BYPLAY by ROGER KAHN: Aboard the Lusitania in Tampa Bay

The entry of John McKay into professional football, riding a swan boat across the glinting waters of Tampa Bay, was converted into a financial report by certain elements of the press. There is a lingering Neanderthal quality in some of our new sports journalism. If you can't find a sex angle, write money.

According to a glut of stories, McKay was leaving the University of Southern California—where he had won four national championships—for a salary of $175,000 a year, a $350,000 home, complete with furniture, maid, gardener and pool service, plus five new...