Straying from your lane

It might just be me, but politics and sports rarely mix well. Sports are the toy store of life. Government is supposed to deal with the real world, where decisions affect livelihoods, national security and, sometimes, lives themselves.

Yet here we are.

The NCAA has spent years losing in court and now wants Congress and the president, of all people, to provide the rules that will govern college athletics. We somehow expect the same partisan elected officials struggling to find any way to collaborate to solve wars, immigration, deficits and countless other national issues to figure out how much college athletes should be paid?

The NCAA and university leaders created this mess. As states passed their own laws governing what used to be amateur athletics, the system became increasingly chaotic. Instead of finding a solution themselves, college sports increasingly turned to deeply divided Washington.

The legal unraveling began with Ed O'Bannon's successful challenge over athletes' name, image and likeness rights and ultimately culminated in the settlement of the lawsuit brought by Grant House. Since then, the economics of college sports have exploded. NIL collectives have evolved into direct payments to athletes. Free agency and bidding wars are no longer exceptions — they're part of the business model.

Perhaps the most ironic part of the story is that the named plaintiff whose case ultimately helped throw college athletics into chaos wasn't a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback or a national championship point guard. He was a swimmer at Arizona State University.

Grant House was an outstanding swimmer, but swimming isn't exactly a revenue-producing sport. The entire legal argument was supposed to rest on athletes generating such enormous revenue for their universities that they needed a larger cut than a free education with room and board. It's interesting that one of the least profitable sports produced the plaintiff whose lawsuit helped break open the entire system.

Maybe that was precisely the role of Grant House, to turn the issue away from paying football and basketball stars and make it about every college athlete. Not surprisingly, when the large majority of smaller schools fall short of money, it will be the Grant Houses of the world whose sport will be cut.

Still, why does this require an executive order or congressional action? Why not let university presidents and athletic leaders solve the problem they created? No one wants to be the person responsible for the unintended consequences that will inevitably affect thousands of athletes while a relatively small number earn enormous paychecks.

Which brings me to another example of wandering out of your lane.

Like many Americans, I watched the controversy surrounding the red card shown to U.S. striker Folarin Balogun. I played soccer most of my life and coached it even longer. I thought the red card was excessive, and I wasn't convinced the video review process was performed correctly. Balogun appeared to accept the decision — even if he didn't agree with it — and prepared to miss the required match.

Truthfully, this World Cup has convinced me that VAR has become too intrusive. We've seen outcomes turn on offside decisions determined by the tip of a player's shoelace, something the naked eye would never see. We've had goals erased because officials found a foul far earlier in the attacking sequence. Egypt recently had a goal overturned after officials reviewed contact that occurred nearly the length of the field before the ball crossed the goal line. Argentina had every opportunity to stop the attack, yet the play was rewound and the goal disappeared.

Reasonable people can disagree with those calls. Former players, referees and analysts certainly have. But that's where the discussion should stay.

The president of the United States shouldn't be calling FIFA in an attempt to influence a disciplinary decision. Whether you agreed with the red card or thought it was a terrible call is beside the point. International soccer doesn't need presidential intervention any more than college athletics needs Congress writing its rulebook.

Sometimes the best thing leaders can do is remember that not every problem belongs to them. Things in life’s toy store are better left to the people actually playing the game.