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Another spectacular tackler for the greater glory of God at America’s Premier Baptist University!

Lozano said she was slapped, kicked, slammed against a wall and against a car by Chafin in 2014.

Margaret Soltan, June 8, 2016 9:15AM
Posted in: forms of religious experience, sport

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8 Responses to “Another spectacular tackler for the greater glory of God at America’s Premier Baptist University!”

  1. charlie Says:

    You know, Kafka must have had some massive prescience when he wrote Metamorphosis because it describes the current state of American unis. One day they’re just your average flack, then they wake up and they’ve become some venomous 200 lbs cockroach. Friends and family try to deal with the creature by thinking somehow it’ll go back to what it was, but never does…

  2. Anon Says:

    “Coed” is still a thing? Wtf?

  3. John Brett Says:

    UD, I really enjoy your writings so thank you for that
    As a UK resident (England) I don’t understand the US college football system, we have nothing like it over here. Our universities do have sporting events e.g. The Oxford and Cambridge boat race where the participants are students taking a degree course who in their free time participate in their sport. From what I can gather some US college students are first and foremost sportsmen and women who do no necessarily have any college entry level academic qualification, they just excel at sport. Am I right, are, for example, all 85 Baylor footballers taking a serious university degree course?
    Thank you for your time
    Best
    John

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Hello John: Thanks for writing. Yes, the European and American systems are completely different, and Americans have somehow made their peace with the travesty/lie/hypocrisy on wheels that is big-time university athletics here. Very few of Baylor’s football players are taking a recognizable university degree course, serious or not. Certain pretend majors – sports marketing, human kinetics and leisure studies, communications – are custom-made for athletes admitted to universities where they cannot do the work. It’s partly that they’ve often gone to poor secondary schools, but just as importantly they have no time. They’re the people whose job it is to make billion dollar tv and merchandise contracts pay off for their universities; they’re the people who must win games and sell tickets in order to justify the billion dollar new stadium their school just went deeply into debt to build.

    Everyone knows that the whole “university” angle in these commercial transactions is a farce. Basically, no one on this side of the pond cares.

  5. John Brett Says:

    Thank you UD, I can now read your articles with greater understanding and appreciation of your views.
    Best
    John

  6. charlie Says:

    John Brett, to underscores UD’s point regarding the cost of new stadiums, Baylor opened McLane Stadium in 2012. The cost, $226 million. The venue is primarily used for football games which occur less than ten times per year. For the vast majority of the time, it’s an empty warehouse. If Baylor football garners sanctions, such as post season bowl game bans, none of their games broadcast, or the worst, the death penalty where the sport is suspended, more than Baylor faces bankruptcy. That’s why the desperation of the school admins to find a new coach and get a team on the field, despite the fact that there is an on-going investigation regarding the Athletic Department corruption.

    None of this is new, the need to fill huge college football stadiums, no matter what it takes, has been going on for nearly a century. The so-called Golden Age of college football was the decade of the 1920s. It was then that American unis realized the marketing and profit potential of showcasing their players and coaches and built huge stadiums to accommodate all of that. For instance:

    Ohio State Stadium 1922
    University of Michigan 1927
    University of Illinois Stadium 1923
    University of Pitt Stadium 1925
    University of Nebraska Stadium 1923
    University of Oklahoma Stadium 1923
    Stanford University Stadium 1921
    Notre Dame Stadium 1930

    Those were, and some still are, the premier college football programs in America. They made huge investments in these gigantic venues. But The Depression happened, student enrollment dropped, and the unis had the dilemma of how do we make our mortgage payments? Well, if it means default or having a bunch of fast, brawny guys who have no interest in academics invading your campus in order to save the football season, you know how that’s going to end. Nothing has changed in nearly a century….

  7. Jack/OH Says:

    John Brett, UD and Charlie are right. My memory’s dim, but expert observers point to very specific, very identifiable institutional and corporate incentives that influence and distort the academy’s behaviors with respect to big-money sports.

    UD’s right. No one here cares. The money and entrenchment are too strong.

  8. John Brett Says:

    Charlie,Jack
    Really kind of you to chip in. I am grateful and better informed.
    Very best
    John

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