When organizers for next year’s College Football Playoff officially announced the 13 members of the new selection committee last week, the most controversial name chosen was former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
During College Gameday’s trip to Evanston, Ill., for the Northwestern-Ohio State game on Oct. 5, ESPN analyst David Pollack drew ire from many when he suggested women shouldn’t be on the committee. He claimed members should be able to “tell you about different teams on tape, not on paper.”
Later that week, former Auburn coach Pat Dye said on a radio show, “All [Rice] knows about football is what somebody told her. … To understand football, you’ve got to play with your hand in the dirt.”
The opinions of Dye and Pollack are not only puzzling, but their statements reflect barriers in football that draw many away from the sport.
Pollack is entitled to his opinion, but let’s get something straight: having an Adam’s apple does not hinder my view on romantic comedies, and Rice lacking one does not hinder her football knowledge.
Maybe Dye and Pollack didn’t know Rice served as Stanford University’s provost, a position to which Stanford athletics directly report, from 1993-1999. In fact, Rice hired Tyrone Willingham to be Stanford’s coach in 1994.
I doubt a school like Stanford would have their next coach hired by someone who only knows what other people told her.
Rice also grew up in a Birmingham, Ala., football family, living with a dad who was a football coach when she was born. In a conference call Oct. 16, Rice cited Alabama controversially being ranked behind Notre Dame in the final 1966 Associated Press poll as motivation to join the committee.
Only a real football fan could feel so wronged by a controversial decision that they would bring it up in a meeting 47 years later.
Remember, this is the woman who served as secretary of state for four years. It’s fair to say that dealing with the Middle East and North Korea is a little tougher than analyzing Ohio State’s strength of schedule.
The real problem here is the elitist idea that someone has to have competed in football to be an expert of the game. It is a way of thinking: “If you never played the game, you just don’t get it.”
I wonder if anyone told that to Pete Rozelle, commissioner of the NFL from 1960-1989, despite never playing football himself. Rozelle took a 12-team league that received worse ratings than its college product and turned it into the sport America craves more than anything else. He is also known for the creation of a neutral site for the Super Bowl and Monday Night Football.
And I know this isn’t much of a news flash, but there are a lot of players who have “put their hand in the dirt” and lack some basic knowledge in the game they play. Hell, Donovan McNabb made it into the NFL without knowing that there can be ties in the league.
As the committee begins its work next year, I am sure some of the 12 other members will dismiss the lone woman and use the same backwards train of thought used by Dye and Pollack.
It is up to the other members to defend Rice and realize the wealth of knowledge she brings to the table.
Football does not get sensational, committed minds like Rice often. As a fan of the game, I hope it isn’t thrown away.