Naming rights: thoughts on the Ed O'Bannon NCAA case

I have been reading about the Ed O'Bannon vs. NCAA lawsuit with great interest, because the topic of compensation for college athletes often prompted long, heated debates among my sportswriting/coaching/administrative friends in college sports.

The agreement between school and athlete should be simple: one plays ball (or whatever the sport is) for the school, and in exchange that school promises to do everything it can to enable the athlete to achieve a legitimate college degree.

But of course, there is nothing simple about the NCAA and college athletics. In fact, I suspect the reality is that such a basic agreement never existed in college athletics at any time. The very premise seems flawed to me to begin with, in that schools are there to develop the best and brightest minds of our young people, so what does being the physically fastest and strongest have to do with that? But that's another (pointless) debate.

From the beginning, schools recognized that a successful sports team wearing the name of Enormous State U. across the front of the jersey brought a level of recognition that an academic institution could never achieve on its own. And that recognition produced more interest from potential students as well as more faithful (financial) support from graduates and 'fans.' So right from the start, schools were known to compete for top athletes regardless of their academic accomplishment or potential.

Go back to 1932 and the Marx Brothers' movie "Horse Feathers'' and you'll hear Groucho's character berate his college faculty, saying: “This college is a failure. The trouble is we’re neglecting football for education." My father, born in 1919, used to tell me about seeing guys who played for one school one year and then the next year would be competing for another school, selling their athletic ability to the highest bidder. Academic progress was never a consideration.

There is no question the monitoring of college athletics is far better than it has ever been. "Student-athletes" (to use the colloquialism of the NCAA member institutions) are actually now required to achieve a certain minimum standard to be eligible to compete at a four-year school, a standard that has risen periodically and that - despite outcries to the contrary - the athletes generally are able to raise their academic performance to meet.

And once in school, there are actual "academic progress'' rules intended to help athletes along toward that graduation (although I always did like the old coaches' response to the question "How many of your athletes graduate?" "Everyone that wants to.")

However, how far does an athlete sell himself in that play-for-education agreement?

That's the crux of several of the lawsuits the NCAA has found itself involved in recently.

The NCAA argues that it has absolute rights to all money-making associated with the athlete while that athlete is in college - including that athlete's ability to sign an autograph, offer pictures of himself, his ability being used as a component of a video game. If the athlete is successful, the school jersey bearing that athletes' number goes up in value; as does his teams' value to appearing on TV and radio.

In the old days, the greed of the fans and lack of academic oversight by schools forced the NCAA to step in and create so many rules. Otherwise, fans would be providing athletes with enormous benefits (money, cars, clothes, trips, girls) to both lure those athletes to the fans' favorite school as well as enable the fan to be seen associating with the young jock. The NCAA couldn't allow an open, free market on athletes, because only the biggest schools with the wealthiest fan bases would win.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much how it is anyway. Why? Because those same fans, in their passion, can't bestow their gratitude upon individual players (legally), so they give to the school. They buy game tickets, season tickets, sky boxes, parking passes, and even make ever-larger donations in order to have the privilege of buying those things. The demand for the college game and benefits of a successful college team bring more "revenue streams" to college athletic departments. About the only individual who can truly benefit from this is the head coach, which is why college head coaches make professional-grade money - and are worth every cent, when you look at the revenue stream their programs produce for the school's athletic department and, by extension, university at large.

Quite frankly, I don't see how it can be legal for a school to tell an individual he can't profit from his name, his likeness, his ability, his marketability, and yet turn around and itself profit from those attributes of the individual. If there is anything each of us would seem to have exclusive rights to, it is our identity - not that we can't sell our identity away, but shouldn't that be our own, individual choice?

So, then, what do you do? If you let athletes profit from their identity, then the smart athletes will look to see what school provides the best opportunity to generate the most profit. Let's be honest: opportunities vary from school to school. The signature of a star athlete at, say, Lehigh is not going to be worth that of the signature of a mediocre athlete at the University of Texas, for a number of reasons.

