The Tao of Modern College Sports
Special to Raiderland. By Allen Corbin
“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
C.S. Lewis wrote The Abolition of Man in 1943, four years into the Second World War, and was primarily aimed at institutions and a society who gave up on universal principles and taught that all values and viewpoints are subjective. Fascinating that in 2026 many of these same institutions and our society have largely given into what Lewis was criticizing. Many of these institutions are now claiming a universal and subjective rule should be enforced and shocked there’s gambling happening in their midst.
The June 8, 2026 decision in Lubbock which ultimately gave Brendan Sorsby eligibility this year was set in motion decades ago by the pathways chosen by the NCAA themselves. The outcry and sanctimonious outrage from those sports media would be more believable if they hadn’t turned a blind eye to the many discretions of schools which harbored players who were and charged and many of them convicted of domestic violence against women over the years.
The sad thing is that in the middle of this is Sorsby himself. Having known several people who have engaged a path of recovery to debilitating addictions of various kinds I’m sensitive to the fact that Sorsby is a recovering addict. The only problem is that his addiction wasn’t drugs or alcohol but gambling on sports. We have grown to accept addiction so long as it doesn’t upset something as sacred as sports.
I don’t know what is best for Sorsby in this situation and won’t pretend to know here. I don’t know what his recovery process looks like and only Sorsby and his family know what that is. There’s an issue in the soul of a society where there’s constant atonement with no redemption to be given. It’s corrosive.
I don’t think Sorsby should be eligible, but the NCAA sent their 2s and 3s of a legal team and poorly argued their case to a visiting judge in Lubbock. The outcome was expected given that the NCAA seemed utterly unprepared for the hearing based on accounts of those reporters in attendance. For such a damaging ruling to the NCAA and its viability as an organization they sure didn’t take the case seriously.
And thus we have arrived at the Tao of the NCAA. The capricious and uneven nature in how the organization has doled out punishment for rule violations have finally caught up with them. They chose this path. The NCAA refused to adapt with the evolving nature of college sports and they allowed themselves to become even more feckless, if that was even possible. They chose to allow broadcast partners to take advertising money from gambling entities and have financially gained from it as well. The NCAA chose this path and is shocked to find the destination where it arrived.
For every segment on ESPN or Fox spent on talking about the ruling and how bad it is for the integrity of the games, there’s going to be 5 to 10 ads from a gambling site sponsoring the program. That’s a real problem. We as sports fans have become so desensitized to the fact we look at the Vegas betting lines for every game that we base our happiness with the result on those betting lines.
The NCAA could have stopped collaborating with broadcasting partners who had sports betting sponsors but thought the money was too good to pass up. The NCAA could have stopped conference realignment from ruining the sport and regional rivalries but chose not to. The NCAA could have stopped private equity firms from investing in programs but chose not to. The NCAA chose this path. The stakeholders have chosen this path too.
A few things to consider here in closing. The Big Ten and SEC stakeholders have finally found something to attack Texas Tech and Cody Campbell on which has a majority support from fans. Boycotts of Texas Tech from programs which weren’t ever going to schedule Texas Tech are performative in their newfound ethical redoubts. What happens next? I’m sure there will be more indiscriminate anger from sports media and Athletic Directors across the country but then again they chose this path and became shocked at where they arrived.
Allen Corbin is a Lubbock native, Texas Tech graduate and currently lives in the metroplex after years spent outside of the country in Utah.
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