Dropping the Ball, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #80

June 15, 2010 Arthur Tebbel 2 Comments

Dear Art,

We’ve had a really shitty week over here. First our athletic program was hit with some massive penalties including a two-year ban on bowl games and loss of scholarships for both our football and basketball programs. As if this weren’t bad enough one of our marquee players greatly embarrassed us this weekend. I’m referring of course to New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez presenting an award at the Tony Awards. He revealed himself as a theatre fan. So between our loss of opportunity and the huge hit to our street cred what can we do to recruit players to our school?

Mike Garrett, athletic director, University of Southern California

Mike,

I think you’re going about this completely the wrong way. What you had can never be regained and you’ll look like an asshole trying. What you have to do is start spinning all of these things as positives.

You got in trouble for giving improper benefits to some athletes; become known for giving improper benefits to all your athletes. Your recruiting trips should just be stacks of cash, attractive women, and kennels full of smart kids forging papers. Sure you’ll be on NCAA probation a lot but it seems like it takes years for these investigations to go down. You can just go on huge stretches of winning and winning broken up by some time taking heat. You can even spend that downtime coming up with more clever perks for your athletes. You can use your periods of intense focus to come up with things while things like playing sports against other teams of amateur athletes distract your opponents.

You could also be the only school actively recruiting the gay student athletes. Statistically some college football players are gay. Even among the elite. Hell, more might be among the elite if they weren’t distracted by all the stress of being forced into the closet. You could probably have a huge chunk of them if you were a little more receptive to gay stereotypes. It probably takes you out of the running of all the Tim Tebow type players that wear their religion on their sleeve but if I learned anything from a childhood spent watching mediocre sports movies everyone else will rally and conquer the adversity. You should also get a cowboy with a lasso and a figure skater; they’ll be clutch.

You might feel like you’re having trouble recruiting players who know that no matter how well they play they can’t play in the postseason but you really do have other things to offer them. I’m sure you expect me to say education but we would both know that’s a lie. I’m talking about fame. You have an elite film school loaded with talent and backed by some very wealthy alumni. Promise these kids that while they might not be able to play in the Rose Bowl they can star in the documentary about overcoming that adversity. Only sports fanatics remember every player of a good football team but a documentary is the key to immortality. Your university has an advantage that teams like Texas and Florida will never have, it’s in a city that matters culturally. Use that.

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Art hosts The Scratch Show every Tuesday night. 8pm at Hollywood Billiards. 5750 Hollywood Boulevard.