Coaches need the best players to keep their multimillion-dollar jobs that they clench tightly knowing it’s more enjoyable than most other office jobs. So they’re in on the money game fearful of leaving football for work that isn’t really about playing games; it’s hard, monotonous, and unglamorous. It all revolves around these people wanting to hold onto their money and go after more: bigger paychecks, bigger houses, bigger boats, bigger cocktail parties, and bigger egos.

Let’s not forget gambling. Players either are now or will soon be taking on side bets to influence winning or losing games. The temptations will become more alluring as the amounts offered continue to rise. Raise the amounts, raise the temptations.

It’s worth re-inserting here Lauper’s words because they fit this situation so well.

They shake your hand.

And they smile and they buy you a drink.

They say we’ll be your friends.

We’ll stick with you till the end.

But everybody’s only looking out for themselves.

In college football, it’s the players, coaches, agents, and parents all focusing on their interests grabbing as much bank as they can. Trust is gone. Loyalty doesn’t mean anything. No one’s looking out for anyone until the end. They’re all about only one thing: getting more money for themselves.

This system runs amok, off the rails, with no one at the helm. It’s not even college football anymore. It’s something else. It feels dirty. It is dirty.

It’s all business and money-grabbing and every man looking out for himself.

I learned while studying for my bachelor of arts degree, especially reading Shakespeare, that when everyone gets really selfish everything falls apart. The people don’t end up happy. Tragedy descends and destroys. The money never is enough, the power fleeting and unfulfilling, and the falls agonizingly painful.

I don’t think this is going to end well; Shakespeare would agree. I don’t think it’s good for America. I don’t think it’s good for the players, coaches or fans.

Someone needs to get this train back on the tracks before we all watch a thunderous crash before money destroys the whole transmogrifying enterprise.

Sing it, Cyndi:

She said I’m sorry baby, I’m leaving you tonight.

I found someone new, he’s waiting in the car outside.

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Sammy Sportface

Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here: Sammy Sportface Has a Vision -- Check It Out Sammy Sportface -- The Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog -- Facebook Page

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Sammy Sportface

Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:

Sammy Sportface Has a Vision -- Check It Out

Sammy Sportface -- The Baby Boomer Brotherhood Blog -- Facebook Page