Posted on 05/05/2012 6:28:24 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.
That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.
Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Man for man, at the individual soldier level, the World War II German army was as good as any in modern times. Germany is a soccer playing country. Maybe we’d have better results here if we scrapped the gridiron game and played more real football like they do in Germany.
“.. I did play ball in high school. It kept me focused on my grades....”
Excellent point, Darren. My son plays high school football. How has this benefitted him? For one, the players have to stay eligible. That means, they have to have a decent GPA. If the player has any hopes of being considered by a Division 1, 1A, 2 or 3 school (partial or full scholarship) then their GPA/SAT’s better be outstanding. Secondly, a high school suspension means you are off the team. Period. Our high school players go out of their way to avoid any sort of confrontation so that they aren’t suspended. High school parties are all around them (literally every weekend). Want to know where the football players are on the weekends? They are home. They won’t go to a party for fear that people will be arrested for underage drinking/pot etc. They know with today’s access to cell phone cameras... the coach will find out if they drank a beer or smoked a joint. Their fear of parents is one thing... the fear that they will disappoint their coach is quite the other. They know they will let down an entire team.
Another point I would like to make is the simple training for the sport. It isn’t just one a days, and two a days. They take weight lifting as their gym, many belong to gyms with a trainer, and many meet after school to lift/work out. Want to see a level headed teenage boy? Let them run and lift weights till they are tired. The physical training levels them off in a way. They are just not tense after a healthy session. All of that teenage testosterone is guided into physical exercise.
Lastly, it is a team sport. You have the big guys, the thin/fast guys, the middle of the chart size guys. They have to come together and work together to succeed. My son’s team is quite diverse. Pretty much every religion, race, socio-economic background but one thing brings them together as equals. That is their team.
I’m speaking in averages here because of course their are outliers in every sport. That’s why the NFL exists! haha
Take, for example, high school football. The average high school football player is not very athletic and can barely catch a ball or cover a WR adequately.
In comparison, your average tennis player (Go to any country club with a training program for juniors) and you will see kids playing tennis for 4-5 hours per day, running drills, lifting weights, etc.
This brings me to my next point: For such an athletic group, it’s pretty sad that they can only play for 5-10 seconds before needing a break and oxygen.
Again, I speak in averages.
To those that say football does nothing to teach students about life..
From the Rutgers Family to the Bucs Family: Tampa Bay Signs LeGrand
LeGrand, who played for new Bucs Head Coach Greg Schiano at Rutgers, is once again serving as an inspiration to others with spinal cord injuries
Eric LeGrand is, in his own words, an athlete. Is, not was.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers understand that. On Tuesday, the Buccaneers signed LeGrand to their 90-man offseason roster, adding him to a team full of accomplished athletes.
Why is this remarkable, one roster move during a long offseason of countless team-building maneuvers? Because LeGrand is currently in a wheelchair and hasn’t walked in 19 months. On October 16, 2010, he was paralyzed from the neck down while tackling Army kick returner Malcolm Brown in a game played at Giants Stadium.
LeGrand was – and is – a part of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights family. The Buccaneers and especially their head coach, Greg Schiano, understand that. Schiano was the head coach at Rutgers from 2001-11, which means he recruited LeGrand, helped shape him into a young man and a football player and exulted in his successes. And it means he was there when LeGrand fell stiffly to the Giants Stadium turf and didn’t get up, and he was there at his hospital bed that evening and he will remain there for every step forward LeGrand takes in his recovery and his life.
LeGrand believes some of those steps will be literal ones. He was told after his injury that he would never come off the ventilator he was attached to in the hospital. He left the ventilator behind after five weeks. He was told he would never walk again and he doesn’t believe that either.
Last October, a year after his injury as he engaged in the early stages of therapy to regain the ability to walk, LeGrand told SI.com’s Jon Wertheim that his goal was to visit the spot on the Giants Stadium field where he was hurt, lie down there once again, and then get back up and walk away. He also told Wertheim that he believed the strength he had developed in his body as a college football player was aiding him in his rehabilitation efforts.
It is the strength of LeGrand’s will, however, that prompted the Buccaneers to sign him to their roster. If Tampa Bay’s personnel department developed a scouting report on LeGrand, as they do on all players they are considering signing, the first line was surely: “Will never quit.”
LeGrand was just a junior when he suffered his injury, so it’s impossible to predict if his football path would have ended in the NFL under other circumstances. At the time, he had played in 31 games and recorded 60 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and three fumble recoveries. Still, his signing with the Buccaneers this spring is still the fulfillment of a dream, as it allows him to bring attention to the issue of spinal cord injuries and the ongoing research to find a cure. LeGrand’s unfailingly positive attitude has amazed many, but he draws strength from his desire to be an inspiration to others who suffer similar injuries.
“Leading up to the draft, I couldn’t help but think that this should’ve been Eric’s draft class,” said Schiano. “This small gesture is the least we could do to recognize his character, spirit, and perseverance. The way Eric lives his life epitomizes what we are looking for in Buccaneer Men.”
A year ago, in Rutgers’ 2011 spring semester, LeGrand resumed his studies via Skype and he has also continued to be an impactful member of the Rutgers football team. Last October, just over a year after his injury, he led Coach Schiano and the Rutgers team onto the field at their home stadium before a game against West Virginia. LeGrand also joined his fellow seniors on the field for Senior Day festivities prior to kickoff of a win over Cincinnati on November 19.
LeGrand’s signing with the Buccaneers is only the latest way that he has inspired others across the nation since his injury. His courage and determination has garnered national attention, such as his appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated shortly before his return to the football field last fall. In the magazine’s 2011 year-end issue, that return was voted SI’s Moment of the Year. LeGrand received the Most Courageous Athlete Award from New Jersey Sports Writers Association in January and will also receive the Unsung Hero Award at the New Jersey Hall of Fame induction ceremony on June 9 for his “representation of courage, strength and character.”
