This is a question worth pondering. When not only Florida State, but several other university and of course professional football teams generate so much abuse of women, it’s worth asking whether they are in fact in some sense requiring it.
Of course the question as posed is meant to be amusing, provocative, whatever. But let’s take it seriously for a moment.
The article from which I got the question is titled
What is the Deal With FSU and Their Recruitment of Psycho Quarterbacks?
with the plural meant to refer to FSU’s Jameis Winston… So there’s this “psycho” theme (think also, for instance, of Nebraska’s big hero, Richie Incognito) and this abuse of women theme, that runs through the sport, sometimes with video accompaniment, sometimes not.
UD suggests that the arms race in professional university sports (as UD calls it) involves a dramatic escalation not only of coaching salaries and Adzillatrons, but increasing pressure to locate bigger, scarier, and more volatile players.
The appeal of massive crazy easily set-off dudes on the field is obvious – they intimidate opponents, excite fans, etc., etc. But as Incognito’s sad college career attests, it’s increasingly dangerous to put hopped-up essentially professional football player-sized students on a campus with plain old students. This kind of classroom incident will, I think, become more common:
Around midnight on April 12, 2014, Oregon State student Michael Davis said he and a friend had been arguing with some football players about cutting in line at a bar and he had fallen to the ground with one of them while fending off a punch. As Davis stood up, tight end Tyler Perry ran up and punched him in the head, knocking him to the ground, the police report states.
According to the report, Davis said a friend who played football told him that he “shouldn’t call the cops. We won’t have a starting lineup next year.” Another person involved in the incident said he “knew the males to be OSU football players so did not really want them in any trouble.”
Days after the incident, Davis said that one of his professors noticed several football players milling outside the door of a classroom and the professor told him to exit through a different door because she was afraid they were going to harass him.
Yes. Professors protecting students from the team.
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Writing about professional football, one observer notes:
We idolize players of a game that champions aggression and violence. Their lifestyles of opulence and celebrity are dependent on their ability to run fast, throw far and hit very hard. They are so dependent on this lifestyle that they no longer have the ability to control the aggression for which they are revered.
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To make the university situation even more perilous, football players tend, as at Oregon State, to move in packs (the police in Florida are currently interviewing five or six players who entered the bar with De’Andre Johnson). Like the bikers at Twin Peaks, they’re a band of brothers, and they’ll all beat you up.
Keep in mind, finally, that the trend in America is not only toward guns on campus, but, in some places, open carry.
Talk about an arms race on campus.
Feast your mind on the academic future.
July 10th, 2015 at 9:57AM
another likely factor is the increasing professionalization of elite highschool sports where the grooming of “student” athletes tends to make sure that the able-bodied are pumped up with their importance and made immune from the rules that the rest of us live within.
July 10th, 2015 at 10:48AM
So, TX is going to allow open carry of weapons at unis. You mean, the same places that have placed such a premium on the party model of uni marketing? Great idea, allow slightly drunk, emotionally unstable young adults access to guns. How much money is going to have to be paid to install gun lockers on campus? Are uni police going to have be armed in order to respond to some kid going off? How much greater is the risk of someone getting accidentally shot or killed with open carry? Given all that, who would insure a uni so stupid as to allow guns to be introduced into such a volatile situation? And why would anyone pay even greater amounts of tuition in order to cover the cost of having your classmate armed and ready for…. something?
July 10th, 2015 at 4:55PM
Charlie —
This open carry stuff comes from the state legislature against the explicit wish of just about every university official in the state, including Chancellor McRavan of the UT System. So when you ask a question like “who would ensure a uni so stupid . . .” you’re off base. This was not only not a university decision, it was something opposed at the uni and system levels across the board. When a heavily decorated former Admiral opposes this legislation and cannot get any traction from it, you’ve learned all you need to know about the politics of Texas. I’ve read enough of your comments to know that you’ve never not allowed your knee to jerk when it is so inclined, but it’s actually ok occasionally to have some sense of what you’re talking about. To assert stupidity on the part of Texas universities in this scenario is to reveal your own ignorance about the situation with guns on campus in the Lone Star State, where I’ve learned in more than a decade never to bet against crazy.
dcat
July 10th, 2015 at 5:53PM
well derek they could refuse to serve/work under (and otherwise support) such insane and dangerous conditions, no?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKbDz4EZio
July 11th, 2015 at 10:23AM
@Dcat
“With that said, we are not surprised in the least that the majority of the members in the legislature put the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the interests of higher education and students (our greatest asset). We do not view this bill as a win in any form and while it does provide some ability for college presidents to designate certain areas as free from concealed weapons, these designations are subject to a two-thirds approval vote by the Board of Regents, who members are political appointees and if no agreement is reached, by review of the legislature.”
http://keepgunsoffcampus.org/
You might find this of interest, but just to let you know, BOR is what runs unis, admins work for them. My point stands, if a uni is so stupid as to allow guns on campus, then who is going to insure that situation, and what is going to be amount of increased tuition in order to cover that cost? I’ve read your enough of your posts to know you’ll probably miss the point…..
July 11th, 2015 at 10:55AM
@dcat:
I do need to admit that much of what I know of TX comes by way of Molly Ivins. Having in laws from DFW and Houston doesn’t seem to be quite as informative as the her.
“Stupidity, thy name is the Texas House of Representatives.”
Molly Ivins
“Legislature Continues to Play Ostrich with Social Problems” Dallas Times Herald (28 July 1991)
“I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”
Molly Ivins
“Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.”
Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? (1991)
“It’s hard to argue against cynics – they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.”
Molly Ivins
July 13th, 2015 at 4:17PM
Charlie —
You wrote this: “You might find this of interest, but just to let you know, BOR is what runs unis, admins work for them.” No shit. Do you really think I’m a tenured professor at a UT campus, active in shared governance, and I don’t know this? I’ve been in the room with regents, know what they’re about.
As for my missing the point, it is you who keeps on missing the point (in fact, I sometimes think you should just shut up and let the grownups talk when it comes to higher ed policy). The universities have limited leverage here, as your very citations here indicate.
Do you have an English version of the following assertion: “My point stands, if a uni is so stupid as to allow guns on campus, then who is going to insure that situation, and what is going to be amount of increased tuition in order to cover that cost?” Because I’m really not certain what you’re asking and how it applies to individual university decisions when as you’ve clearly identified, those decisions come from the regents, subject to review by the ledge.
As for Ivans, I’m a big admirer, but I’m afraid I’ve no idea how any of those quotations have anything to do with what we’re discussing here. I’m guessing neither do you. You make one hell of a word salad, I’ll give you that.
dcat