Coaches for Charity: Is It a Good Thing?

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Charity is a daily effort for athletes and sports organizations.  It seems that each week a new event pops up where coaches or athletes are sporting a special patch or shoes that commemorate a cause.

They always have to have a catchy name like Coaches for Cancer, Assistants for Aids, Students for Swine Flu, or Ballplayers for Birth Control.  Okay, maybe the last one wouldn't be legitimate, but I think that would be a great cause to pursue in the future.

They usually entail some sort of color specific item being worn or used in the game such as all white sneakers by coaches, gold patches for Haiti on the jersey, pink bats in baseball, or just pink anywhere for breast cancer.

All this philanthropic work looks great from the outside, but is it really a good thing?

This past weekend we witnessed a beat down by the Georgetown Hoyas against the Duke Blue Devils in Washington D.C.  Everyone was excited for the event, not only because we got to see two top ten teams battle it out, but we also got to see President Obama enjoy the game in the stands and even take his turn as a sports analyst for a few minutes.

The other important part of the game was how the Georgetown STAND group and the Duke for Darfur group worked together to form the Darfur Dream Team.  The Darfur Dream Team is a combined effort by students and alumni from both schools to come together and raise money for the Darfur Dream Team's Sister School Program, a program that is helping to reinvigorate two schools in a Darfur refugee camp.  Definitely a great cause, but is a sports event the correct setting to display a message like this?

I know when I watched the game I didn't notice the message at all.  The only messages I got were the consistent cameo shots of Barack, Biden, Axelrod, and Gibbs enjoying a basketball game, nothing about Darfur.  I got the message that Duke played terribly and Georgetown played brilliantly.  I couldn't even bear to watch the final five minutes of the game because Duke was playing so bad.  I had no clue what the cause was for, where the money was going, or how it was brought about.  I only knew there was a cause because of the different shoes on the coaches and a patch on the players' jerseys.

All I knew was that this was a typical big time non-conference college game, which basically means that it's for some sort of charity event, the coach will be wearing sneakers, and I don't really care other then Duke better win or I'm going to be in a glum mood for the rest of the day.  The only thing I got out of the game was a disconsolate feeling from Duke losing and a annoyed headache from hearing Barack Obama and Verne Lundquist make partisan jokes about Barack being left-handed and that even he can go to his right once in awhile.  Somebody get these men off my television screen!

I don't think most people got the message, but more importantly I don't think we ever truly know what the message is about.  When we attend these events and a portion goes to charity, what are we really giving our money towards?  I know in the case of Darfur the money may never reach the schools that the Darfur Dream Team is trying to rebuild.  Darfur is extremely corrupt and some charities are too.  Everyone thinks that all charities are out for the better good for the people, but do they ever look to see how the charity has been built up.  The largest charities need money as well to grow bigger and to gain a national presence and this means that not all money is going directly to the people who need it.  Also, in Darfur much of the money that is meant to rebuild the schools will probably go as bribes to the colonizers just to allow them to be there.  Maybe a very small portion of the money will actually reach the starving citizens and the refugees who truly need it.  We never truly know who we are actually helping by giving money to charity.

So maybe sports events aren't the best platforms to get these causes across.  Most people who attend these games will see they helped a charity on their ticket and never think about the charity again.  People who are watching are not going to remember a blip during the telecast speaking on Darfur, but instead will remember Verne and Barack's lame jokes back and forth to one another.  

I think the biggest problem is the oversaturation of charity related sports events.  There comes a time when it happens just too much, too often, that we no longer think of what it's for and who it's benefiting.  I don't think about the cause when I see the event, I think about what item these players or coaches are wearing and how ridiculous they look in them.  I don't feel like one is more special than the other because I've seen a different event the week before, except there were different color shoes and different patches on the jerseys.

Maybe I just think too much or maybe I'm cynical in thinking that even if I did donate that my money wouldn't go where these people are telling me its going.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but I do know that the message isn't getting across in the right way and just because we keep thinking we're doing something good, doesn't mean we actually are.