I’m not gonna do that thing where I say They started as monasteries and other religious-type entities and look how far they’ve fallen! I’m not gonna say universities – much less American universities – must continue to represent a higher, purer, realm of activity than, say, Myrtle Beach Bike Week.
No, no, let it rip. Let sex-scandal-soaked University of Minnesota produce as a finalist for regent a football player with exposure issues. Let UMN’s current regents grumble about having been left out of the hiring and compensation decisions around their incoming multimillionaire football coach (background on him here). Let the probable upcoming scandal and massive buyout of this guy’s contract also weigh heavily on the pointless dithering trustees. Fine. Fine.
Go ahead and make universities places where highly paid employees routinely injure students so badly they have to be hospitalized. Where brainwork means concussions. Football players with exposure issues are part of the grand legacy of American universities, as are sadistic-training hospitalizations. As are – at some of our highest profile schools – child rape, gang rape, and woman battering.
But consider this:
I don’t want to scare you, but more and more people are talking about a fundamental change in the higher education of this country. More and more people are talking about a minor league for football.
And American universities had better watch out, or it’s ave atque vale Richie Incognito, Johnny Manziel, and Peyton Manning. These guys are not merely the heroes of schools like Nebraska and Tennessee – they’re the trustees of the future. Their ethos is the school ethos. All the money and the passion and the very identity of the university follow them. What happens when American teenagers are able to go directly into a minor league system and bypass the university?
UD‘s friend David Ridpath is all excited.
For anyone that loves football at all levels and wants college football in a more educational setting along with providing more talent for the NFL, it is simply a no brainer.
A lot of people are excited. But if you’re a university, ask yourself: What happens to the trillion dollars you’ve already invested in new stadiums and all that shit? You’re already looking at seriously declining attendance at the games, and serious resistance to paying vaster and vaster student athletic fees. Much more fundamentally, you are football. Nebraska, Penn State, a hundred others – What happens when a few grade-conscious pussies tiptoe out on the field for you? As Mrs Dalloway put it – the death of the soul…
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UD thanks Charlie.
January 18th, 2017 at 4:13PM
Off-topic, UD, but I thought you would enjoy this:
http://theweek.com/articles/673091/general-mattis-save-military-ban-powerpoint
January 19th, 2017 at 11:04AM
We’re constantly being told that uni administrators have to be generously compensated because they’re the best and brightest. If so, they could make so much more money working corporate, and if unis want to follow a for profit business model, then they need to pay to get the right people to do the job.
Well, that’s crap. As mentioned in the OP, three U of Oregon football players were hospitalized due to strenuous off season conditioning workouts. The condition is rhabdomyolysis, a break down of muscle that affects the kidneys due to overexertion. What’s astonishing is this took place less than seven years ago at the University of Iowa.
http://www.thegazette.com/2011/01/26/100-squats-17-minutes-rhabdomyolysis
So these highly compensated satraps that run U of Oregon, due to their vast knowledge of some damn thing, didn’t know, or care, what had taken place with Iowa football players less than a decade before? What other explanation exists that Oregon admins are either craven jackholes or imbeciles?