In a free market system, athletes would be able to choose which offer from which school they feel is best for them, and then be free to profit from their own accomplishments (outside of ticket sales and broadcast revenue, which is negotiated not on the value of an individual but of the collective reputation built by scores of successful athletes and coaches). I have no problem with schools/conferences negotiation huge TV deals and selling season tickets for enormous sums of money and collecting outrageous contributions from fans without a dime of that money going to an individual athlete.

What I do have a problem with is the athlete not being able to capitalize on what he or she does do that is unique to them, meaning their individual ability, which in turn creates a value in their name and reputation and likeness.

Do all athletes deserve to be compensated? No. Track and field, tennis, swimming, rowing, lacrosse, rifle, equestrian, bass fishing, rodeo, rugby ... a host of sports sponsored by schools big and small do not generate the revenue stream of football and men's basketball (not even men's baseball or women's basketball, despite a growing popularity, comes close).

Yet schools are government entities, and operate by law under this idea of equality that says you can't discriminate based on gender or sport. In fact, most schools are forced to offer more scholarships for women's teams than men's teams despite women's sports not being nearly as profitable. Title IX and other laws attempt to force a certain equality that isn't really there.(Title IX became law in 1972, long before anyone imagined a time of multi-million dollar coaching contracts, broadcast agreements, rights fees, merchandising and naming rights). In fact, you can take that further and even say that a star football player at the aforementioned Lehigh is not worth the same as the star at Texas, at least not economically speaking.

So NCAA member institutions are caught in this no man's land, playing socialist institution on one side and free market capitalist on the other. To borrow a line from one of my favorite sports movies, "North Dallas Forty" (about a pro team, but the point is the same), when one side calls it a sport, the other side says it's a business; but when the first side then says OK it's a business, the other side calls it a sport.

The problem with saying a basketball player deserves more than they already get (and make no mistake, they are well taken care of between education, books, housing, meals, shoes, clothes when needed, expense money and, when warranted, spending money from the full amount of a Pell Grant) is that if you say you'll give basketball players more, then you will also be required to give more to the guy on a lacrosse scholarship, which isn't sustainable unless you devalue the basketball player in order to create value for rugby.

The NCAA has tried to legislate parity, just as professional sports leagues do. Unfortunately, while in professional leagues the value of each individual franchise can be pretty close (in a given year), colleges have a huge disparity in value -- which means if the NCAA allows the schools who can afford to offer greater benefits (which could be anything from spending money to long term health benefits), then it has to accept that some schools - perhaps the majority of NCAA schools - will be at a competitive disadvantage and many schools - and their fans - would just have to accept that.

But then, that's the real world. Established businesses can offer far better benefits than a start-up company. A Fortunate 100 company can attract a higher quality employee than the mom and pop shop on Main Street. Every start-up and mom and pop shop typically hopes one day to compete at the level of an Exxon or Apple, but until then, Exxon and Apple simply enjoys benefits they've earned by either being first in the field, or perhaps just simply better at "playing the game" than the competition.

The easy way is for schools to simply stop selling merchandise identified with individual players (which a handful of schools have done), stop marketing anything that highlights the individual athlete (isn't that the essence of "there is no 'I' in team'?")

But, as Michael Jordan once famously said, "there is an 'I' in "win."

The NCAA hopes no one remembers that.

Smallville

My life has gotten smaller over the years.

I grew up in Atlanta, which was a big city even in those days; moved to Birmingham, which was not as big as Atlanta but still pretty good size; then lived along the Gulf Coast in a series of places, and now find myself in a small town in Mississippi (population around 12,000).

