Jeff MacGregor on why expanding the Big 10 is stupid

The Big 8 and SWC were sacred cows also. Their merger created the Big 12, which has proven to be very successful.

 

I enjoyed the column tremendously, even though I wasn't particularly moved by its argument in regard to the Big Ten. I didn't like the "farmboy" stuff either, and I agree it was a broad sentiment in search of a specific subject to latch onto—and this may not have been the best subject. But any column with a passage as entertaining/witty as the one below has more than justified its own existence:


Is there a single corner of American life, from housing to Hollywood, coffee shops to shopping malls, left unruined by our compulsive half-century rush to bloat? Or by our obsessive need to profit from our obsessive needs?

American houses: bigger. American mortgages: bigger. American cars: bigger. American movies: bigger. American banks: bigger. American stores: bigger.

Americans: bigger.

How's all that working out for you?

America! Too big to fail!

 

Yeah, I liked the column, too.

 

Read his NASCAR book if you want to get a feel for how Jeff might describe the SEC. Book was a good read. It had the quality of a Margaret Mead socialogical experiement.

 

We have a ridiculously high standard of living that our parents could only dream of. Oh, and life expectancy is still getting ... Bigger.

I'd say it's going pretty well, despite the millenia-old tradition of whining about how things are constantly getting worse.

 

If anyone is interested, sources say Rutgers might be the 12th member of the Big Ten

 

superb wordsmith. but in nearly every macgregor piece i read, i always ending up finding out way more about macgregor than i do about the subject or the people he's writing about.

 

There might be the basis of a decent argument in there if he fleshed out his stance, but the column is nothing more than a meaningless rant.

 

Yeah, those farmers in Chicago and Minneapolis love the Big Ten. And what kind of example is the Ivy League? Are you saying the Big Ten shouldn't participate in the postseason?

 

And the family farm as a heartwarming tradition is long gone. Just ask the myriad Farm Belt towns that are dead or practically dead.

 

I think what he's saying is that the government should subsidize the Big Ten.

 

And that the Big Ten should run on ethanol.