I think really that if they can get back to playing games by the Super Bowl, which is when an awful lot of people turn and look at basketball for the first time, if they can do that, I don't think there will be any damage whatsoever.
I criticize the NFL in many ways, but I think it's made great strides. I think college basketball, great strides. College football means so much to alumni, doesn't it? It sort of represents the school. It's when you go back; it's at the beginning of the school year.
I don't think you can explain why all these other sports and college basketball have a fair representation of African American coaches, but college football doesn't. You can dig and scramble and scratch, but at the end of the day I think it's just pure, old-fashioned racism.
I was a much better writer than I was an athlete. My college coach told me flat out, he said, "Deford, you write basketball better than you play it."
I think one of the most immoral things is college football and basketball, where everybody is making money except the players.