People often ask me about the difference between living in a big city and a small town, and I used to tell them that it's not as big of a difference as they'd think. When you live in a big city, even though you are in a metropolis of millions of people with all the supporting businesses and entertainment that goes with it, you tend to spend most of your life in a relatively small part. You go to the local stores, eat at favorite restuarants, shop at familiar stores. In many ways, we tend to turn big cities into small towns by reducing the area to our small corner of the big town.

I used to say that, and I believed it.

I was wrong.

It's not that small towns are not without amenities. There is usually a Wal-Mart. And of course a big-box hardware/building supply store like Home Depot. There is one movie theatre (with four screens). There are a couple of cell phone stores, and a car rental place. When it comes to eating out, there is a Cracker Barrell and the usual assortment of fast food (McDonald's, Krystal, KFC, Burger King) near the on/off ramps to the interstate. There is also one Mexican restuarant, a couple of barbecue places, and a few Chinese places.

This little town also has a Piggly Wiggly, the only grocery store I've found other than the Wal-mart, and a library that is part of a three-county consortium which includes a nearby community college library that I can borrow from.

There are some things that strike me as unusual. If I walk around the block where I live (in a "downtown loft" across from the old railroad depot), I pass no fewer than five hair salons; at least five women's clothing stores; two jewelry shops; one women's shoe store. No wonder the state of Mississippi once boasted the most "Miss America" winners.

There are also three bakeries and a dry cleaner, and one block over there is an auto parts place and a pawn shop.

And of course there is a Dollar General, a company whose footprint rivals that of Wal-Mart.

It sounds great, and it is, until ...

There was the day when the Trophy Wife needed an accessory for her cell phone. No problem, I said, we'll run to Best Buy ... except there isn't a Best Buy.

One Saturday I woke up thinking it was time to get a new pair of tennis shoes, so I'd run over to Academy ... except there isn't one.

A Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million? Forget it

There are exactly two men's clothing stores (not counting Wal-Mart).

There is no steak restuarant, but there is a good, locally owned and family operated pasta place.

So what do you do when you want to go shopping, or eat at a really good restuarant, or maybe have a choice of movies? To quote Johnny Cash and June Carter, you go to Jackson.

Like the "olden days,'' you plan a day trip to Jackson to do your shopping in the "big city."

Here's the thing, though: I like Mississippi. I'm not sure what it is, but I like the people. It's one of those places that if you're out for a walk and get tired, you can call the police and they'll come pick you up and give you a ride home and think nothing of it. Every shop is locally owned, and chances are if you're in there, you're going to run into the owner, or a relative of the owner.

And people take the time to talk. They may wear you out with talking, telling you about their families, their neighbors, the local gossip; but that's entertainment. That slower pace of life you always hear about in small towns? It's real. People seem naturally patient, as if they know it's hard enough to fill their days so why fret about wasting time?

And people know each other. Heck, most of them are related, even if only distantly. I met a mechanic with a last name I recognized, and asked him if he was related to this other family of the same last name. "Oh, I know them,'' he replied. "But they're the 'top of the hill.' My family came from out in the country. If we are related, they'd never admit it."

I don't know if "top of the hill" was just a phrase meaning 'better off' or he meant it literally. I'm guessing the former, because this is a relatively flat area, geographically. But I understood what he meant.

Do I miss a larger city? You better believe it. Not every day, of course. But there are times that I miss having choices.

On the other hand, the folks around here work hard at having fun. They don't have as many options as you find in a large city, so when they get together, they try to make it count.

I am part of a every-other-week lunch group, and we always have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet tea, and cake. And every other week, I get an excited email or call from the same guy who says, "Razor" - he calls me Razor, which I guess is my Mississippi nickname - he says, "Razor! Chicken on the bone! Yessir, nothing better than chicken on the bone!" You'd think he absolutely lived for "chicken on the bone."

Like I said, you work hard to have things to look forward to.

