College Football: The Wrongs Of Spring

While the 1977 version of the Harvard football team was (a) cramming in Lamont for next year's Generals, (b) pounding away at their typewriters trying to get their Fine Arts papers in on time, (c) tearing their arms off in the wristwrestling tournament last Monday, their counterparts across the country were banging heads together in an annual ritual known as spring practice.

Now don't get me wrong--I like football as well as the next guy and I suppose you could make a case that I like it even a little more. But this spring practice stuff has gotten more than a little out of hand. For example at USC the first day out in pads the coaching staff put the squad through a full-speed, full-contact scrimmage that put a number of ballplayers in the training room--and the hospital. You might say that's life but this ain't even football season. Spring practice is supposed to be a learning experience but all most players apparently learn is "watch your ass."

Under NCAA rules, spring practice is limited to 20 sessions which must be completed within 30 days. You all may or may not think that a month's practice is a hell of a hunk of a school year, outside of football season, but add to that all the time necessary to get ready for those thirty days--(you better be in damn good shape or you'll get your clock cleaned) and it becomes ridiculous.

Spring practice began as a way to get players in some semblance of shape after the long winter. It gave coaches a chance to look over their players in a no-pressure situation and afforded them a chance to look at and help some players that might be overlooked in the rush of preseason practice.

But spring practice now plays a different role. Coaches no longer rely on preseason non-conference games to get their players ready for league play. In the race for top rankings which bring national attention, which brings television appearances, which bring money, no longer is any game a preseason affair. Spring practice has taken the place of fall preseason. All personnel and strategy decisions are made long before the team reports in August. That all-out session at USC has become necessary so that the team can be set and ready before the season even begins. Like the pros, college football has become a nine-months-of-the-year affair.

Faced with this nationwide spectacle of escalation, the Ivy League, in hopes of keeping its student-athletes in class, has altogether banned spring practice but for one non-contact organizatinal day. So we all get happily fat.

But what about all those guys that spring practice could help, the ballplayers that could improve with some personal coaching, that deserve a closer look? Coach Joe Restic would like to see the Ivy League adopt a limited spring format where upcoming sophomores and non-lettermen could voluntarily don the pads to show their stuff, to learn techniques not yet mastered, to benefit from individualized attention, to get a better shake. This is what spring practice once was and this is what spring practice should again be.

So, Harvard football players, the next time you open a frostie on a warm spring day, think of what you're missing...