LeGrand is planning to graduate next fall with a degree in labor studies and most recently partnered with IMG to help him transition to the broadcasting booth. You can follow Eric’s remarkable recovery through his very active Twitter feed @EricLeGrand52.
Nuff said.
“Excellent point, Darren. My son plays high school football. How has this benefitted him? For one, the players have to stay eligible. That means, they have to have a decent GPA. If the player has any hopes of being considered by a Division 1, 1A, 2 or 3 school (partial or full scholarship) then their GPA/SAT’s better be outstanding.”
High school academics are a joke. When I graduated high school 4 years ago, I had a 4.32 weighted GPA, was taking all AP/honors, and I slept through school or just skipped. I never did any work and never applied myself. Aced the SAT too without studying.
“They won’t go to a party for fear that people will be arrested for underage drinking/pot etc. They know with today’s access to cell phone cameras... the coach will find out if they drank a beer or smoked a joint. Their fear of parents is one thing... the fear that they will disappoint their coach is quite the other. They know they will let down an entire team.”
No offense meant but that’s a load of BS. Unless high school has changed in the last 4 years since I graduated, this is false.
In my state (NC) football players are routinely getting A) High, B) Drunk, C) Arrested. It’s a given that they’re out at parties Friday-Sunday.
But what gets me is how some people can't discuss the issue without getting personal, can't talk about the issues without getting into Bissinger's appearance or speculating about his own school experiences.
Is that a sign that they don't have any real arguments or just don't want to think seriously about the topic at all?
“... those who helped make the world a better place were far more often chess players than football gorillas”.
You are right, IJ. The chess type players were the people who left England to come to America. The chess type players were also the ones to fight in the Revolution. I am sure close to 100% of the men fought on Iwo Jima were chess players. Google West Point and Naval Academy football players. An interesting person was Pete Dawkins (West Point class of 1959). Brigadier General, Heisman Tophy Maxwell award winner, Rhodes Scholar, Ph.D from Princeton, paratrooper, recipient of two Bronze Stars during Vietnam, and the only cadet in history to be a Brigadier Commander, President of his class, captain of the football team and a “Star Man” (top 5% of his class academically. Your issue is that you see black and white. A man with strong athletic ability cannot possess intellect. An intelligent man cannot possess strong athletic quality. Check mate.
That may be your perspective, Black Shark. It isn’t mine and it isn’t the way our high school handles its football players. Perhaps it is a difference between different states. If what you are saying is true... the coach takes partial blame. IMHO.
It is tough to stop the elitists when they take on a cause. They just can’t stand that a bunch of red necks from Alabama arebringing in more money to their university than NYU or Columbia... and that someone like Nick Saban, the leader of the rednecks that couldn’t ever hold a conversation in any of their intellectual cocktail parties discussing the latest social theories, makes more money than any or them. I’ll bet if Harvard was the national football powerhouse, they’d be fine with it.
How many wars has Germany won? Soccer was invented by the British as a non-violent team sports alternative and imposed it on their territories so they wouldn't develop war fighting skills. All soccer teaches someone is how to throw down their arms and run for their lives.
I don’t think it can be banned outright, but it can be gradually downgraded to the point it loses many of its most repulsive characteristics.
Probably the most damaging thing that could be done to it would be to prohibit televised games. While initially this would result in much better box office at the games themselves, that would soon only remain for the best teams.
Downgrading from there would be a lot easier.
I agree 100% and perhaps your school is different.
I do know that our high school hired a coach and gave him A) A house and B) a car and that we actively recruited players from all over the state.
Your point has some merit IMO.
Germany took down the Roman Empire ;)
The Germans are a naturally violent people so we should be thankful that they DON’T play football! Otherwise, they very may kick our butts in the future haha
It may not have been pure, but it was a heck of a lot better than it is today. At least back 30, 40 or so years ago, you knew when the games would kick off (afternoon around 1:30, night games around 7:30). None of this 11 AM or 9PM garbage.
You got to admit it would be interesting to see
a football game between the Womyn’s studies and
the radical african liberation groups.
Dweebs against Lesbians?
Engineers against sociologists?
Liberals serve no academic or useful purpose. Can we ban them?
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Who should do the banning?
By what authority?
“Man for man, at the individual soldier level, the World War II German army was as good as any in modern times. Germany is a soccer playing country. Maybe we’d have better results here if we scrapped the gridiron game and played more real football like they do in Germany.”
Yeah and we kicked their asses because we play American Football. What better results are you talking about?
The American fighting man didn’t lose Viet Nam, or Korea. The politicians did. The American fighting man is still the best warrior on the face of the planet.
The wussification of America begins with soccer. No one wants to see a game played by a bunch of lawn fairies.
The shame of college football is that they won’t pay their players. Or allow them to make money from endorsements. Why is that?
Because they don’t want to share the billions from college football with the actual wealth generators.
How does that square with the free market?
Let’s retire the fiction that at the big schools, there’s such a thing as a student- athlete. There are students and there are athletes. Football at a big school is a sixty-hour-a-week job.
Of what use to them is their free degree in Communications? They’re never in a classroom or the library — football at that level and getting an education are incompatible.
And so what? Talent is talent; let them make some money. Most of these guys will never make the NFL. They will never have a better opportunity to make money with their skills than while they are college football stars.
What I’d like to see happen is every single big school football team go on strike simultaneously. The NCAA should work for THEM, not the other way round.
Pay them. And let them sell their names to Nike.
The system we have now is un-American.
The NCAA is located here in Indianapolis. Like many “non-profits” they have a palatial hq building and a multitude of well paid bureaucrats and major domos.
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