Everyone loves college sports. Even non-sports fans can appreciate the sense of community that surrounds them and the entitlement that people feel when their team performer well. That being said, there are many reasons that schools are able to poll together such an amazing group of talented athletes season after season. It’s not always about the reputation of the coach, the program legacy, and the alumni network. Generally its about the off the field and outside the media attention that players it. It’s really about how the organization can help the player and his family in the immediate future. College sports are not as simple as they seem. There is the business of college sports but then there are also a lot of little micro economies that are created as a result of people ‘handling’ tasks and carrying out duties to entice athletes and their families on what choice to make. There duties are fulfilled by professional who run business that produce excessive liquidity. As bank accounts and phone are easy to track this is a business of exclusively cash transfers.
There are two sides of the success of the college football team. There are the really rich alumni’s who donate hundreds of thousand to the school every year for scholarships, recruiting, facility upkeep, etc. These people have very good relationships with the head coaches, the board of trustees and a special thank you page in the programs handed out at each game. While these types of contributions help the school on a public scale they would be less effective if the bag men didn’t exist. The bag men are the ones who get the players to commit to the school. As one person introduces a bag man to the head coach of a division one football team he say that this guy “Takes care of things for US.” The life of a bag man is super inconspicuous. They do not wear fancy cloths, drive fancy cars, or even get media attention for all the great things that they do for the sports program. No one knows their names, recognizes their faces, or thanks them for their efforts. These are passionate fans with some disposable capital and choose to put it up to support the school that they have developed such a passionate devotion towards.
Bag man embrace a simple philosophy, passion “A good bag man will never be famous. He will never be that guy hovering right next to the head coach after a big win. His name will never be known by the majority of students, fans, and alumni of the university he loves. There is no dead bag man memorial on the campus of any football powerhouse. There are no memorial scholarships named after the guy who gave a running back’s mother $3,000 a month for four years.”
This is reminiscent of agents in the Sugar Bowl reading who scout baseball players from a vary young age. Like the bag men these agents go to great lengths to protect their interested parties identity. While the agents are in it for profit they also have a deep connection with their roots and enjoy helping players transition from one level to the next.
Sports & Society 