I have discovered that a small town is like living in a large family. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it's awful; sometimes everyone gets along, sometimes they divide into cliques. They'll apologize profusely for things that can't possibly be their fault (like the time I nicked the bumper of the car of the older lady who owns the shoe store below me; she apologized to me , as if parking her car between the white lines of the legal parking place in front of her store caused my carelessness!), or they may blame someone else for something that is clearly their responsibility.

But in the end, like a large family, they stick together. Even if they don't want to admit it, even if they say they can't wait to get away, they know that deep down, they have a bond, and they stick together because they know they'll be seeing each other every week for the next fifty or sixty years.

And I have found they approach newcomers with a sense of hope, as if they can't believe someone new has chosen to join them while at the same time feeling a sense of pride that their little plot of land has attracted someone new. There is an anticipation of what that new person brings: energy, ideas, perspective that they hope, of course, will improve the overall 'family' - but with as little uncomfortableness as possible.

It's complicated in the way that all large families are complicated. And maybe, in the end, that's the difference between the large city and the small town:

In the large city, it's so easy to be an only-child.

In the small town, you have to work to be left alone.

Equal pay for equal risk

I am the son of a working mother, the husband of a woman who has been successful in every business endeavor, the father of a brilliant girl who I absolutely believe will make an impact on the world.

So when I hear about women not being paid the same as a man, only earning 77 percent of what a man earns, of this on-going inequality in pay, I say ...

Why not?

This isn't about talent or brains or work ethic. Across the board, I believe those things even out. I have worked with and for brilliant women, just as I have brilliant men.

But it all comes down to an old saying, "the greater the risk, the greater the reward."

And men, day-in and day-out, take the greater risk.

Don't believe me?

Say you're on a cruise ship, like the Titanic. You hit an ice berg, and the ship is going down. What do they say? "Women and children first." Women even before children! In every movie about the Titanic, you don't see the women left standing on the bow of the ship with the band playing "Nearer My God To Thee." It's always the men. It's expected.

But it's not just cruise ships.

What happens in a hostage situation? Say some guy is holding 20 people at gun point in a bank. The police have the place surrounded, and he is demanding a car to take him, unhindered, to the airport, where he will fly to Cuba. If he doesn't get what he wants, he will start killing hostages. And what do the hostage negotiators always say? "Give us something to show we can negotiate in good faith. Let the women and children go...''

Firemen are taught when saving people in a burning buildling to look for "women and children" first. A man can be up on the fifth floor, full-bore panic mode, but if there's a woman in the same room ... guess who comes out first?

So men get paid more than women? They deserve it, just for the fact that society does not value a man's life as highly as it does "women and children." Men are apparently considered replaceable; women are valuable commodities (and I can understand why). If that value doesn't always translate into salary, I'd say its more than compensated in other, very tangible ways. And until that changes .....

I'm kidding. Seriously. It's a joke.

But sometimes my mind just goes this way.

Nick Saban, Mercedes, and car stories from the road

I saw a story out of Birmingham where Alabama head coach Nick Saban has agreed to be a partner in a Birmingham-area Mercedes dealership.

The article repeated the oft-told Saban story of how he wanted to own a car dealership when he first graduated from Kent State, that he was set to go to some kind of General Motors management school to prepare him to be a dealer General Manager, but because his now-wife Terry had one more year of school left, he stuck around as a graduate assistant on then-Kent State coach Don James' football staff and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

The relationship between athletic departments and car dealerships is legendary. Almost every college athletic department of note has an agreement with a local dealer - or often several, in the case of big-time D-1 schools - to provide athletic personnel with free cars in exchange for benefits that range from tickets to games, access to staff and players, promotions, etc. As more than one coach has said, it's like every car dealer wants to be a coach; and every coach wants a new car.

