Once there was a time when college football coaches held supreme power over their players. They could dictate which classes to take, how much of their lives to dedicate to football and push them to play through injury, all to add to the wealth and glory of the imperial coach. And if that player somehow failed to reach greatness, the coach would find a way to push the player off the team and take his scholarship.
That time is quickly fading.
On Friday, Illinois fired its football coach Tim Beckman a week before the opening game primarily because several of his players rebelled against the abuse of an omnipotent coach. They did something few players would have dared to do a generation ago: they complained. The school listened, an investigation was conducted and the results were not good.
“The preliminary information external reviewers shared with me does not reflect our values or our commitment to the welfare of our student-athletes, and I’ve chosen to act accordingly,” Illinois athletic director Mike Thomas said in a statement announcing the firing. “During the review, we have asked people not to rush to judgment, but I now have enough information to make this decision in assessing the status and direction of the football program.”
Had Beckman been winning perhaps Thomas does not fire him. But the team was 12-25 in his three years as head coach, with the best of those being his first season. Offensive coordinator Bill Cubit will coach the team now.
The complaints against Beckman were harsh. One player, offensive lineman Simon Cvijanovic, said that Beckman denied him medical care and would not allow him to attend the team’s bowl game after he was injured at the end of his senior season. Another player told the school paper that he was drug tested every day for two weeks after he didn’t come back from a knee injury fast enough for the coach’s liking.
“He was blatantly trying to find something to kick me off the team,” the player Nick North said.
While the National Labor Relations Board recently denied a petition filed by Northwestern players to unionize, players are clearly gaining a voice they never had before. For a Big 10 school like Illinois to fire Beckman for reasons that were once-standard in college football shows how much has changed in little time.
