Buzz Bissinger: Why College Football Should Be Banned

I enjoy D3 football a ton. Of course, it helps when the wife's alma mater -- the school we tend to follow -- wins 80% of its games and goes to the NCAA Tournament virtually every year. But the crowds are largely made up of community members, a few alumni and the players' parents.

The football is pretty solid, the only thing you miss is the occasional jaw-dropping play that you might see at a big-time game and the incredible stadium atmosphere. And the guys aren't auditioning for the NFL, but playing football because they love it.

That said, I think most Big Ten players also aren't auditioning for the NFL, they're playing the game because they love it and they're using their school to get an education, while the school uses them for free marketing.

 

Why is using the money to subsidize other athletes socially beneficial? Setting aside Title IX, why not use that money to give scholarships to bright students who can get into the school, but can't necessarily afford to pay for it? I see no real need to have soccer, tennis, and golf programs. Let kids play on club teams and intramurals.

 

Things were fine till ESPN got involved.

 

No, things were already careening quite speedily to hell in the 1970s before ESPN ever appeared.

 

That would work if they are actually allowed to get an education that might not be available to them.

For all the issues Paterno had at the end, he was often held up as a shining light because "he graduates players". Thing is, what he did shouldn't be seen as something special. It's something that ALL the schools and coaches should be doing.

Instead, you have the Dexter Manleys who couldn't read their own diplomas, your Robert Smiths who want to take difficult classes only to be told by coaches that it takes too much time from football and the John Thompsons who argue that academic standards aren't needed because kids benefit from being exposed to the college "environment" (i.e., parties and girls).

Not to mention, teams jetting across the country to play games during the academic week and the pressure to perform and conform or else lose their scholarship and their chance at a basket-weaving diploma.

Men's basketball and football are big business. Not extracurricular activities, which is what they should be.

 

Canadian university sports work the same way. JR sent two kids to CIS football so he is more qualified than me to talk about this, but there are no athletic scholarships but money is available to help some kids.

The crowds and media coverage are minimal but the basketball, football and hockey is very competitive and while kids do go on to play pro football (in the CFL) or hockey (usually in Europe or the minor pro leagues) the CIS schools don't exist solely to furnish free talent for the pros.

Some programs - Laval football and Lakehead hockey to name two prominent ones- are privately run enterprises outside the university (point one of Starman's Michener analysis) and coaches don't make the absurd amounts of money that you see routinely among D-1 football and basketball.

 

It's an activity that causes brain damage in the name of higher education.

 

The one thing Bissinger and others don't account for is the fund-raising aspect of football. Would big donors cut checks just at cocktail hour or performances of the student symphony? I don't know, but from what I've seen the alumni sure do love them some big brawny men and skinny co-eds in tight shirts.

 

I prefer higher education "subsidizing" college athletics over local governments "subsidizing" the owners of their local professional sports franchises.

Are not college and universities essentially subsidizing themselves? In the case of the latter, local jurisdictions are essentially funding owners, oftentimes billionaires already, to run their own businesses. Did Buzzer take that into account?

And at Texas it's the other way around, right, football funding the university?

 

which is why the University of Chicago chose to de-emphasize college sports. . . .in 1936

 

Universities in Atlantic Canada recruit very aggressively. Acadia offered ER more money than any Ontario school (he had about six solid offers)

In the end, oth ER & GR got money that paid for about half their tuition in their five years a Acadia

Like ER, there are a number of CIS football players that go on to play in the but a CIS hockey player ending up in the NHL is a rarity

Joel Ward of the Caps played for the U of Prince Edward Island and managed to land with the Houston Aeros of the AHl before ending up with Nashville Preds

 

I'm getting a little weary of the "college kids are exploited" line of thinking. Not because it isn't true, but because it is true and always has been.

Both colleges and athletes exploit each other for mutual benefit.