I'm reminded of a former Alabama coach who was notorious for being hard on his dealer-provided cars, demanding frequent changes and often at strange times. One of the strangest, however, was a matter of convenience for the coach and inconvenience for the dealership. This coach was driving up I-59/20 from Tuscaloosa on his way to Birmingham when his car broke down; I don't know if the engine actually stopped running or he had a flat tire or simply ran out of gas. But this coach was notoriously impatient (as most coaches are), and he was in a hurry, so he called the dealership and said, "I want a new car." Of course they said OK, and when would he like it? "Right now,'' the coach said. "Get someone to bring it to me." Of course, they said; are you at the athletic complex, or at your home? "Have your guy meet me on I-59 at" whatever exit or milemarker he was at. This wasn't normal, but then very few of the demands of high-powered football coaches are normal, so the dealer sent a guy out in a new car to meet the coach. Of course, when he got there, this coach took the new car, threw the guy the keys to the car that wasn't running, said "Thanks,'' and drove off.

NASCAR drivers have some of the funniest stories on rental cars. Back in the day when the drivers would fly commercial to the next race, they'd rent cars from the airport (this was before so many of them had their own private planes). On this day, a pretty famous driver, a crew member, and a couple media guys were all riding together back to the airport to catch a flight out of town, and they were running very late, to the point that they were close to missing their flight. "No problem,'' said the NASCAR driver. "I've got the collision/damage waiver." He drove to the front of the terminal at the ticketing level, got out and popped the hood of the car, pulled a wire, and then called the rental car company. "Hey, your car broke down and I need someone to pick it up,'' he said. The rental car company said, "Sure. Where is the car located?" He told them, "It's in front of the terminal,'' and he hung up and, needless to say, everyone made their flight.

It was a trip to Puerto Rico to cover the San Juan Shoot-Out basketball tournament where I learned what became a truism I've used over the years. The roads in Puerto Rico where terrible (and might still be, I just haven't been back in a long time), plus the traffic patterns seem more like figure-eight demolition derby than the, by comparison, organized traffic patterns most of us in the U.S. are accustomed to. The rental company told us we needed to get the collision damage waiver, which we did. A bunch of us were riding together, trying to find the practice facility of one of the teams we were covering, which was out in some fringe area. The guy driving missed a turn, and when we realized it he simply did a U-turn across a median, curbs, trash, over pot-holes - and we came up with the saying, "the only true all-terrain vehicle is a rental car with a collision damage waiver."

Words to live - and travel - by.

Saban apparently is a fan of Mercedes. His partner in the deal is an old friend of his from Louisiana, a Mercedes dealer from that state who was looking to expand into Alabama in partnership with Saban. The partner said that Saban has long been a Mercedes enthusiast and years ago expressed an interest in opening a dealership; that Saban told him, "I don't have a minute to run it, but I love the brand."

I can see why. Years ago, when I was at my first newspaper, I received an invitation to go to a SAAB ride-and-drive at Road Atlanta, a road course race track in our newspaper coverage area. SAAB brought in SAAB dealers from all over Georgia to test drive the new SAAB, compare it to other cars, and meet the company president who would be addressing the crowd to spur enthusiasm for the new line of automobiles. I was the only media guy there, and I'm sure they hoped I'd write a glowing report on the wonderful qualities of the SAAB.

Unfortunately, they made the mistake of putting a Mercedes convertable, a 560 Class or maybe 280, in as one of the test cars we could drive around the track. I say unfortunately because everyone wanted to drive the Mercedes, myself included. The line for driving the Mercedes around the Road Atlanta track was longer than any other car. SAAB dealers were jumping line when they could to get in the Mercedes and see what it would do on the track.

Eventually, the Mercedes just disappeared. The SAAB factory reps realized they were losing that battle, and took it out of driving rotation, forcing us to drive the SAAB and Volvo and Cadillac or whatever other brands they'd put up to compare to their new car.

I know I was supposed to write about SAAB, and how good of a car it was (and it was, it really was). But it was the first time I'd ever driven a Mercedes, and it was everything I thought it would be. How do you not fall in love driving a convertible Mercedes, top-down, around the picturesque Road Atlanta course, seeing how smooth it rides, how well it handles, how much just pure pleasure a driving experience could be?

