Posted on 12/08/2015 11:32:42 AM PST by EveningStar
College football players are gladiators of sorts. On the one hand, they are vastly underpaid for the risks they take as well as the profits they generate for the university and the scores of jobs they subsidize. On the other, in terms of college protocols, they are pampered and exempt from rules that other students follow. Being exploited and privileged is a bad combination.
For half a century, liberals have pointed out that football players should drop the amateur pretense, join a semi-pro club, and make the money they deserve -- given that their admissions, grades, and class attendance are exempt from university rules, and warp the college experience. Why do we treat as a privileged class those who so often do not meet university requirements that are non-negotiable for mostly indebted students without recourse to such lavish scholarships and subsidies? Entire majors, curricula, counseling, and protocols were invented simply to free football players from having to be students.
Athletes are also exempt from the new liberal policing. The university campus has grown into a scary place, given the Maoist tendencies to go after race/class/gender enemies of the people. But no institution is more guilty of such politically correct crimes than is the football team.
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Useless degrees? If so then it is their own fault. Some of the elite go on to the nfl after a few years but for most they have an opportunity to get the degree of their choice.
Many of them would be better off going to trade school and playing semi-pro. One of my cousins married a fireman, who is also a semi-pro player. No way he’s NFL quality, but his football playing days didn’t end at age 21.
I agree 100%. Start a farm league and let the pro’s draw from that. It has the added benefit of eliminating the Title IX silliness too.
College football is hopelessly corrupt. Sandusky is just the tip of the iceberg.
The last I heard, they got RECRUITED——NOT DRAFTED——
Most cannot get college scholarships based upon grades.
They cannot afford to pay for it themselves.
This is their entrance key to the NFL. WE all know it.
Might stop some of this drafting players who turn out to be duds. In the MLB if you make it you are the cream of the crop. An added benefit, in my opinion, is it will also help in weeding out more of the crappy and criminal element.
I understand exactly what he means. Exploited in the sense that football players make the university lots of money for putting themselves in harms way and privileged in the sense that they get away with much more academically and otherwise than a normal student.
I see nothing wrong with that.
The biggest problem with CFB is the cheapening of the “student athlete” by lowering admissions standards beyond the ridiculous.
Just look at the statistics, the course and major recommendations, the study halls, the scandals re grades and eligibility . . . and test scores.
Collegiate sports should be about students and their college/university. It shouldn’t be about fielding the best team regardless of academics. They may make money, lots of it for some schools, but they are also wasting valuable resources and causing lots of controversy (along with crime and sexual harassment) along the way.
Incrementally increase admissions and eligibility standards. The game survives the annual raid of upperclassmen by the NFL, it can survive the loss of non-serious students who only want to “play”
And according to liberals, shouldn’t the teams “more properly reflect the student body at large”?
College sports started as an activity in which real students played sports. Now it’s a big business in which professional athletes pretend to be students, and make huge profits for the schools.
For years, there was a thing where packaged products, it seemed, had to have something—it was always “free”—in the package besides the main product. You know, towels in the laundry detergent, etc. I remember a MAD TV special, around 1965, where they had a tablecloth in a huge can of spaghetti sauce.
Is it a college, or an entertainment conglomerate?
All the other students are "exempt from university rules" as well, at least if they "feel" the rule is not one that they agree with.
Must assume sarcasm.
Oh, for Pete's sake. Can't you tell?
I refuse to watch any college sports. They encapsulate the sanctimonious, unprincipled and money-grubbing nature of higher-ed. All supported by your tax dollars.
Do not subsidize liberals with your time, attention and money.
Roll Tide! College football fans are not the group you want to pick a fight with. Watch the draft numb nuts.. Some of these kids made it through hell by working harder, being passionate and a lot of physical pain.
Someone got his girlfriend taken away by a college star, and now he wants to take away what can be, the only hope for these kids.
Why not college soccer, basketball and golf?
O wait, they don’t pray as much, so they aren’t targets. Lol.
Maybe mr Hansen could hook up w Caitlyn Jennings and live their fairy tale life.
Start a farm league and let the pro’s draw from that.
pray tell, who will start these farm teams...an act of Congress couldn’t force the nfl to fund them...
And according to liberals, shouldn’t the teams “more properly reflect the student body at large�
You know who would scream the loudest if that happened-the fans, bitching because the school wasn’t going after the best players...
Along with the hypocritical commissioners, school presidents, deans, and coaches.
Since their jobs aren’t being threatened at the moment
Anyone who wants to make the profit from them that they will bear. I don’t know why the NFL wouldn’t fund them; it would be a good cultivating ground for their ranks. But even if they won’t, some enterprising soul might.
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