James Franklin has a problem. So, too, does Kevin Hambly.

Franklin is the head football coach at Penn State and Hambly is the volleyball coach at Stanford. While they lead teams in different sports, their issue has its roots in the same source: the greed of those who run college football.

Franklin’s dilemma is that because the conference the Nittany Lions belong to, the Big Ten, a mostly Midwestern league, took in four schools from the West Coast – Oregon, Washington, UCLA and Southern Cal – he has to go on road trips to the Pacific time zone.

Unfortunately for Franklin, the runway at the regional airport in State College, Pennsylvania is 6,701 feet long.

While that’s 20 times the length of a football field, it’s not long enough to accommodate larger planes with higher fuel loads that can make cross-country flights, like the one Penn State had to take recently to go to Los Angeles to play USC.

As a result, Franklin’s team had to take a two-hour bus ride to Harrisburg to catch said flight and leave a day earlier than usual. Going forward, Franklin would like for the State College airport to extend the length of the runway so his team can jet west without a bus.

Meanwhile, Hambly’s problem is that because the four schools that bolted from the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, weakened the West Coast league that had been in business for decades, other universities, like Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, all scattered too to find new athletic homes.

As a result, Stanford and Cal, two sterling academic institutions which don’t have particularly strong football footprints, also had to scramble to find a league for their teams to play. They ended up in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a league that, at last check, is nowhere near the Pacific Ocean.

Hambly’s volleyball team, a national championship contender, will travel close to 34,000 miles this year, more than any other fall program in college athletics. Yahoo Sports reports that the 25,000 miles the Cardinal will fly just for ACC games is more than the circumference of the Earth.

To his credit, Hambly has taken all of this in stride, quipping that his frequent flier status on United is already Premier One K and could get higher.

But this is no laughing matter, not for those who still hold on to the quaint notion of college athletics operating to make students more well rounded, athletically, intellectually and personally.

Increasingly, however, the world of intercollegiate athletics continues to more closely resemble prostitution, with heretofore pristine academic institutions putting themselves on the stroll for more football bucks, the only question being the price they’re willing to set for their virtue.

While grabbing all that gridiron scratch, these schools are putting the less visible programs like soccer, swimming, track and, yes, volleyball and those athletes in jeopardy.

And there’s no sign that this fever will soon break. Having just expanded the college football playoff field from four to 12, there will likely be nothing to slow further conference realignment, short runways and long volleyball journeys notwithstanding.

And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and X at Sports at Large.

Until next week, for all of us here and for producer Spencer Bryant, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

James Franklin has a problem. So, too, does Kevin Hambly.
Franklin is the head football coach at Penn State and Hambly is the volleyball coach at Stanford. While they lead teams in different sports, their issue has its roots in the same source: the greed of those who run college football.
Franklin’s dilemma is that because the conference the Nittany Lions belong to, the Big Ten, a mostly Midwestern league, took in four schools from the West Coast – Oregon, Washington, UCLA and Southern Cal – he has to go on road trips to the Pacific time zone.
Unfortunately for Franklin, the runway at the regional airport in State College, Pennsylvania is 6,701 feet long.
While that’s 20 times the length of a football field, it’s not long enough to accommodate larger planes with higher fuel loads that can make cross-country flights, like the one Penn State had to take recently to go to Los Angeles to play USC.
As a result, Franklin’s team had to take a two-hour bus ride to Harrisburg to catch said flight and leave a day earlier than usual. Going forward, Franklin would like for the State College airport to extend the length of the runway so his team can jet west without a bus.
Meanwhile, Hambly’s problem is that because the four schools that bolted from the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, weakened the West Coast league that had been in business for decades, other universities, like Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, all scattered too to find new athletic homes.
As a result, Stanford and Cal, two sterling academic institutions which don’t have particularly strong football footprints, also had to scramble to find a league for their teams to play. They ended up in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a league that, at last check, is nowhere near the Pacific Ocean.
Hambly’s volleyball team, a national championship contender, will travel close to 34,000 miles this year, more than any other fall program in college athletics. Yahoo Sports reports that the 25,000 miles the Cardinal will fly just for ACC games is more than the circumference of the Earth.
To his credit, Hambly has taken all of this in stride, quipping that his frequent flier status on United is already Premier One K and could get higher.
But this is no laughing matter, not for those who still hold on to the quaint notion of college athletics operating to make students more well rounded, athletically, intellectually and personally.
Increasingly, however, the world of intercollegiate athletics continues to more closely resemble prostitution, with heretofore pristine academic institutions putting themselves on the stroll for more football bucks, the only question being the price they’re willing to set for their virtue.
While grabbing all that gridiron scratch, these schools are putting the less visible programs like soccer, swimming, track and, yes, volleyball and those athletes in jeopardy.
And there’s no sign that this fever will soon break. Having just expanded the college football playoff field from four to 12, there will likely be nothing to slow further conference realignment, short runways and long volleyball journeys notwithstanding.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Threads and X at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here and for producer Spencer Bryant, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.----

Sports at Large

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.

Sports at Large is a weekly exploration of the issues and people who play and watch sports. SaL goes behind the headlines and stats to find the how and why, and the ways in which sports intersect with and influence our daily lives. SaL features interviews and commentaries from professionals and fans a like to tell a more complete story. One person described it as ----a thinking fan's guide to sports.

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