So I wrote instead of starting my love-affair with this foreign-born beauty who, alas, was so far out of my economic class that I feared I would never be able to afford her.

Needless to say, I was never invited back to a SAAB ride-n-drive.

But I did eventually get a Mercedes.

Whatever happened to quicksand (and other childhood fears)?

The other day I was watching an old TV show, and one of the characters fell into quicksand, and it got me thinking: of all the things that I was afraid of when I was a kid (and I wasn't a particularly fearful kid, but I did have fears), three things topped the list - the Rapture, snakes, and quicksand.

The Rapture, for those who may not be familiar, is that point in the future when all current Christians are "caught up in the air,'' kind of like the Old Testament Enoch, who "walked with God and was no more," meaning he didn't die but was called directly up to be with God. We were taught that one day Christians would be walking, driving, working, shopping, eating, doing all those normal, everyday things that we all do, and then suddenly, poof! - or more Biblically, in the blink of an eye - they are gone.

When I was a kid both my parents worked, so after school I'd go home and then head out to play with the guys in the neighborhood, with the understanding I had to be home by 5:30, which is when my Mom typically got home from work. (I'm not sure when my Dad got home; in those days, he often went straight to a second job, or maybe he worked late, or something). So if I was not in my backyard playing football or in the driveway playing basketball (which were about the only two things we did back in the day), I was supposed to drop everything and be at home at 5:30 when my Mom got there.

However, there were those days - usually stormy days, when I had to stay inside - that my Mom wouldn't be home by 5:30. And sometimes it would get deathly quiet. And the clock would tick. And maybe there would be no cars on the street in front of our house. And when I looked out the windows I didn't see any signs of movement from my neighbors' houses. And I would have this horrible, sinking feeling that the Rapture had occured and I had been "left behind" (which, years later, would be the title of some very successful Rapture-related novels and movie).

Needless to say, I was terrified.

This was before cell phones, so I couldn't call my Mom to see where she was. It never occurred to me to pick up the phone and call someone, like my zealously-religious aunt who would never have let God hear the end of it if He'd made the inexcusable mistake of leaving her behind. And this was the time of three TV channels (four, if you counted PBS, which no one did), so it wasn't like I could dial in to CNN for an up-to-the minute report. And I had enough sense to know the stuff that was on TV was pre-recorded, so if all the TV engineers and programmers had been Raptured, these shows would continue to play until the non-Christians got in and changed them to shows glorifying violence and lying and being cruel and pornography, which is what I assumed would happen when all the Christians were taken from the world (as described by a rather frightening book I'd read called "In The Twinkling Of An Eye," which was a forerunner to the "Left Behind" series).

And about the time I had lost all hope, my Mom's car would come pulling into the driveway. But while you'd think I'd be running out to throw my arms around her, crying with joy and relief, I didn't. (If you think I should have been on my knees, praying for forgiveness, understand that by that time it was considered too late and while I could still become a Christian, I'd have to live through the seven years of Tribulation, so getting on my knees right then or the next day wouldn't have made a whole lot of difference). No, by the time my Mom hit the back door, I was back in "cool" mode, not letting her see that I was worried, casually doing something else as if I had not a care in the world.

It was only later that, I'm ashamed to admit, my sinful nature would take over and I'd be kind of sorry that the Rapture hadn't taken place, because it meant I would have to go to school the next day, and I would have to keep going to church on Sunday nights, missing the Wonderful World of Disney. Plus, that book "In the Twinkling ..." painted this picture of pure hedonism in the streets of every city, and as a boy I couldn't help but wonder just what previously veiled images I just might see.

Snakes: Snakes should be pretty self-explanatory. Who in their right mind isn't afraid of snakes? I mean, when God gets so mad at you he takes away your arms and legs and makes you crawl on your belly ... that's pretty serious (and why we used to call snakes "Mr. No-shoulders,'' as in 'don't go chasing that golf ball in the weeds because you might run into Mr. No-shoulders").

