[Terry Mross]

Welcome to the SEC, Tex A&M. You best get the conservative points in now. Before long your voice will be stiffled.

[Alberta's Child]

This set of clips raises an excellent point, but I'm not sure the comparison between academics and athletics really stands up well. Athletics, as my former philosophy professor pointed out years ago, is one of the few areas of life that truly exists as a meritocracy. The reason for this is simple: every athletic contest (the word "contest" even adds particular weight to it) or group of contests is supposed to be an attempt to determine a winner and a loser. Maybe it's one game, or maybe it's a season-long campaign. But in the end, the ultimate objective is to determine a winner or a champion of some kind.

There are really no other walks of life where this holds true, or certainly not to the extent that it does in sports. There is nothing wrong with a classroom full of students who all get an A+ on an exam, or for a semester (provided they truly earn it, of course). Conversely, there is nothing wrong with a group of students who all fail to make the grade in an academic setting. That's just the way life works in those fields. That's because there is no underlying presumption that "success" in an academic field must, by definition, come at the expense of someone else.

I agree 100% with the point the Texas A&M students are trying to make, but I don't think the argument really works well. I thought that similar episode where a bunch of conservative students held a bake sale -- with prices that varied by race and gender -- to be far more effective.

[Osage Orange]

They should have never left the Big 12......

Personally I will miss them.