In college sports, pride a two-way street

Illinois fired football coach Ron Zook over the weekend for not winning enough.

The fear now is that the school will hire a replacement that will want to win at all costs.

Or maybe the fear is that he won’t want to. College sports sure do inspire conflict.

The political equivalent is whether to vote for the ethical candidate or the lout who can fix the economy.

Idealists cling to the notion that a football program like Illinois’ can conduct business admirably while competing favorably. Realists wonder whether that’s possible.

So many of football’s traditional powers such as Ohio State and Penn State have shamed their universities recently.

So many recent national champions such as Auburn and USC have won under clouds.

Yet we clamor for a Notre Dame to do what it takes to rejoin the elite and a Northwestern to improve facilities to rise above mediocrity.

My goodness, Ohio State football just struggled through a scandal that cost players their eligibility, head coach Jim Tressel his job and the school its nobility.

You might think that would be enough for OSU administrators to step back and consider whether a championship football program is worth the accompanying indignity.

Apparently they did … for like 15 minutes.

Monday the Buckeyes announced the hiring of former Florida head coach Urban Meyer for $24 million over six years with a $2.4 million bonus thrown in.

Meyer said when asked at his introductory news conference why he quit Florida last year, “I didn’t like the state of college football.”

Nothing has changed, yet Meyer is back. To restore honor to OSU football and the university?

“I don’t think Ohio State is broke,” Meyer said. “Some mistakes were made.”

More than anything Meyer is expected to win championships in return for his $4 million annual salary.

The mission at Penn State is to find a new coach who will return the school to football glory as if winning will cure all current suffering.

This is the climate in which new Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas is searching for a coach to take on the Ohio States, Penn States, Michigans, Nebraskas, Michigan States and Wisconsins.

Thomas certainly wants a coach who will make everyone associated with the university proud to be an Illini.

The question is whether that means proud as in operating with integrity or proud as in achieving victory.

Ron Guenther, Illinois’ previous AD, is a former football player and coach who was obsessed with building a successful football program.

Guenther also is an Illinois graduate well aware of the school’s multiple NCAA probations over the decades, and he was careful not to let one occur on his watch.

Guenther’s priorities for Illinois were to stay clean, graduate athletes and win, pretty much in that order.

But when Lou Tepper and Ron Turner didn’t win enough, Guenther fired them in the hope he could find somebody to complete the trifecta with consistent success on the field.

Ron Zook couldn’t win enough either and Thomas fired him, too.

I would like to see Illinois’ next head coach enable the Illini to compete with the best in the Big Ten, if not the country.

But should the school dip a toe into college football’s murky waters or dive in head first at the risk of compromising core values?

Well, that’s the conflict all of us college football fans must grapple with.