In high school, our church youth group used to go on these things we called "retreats" where we'd load up in the church bus and go off someplace, like the mountains of Gatlinburg, Tenn, (in the summer, when the rates were cheap; in the winter we'd go to the beach for the same reason). We'd often stay in hotels, with two double beds but four to a room.

And one night, three of the guys and I were in our room, talking (probably about what girls would be like after the Rapture) and I went over to pull back the covers on my side of the bed. As I did, I saw a snake curled up in the sheets, just lying there.

Now, I didn't visibly panic (even though I didn't want to). I didn't throw up (even though I could feel the bile in my throat). I didn't scream (my throat was too constricted to utter a sound).

What I did do was a pure act of cowardice: I simply put the blankets back over the snake, went to the far side of the room, and kept going like nothing had happened. I decided to wait until someone else pulled back the covers and let them deal with the snake. (But I admit I stayed close to the door, and my heart was pounding).

Sure enough, a few minutes later one of the guys went over, pulled back the sheets, and said, "Who put this in there?" and held up a long, rubber snake. We all laughed (although mine was kind of forced). But I still slept in the other bed.

The next day, we were on the bus, and several of the girls in our group asked me how I slept, if anything unusual happened. It turns out they, knowing my fear of snakes, had somehow got in and put this rubber snake in my bed, hoping to scare the you-know-what out of me. They were so disappointed to find out that one of the other guys apparently found the snake first, and that they didn't "get" me.

This is the first time I've ever admitted they did indeed "get" me, so if any of you are reading this: yes, you pulled off a good one!

Quicksand: Maybe you're thinking, quicksand? But when I was a kid, quicksand was everywhere. On TV, anyway.

I was watching a Rifleman re-run the other day (which is redundant, because they haven't made a new Rifleman episode since 1963 so of course it was a re-run), and some girl that Mark was kind of sweet on somehow fell in some quicksand, and then Mark fell in trying to help her, and just before they went under Lucas came and pulled them out. This wasn't unusual for TV back in my childhood. Tarzan movies (I was a huge Johnny Weissmueller fan) always seemed to have some episode involving quicksand. Cartoons like Road Runner would have characters falling into quicksand (and anvils falling from the sky, but that's another story). Cowboy shows like The Rifleman (which remains one of my favorite shows of all time, and thanks to AMC and DVR I can record and re-watch all 168 episodes) and Bonanza and Gunsmoke and The Big Valley almost always had an episode involving someone falling into quicksand. Even "The Princess Bride" has that scene in the Thieves Forest where Buttercup and Wesley are trapped in quicksand. And of course, there is the scene in Blazing Saddles where the railroad track ends in a bog of quicksand.

When I was a kid, I thought quicksand was everywhere, a very real threat that you had to watch out for. I remember reading tips on how to survive if you found yourself caught in quicksand (apparently, you lay back on your back and float and by increasing mass, you reduce the suction).

I am now grown up (I hesitate to call myself an adult). I have travelled a good deal of this country, both cities and suburbs and countryside and mountains and forests. I have been to Europe, and several Carribean islands (including Haiti, which seems like a natural place to find quicksand). My parents lived and worked in Africa for awhile. Never - and I repeat never - have I come across any quicksand, or know of anyone who has come across quicksand.

These days, you never ever even get a good quicksand scene in a movie or TV show. What the heck happened? Like polio and typhoid, did we manage to do away with the scourge of quicksand? Was this one of the great accomplishments of the 20th Century that we so take for granted that no one ever talks about it?

I no longer fear the Rapture. I've come to terms with snakes.

Quicksand? That's the one I feel most cheated by. And if I mysteriously disappear one day, with no trace, maybe I'll have finally found quicksand.

Unless it was the Rapture.