BET on A Crisis, soon

First there was the news that Alabama Crimson Tide baseball coach Brad Bohannon was fired. Then there was the suspension of more than three dozen athletes from Iowa and Iowa State.

Each of these events, hundreds of miles apart, were connected by the strong, singular thread of sports betting.

Bohannon lost his job because he was communicating with a person making wagers on the Tide’s game with LSU. In Iowa City and Ames, the situation involves bets perhaps coming from the players themselves.

And all this came on the heels of the NFL suspending a handful of players for their wagering, even if had nothing to do with football but was on other sports.

Really, is anyone surprised by this?

Five years have passed since the Supreme Court threw open the doors for legalized sports books in all 50 states. What was once illicit, and covert, was now out in the open.

No doubt, you have noticed, if you’ve watched any sports event on television. Pre-game, during the game, after the game, and in every single commercial break, it’s all about the odds, the prop bets, the point spreads, anything but, you know, the game itself.

True, a fraction of the audience has always cen-

Random Thoughts

Phil Blackwell

tered their interest in a contest on whether they might make a few bucks out of it. Now, though, it’s like they’re the only audience, and the other fans are fools for only caring about who won or lost.

Athletes see all this and are just as immersed in it, if not more than the outside audience. And they are human, just as vulnerable to temptation as all of us.

Drill down to the socalled “amateur” sports, and the picture gets more complicated. Even with the advent of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) funds now available to all college athletes, we all know they’re going to get largely funneled to stars in the revenue sports by scrupulous and not-so-scrupulous individuals.

In other words, the starting quarterback is sure to get compensated, but others? They’ll have to get by on their scholarships – if they even have them, as plenty of athletes in nonrevenue sports don’t.

It’s not a stretch to think that the Iowa and Iowa State players in question fall into this category and could prove vulnerable, even if they all know they cannot wager on any events or risk losing their eligibility.

Oh, and add to it how easy it is to download a sports wagering app and get hooked.

What’s going on now in the United States already happened in Great Britain and Canada. Sports books were legalized thanks to effective lobbying from the gaming industry, widespread betting followed, and so did the stories of men (mostly men) increasing their bets, gambling more, falling into inescapable debt, depression, even a few cases of suicide.

Human nature knows no geographic boundaries, so all of these trends, multiplied by population and betting opportunities, are sure to turn up on these shores, too.

The only question is what form the crisis will take. In the 20th century, without all the forms of technology at our disposal now, we had the Black Sox, various college basketball point-shaving incidents, Paul Horning and Alex Karras suspended by the NFL and Pete Rose kicked out of Major League baseball.

All that we’ve seen so far remains relatively small-scale, nothing vastly organized or involving big names known beyond sports circles. But with billions floating out there and so many sports intertwined with them, no great leap of imagination is required for

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a larger scandal that could paralyze a particular league.

To ask for pure morality is pointless – such loud proclamations are usually accompanied by vast hypocrisy. Still, you can acknowledge the presence of wagers without subjecting an entire broadcast to their whims, or centering an entire storyline of a game around a point spread.

As seen at Alabama, and again on two college campuses in Iowa, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to have our fun and games called into question. So many outlets, with so many ways and means to wager, are close at hand. It will take extraordinary focus to avoid a bigger mess. Not to mention some luck.

Phil Blackwell is sports editor at Eagle News. He can be reached at pblackwell@ eaglenewsonline.com.

lHs Athletic Hall of fame seeks nominees

The Liverpool High School Athletic Hall of Fame Committee is looking for former Liverpool graduates who have distinguished themselves on the athletic fields at LHS. The gymnasium lobby at LHS displays the Hall of Fame inductees who have been honored since the first class of inductees in 1987. More than 200 individual plaques honor past inductees for their athletic achievements and contributions to the athletic program.

To be eligible, a candidate must:

3 have attended Liverpool High School

3 have participated in at least one Varsity Sport at LHS

3 submit, or have submitted on their behalf, a written resume of his/her athletic achievements at LHS

3 be at least five years out of high school (before the class of 2018)

Nominations will be accepted for:

3 Individual athletes - with emphasis on their accomplishments at LHS.

3 Contributor - an outstanding contributor to athletic programs of LHS, either in coaching or other service related to Liverpool athletics. Coaches must be retired to be eligible for induction.

3 Team nominations - those teams that have won state championships or were ranked #1 in the state at the end of the season before there were state playoffs.

Nominations for induction will be accepted until June 30, 2023. Once the nomination is submitted, the nominee will remain eligible for the next five years. Nominations can be submitted online by visiting the Athletic Hall of Fame Web site at liverpool.k12.ny.us/departments/athletics/athletic-hallof-fame.

liverpool Elementary students sing the blues with Colin Aberdeen

Liverpool Elementary band members were in for a treat recently when they had the chance to sing the blues with Syracuse bluesman and Los Blancos frontman Colin Aberdeen.

Aberdeen visited LE as part of Blues in the Schools, a program created by The Blues Foundation. Blues in the Schools offers the opportunity for students of all ages to engage in multidisciplinary, whole-language learning using the study of music, math, language arts, history, anthropology, and sociology in a hands-on approach celebrating creative self-expression. By bringing the blues genre into the classroom, students are exposed to these traditional subjects and an open dialogue about cultural diver-

Submitted photoS liverpool Elementary band members recently sang the blues with syracuse bluesman and los Blancos frontman Colin Aberdeen. sity.

In addition to sharing the history of the blues with LE students and performing, Aberdeen asked students to write their own blues lyrics, which he then brought to life by combining the lyrics with music on his guitar.