BC exit interview shows loyalty scarce in sports

“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”

— G.K. CHESTERTON, EARLY 20TH-CENTURY ENGLISH NOVELIST

My best guess: Good ol’ G.K. never bothered much with college athletics.

The only surprise about Boston College firing football coach Jeff Jagodzinski on Wednesday for interviewing with the New York Jets is that anyone is surprised.

Loyalty is a nice, clean, romantic concept still cherished by many who believe in remaining faithful to a cause or devoted to one person or thing. It has its place in many facets of life. Sports isn’t one.

It hasn’t been for some time, long before Nick Saban repeatedly lied about not wanting to leave the Miami Dolphins for Alabama or Bobby Petrino cowardly informed his Atlanta Falcons players that he was bolting during the NFL season for Arkansas by taping a one-paragraph note to their lockers.

Jagodzinski is cleaning out his desk in Massachusetts today because he felt it in his best interest to pursue the head coaching vacancy in New York. Boston College officials told him going on such an interview would result in his dismissal. He went. They fired him.

Both sides had every right.

The once endearing notion that college sports is defined by an innocent spirit transformed into big business years ago. The five Bowl Championship Series bowls this season — including tonight’s national championship between Florida and Oklahoma — will pay $17.5 million to each participating team’s conference.

Ohio State this year has an athletics department budget of $115 million, meaning it spends more than $110,000 on each of its athletes, because Lord knows the price of those fancy stickers they place on football helmets has risen.

Texas has a budget of $101 million. Saban makes $4 million annually to coach Alabama, or $19,237.69 for every yard his team gained in getting hammered by Utah.

Translation: Loyalty at this level is more imitation than an ornamental Christmas tree, trumped every time by the bottom line.

Which is to say it’s like most things in life.

No one should resent Jagodzinski for chasing what he views a career advancement, just as Boston College was correct in sacking him if it thought he was dishonest about the Jets situation and that there was an unwritten agreement he would fulfill the terms of his original five-year deal.

“We’re really good friends, and this is a very difficult thing to do,” Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo said. “But we will find somebody who really wants to be at Boston College and will be here for the length of their contract.”

Here’s the thing: Unless the last name is Bowden or Paterno or Krzyzewski or Summitt, a coach’s word about his or her commitment to a university is about as trustworthy as airline schedules in the middle of winter. It’s just how it is, and those recruits and their families who still don’t understand or accept it to be a heartless industry are fooling themselves.

Kids and those who help them make decisions are hopefully more savvy by now, and yet the fact athletes are penalized for breaking a letter of intent when transferring while a coach can jump from job to job without consequence remains one of the many NCAA rules best defined as absurd.

But to believe a coach who looks you in the eye and promises to be around your entire career is to believe the child swearing he didn’t eat the chocolate cake whose crumbs still line his lips. There is nothing a coach won’t say to sign a player he thinks can make a difference. Nothing.

Jagodzinski went 20-8 in two seasons at Boston College and made consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference title games, so he hadn’t yet reached the point that failure could lead to his dismissal. But coaches are fired all the time for not winning, so who’s to blame any for following what they might believe is a more secure opportunity?

He saw the chance and went for it. His employer warned him not to at the expense of his job. The athletes again had no control or say over any of it.

There is no wrong side to it, just this reality: You can trace the history of sports and discover examples in which loyalty won out, in which athletes and coaches snubbed outside offers and remained committed to certain teams or colleges.

But those instances have dwindled to a few as bank accounts and egos grew.

Loyalty is a nice, clean, romantic concept.

Just not in sports. There, the sea might be stormy, but it’s every man for himself.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at 702-383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.