Gotta love George Will. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his politics, it's hard not to love his old school (and in my opinion, accurate) perspective on sports.

Here's his recent take in the Washington Post on minor-league football, er, scholar athletes, er, college football:

COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS OUT OF BOUNDS

And then there's this one that appeared in the NYTimes earlier this week.

Would I let my son play football?

Luckily, the guy only has daughters...

(09-19-2013 07:38 PM)grol Wrote:  And then there's this one that appeared in the NYTimes earlier this week.

Would I let my son play football?

Luckily, the guy only has daughters...

"the guy" Mr. Scott Fujita, awfully fun to watch linebacker (and not bad writer to boot)

Not Hard to Be a Saint in this City

I love George Will. And he's usually pretty accurate, though terribly biased toward MLB.
Nevertheless, what he states in this short piece is hard to refute, in a way. Football in general will likely be different in the future. Despite the huge amounts of money it generates for the ESU's and the NFL franchises, it's percieved unbridled violence may get dialed back... In response to the courts, and the media.

In 1906, Teddy Rosevelt convened a meeting to do something about football injuries after a college player died on the field of play. There were some changes made such as the forward pass to reduce the violence.

One thing that has changed about the game in the last 40 years is an increased weight mismatch on the field. There is 1971 Rice roster in the book Saturday's Children and the largest players on it weighed less than 250 pounds. Other SWC schools were not bigger. Now there are college lineman weighing over 300 pounds that are not slower than the players were in 1971 so the impact is greater now.

Coaches back then did not get multi-million dollar salaries so it was easier for athletics to make money. There no Title 9 so no real money was spent for women's athletics, but it is too easy to blame that instead of that coaching salaries are taking too much of the pie. Also, the number of athletic employees is a lot more bloated than it used to be.

I doubt the student-athletes enrolled in that on-line without instructors Swahili course that Will mentions would be able to understand the language if they made a visit to East Africa.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...ts/309447/

Interesting article about the case against all high school sports, not just football. Of course it ignores the growing phenomenon of year-round club sports altogether. If there were no high school sports, more kids would be involved in club volleyball, soccer, basketball, etc., and probably would be even less inclined to concentrate on their academics.

I like the anecdote in the story about what Spelman College did. They dropped intercollegiate sports this past year and spent that funding on a campus wide fitness program instead. Now I think their situation is a bit unique from most schools (I hope that half of Rice's incoming freshman class isn't obese or have type 2 diabetes and other weight-related health issues).

(09-20-2013 07:18 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Interesting article about the case against all high school sports, not just football. Of course it ignores the growing phenomenon of year-round club sports altogether. If there were no high school sports, more kids would be involved in club volleyball, soccer, basketball, etc., and probably would be even less inclined to concentrate on their academics.

I like the anecdote in the story about what Spelman College did. They dropped intercollegiate sports this past year and spent that funding on a campus wide fitness program instead. Now I think their situation is a bit unique from most schools (I hope that half of Rice's incoming freshman class isn't obese or have type 2 diabetes and other weight-related health issues).

I found it interesting that I noticed on this page that just over 2/3 of Rice's current frosh class were varsity athletes in high school.

http://futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/Fr...rofile.asp

On the $$ side, we are racing to determine/debate whether to pay players, whether Johnny Football should get paid for autographs, likeness, etc. but we are blowing by the first question....where is all the $$ going today that is made from College Football and MBB to even make the pay-to-play discussion anything more than esoteric?

The problem is that paying players will never work at a Texas or Notre Dame let alone a Rice b/c all the $$ go to supporting the 80+ national championships and 30+ sports that the NCAA and Universities have to feed at D-1, D-11, and D-III. That takes billions of $$. Even 'successful' programs like UConn women's BBall lose $$ despite the TV exposure, big crowds, etc.

Sure, coaches salaries are becoming an increasing part of the pie but the elephant in the room is whether the redistribution of $$ to men's golf, women's soccer, non D-1 'big' schools, etc. is the right thing to do at the expense of not paying players who are the ones generating the revenue. We debate paying players as right/wrong w/out debating how it could be practically be funded. Thus it is purely an academic exercise.

Reality is the only way it gets funded is at the expense of not funding other $$-losing sports that have increasing budgets, fancier facilities, more travel, etc. What is clear from all the NCAA messaging, advertising, etc. is that 'all' sports is what matters. Until someone decides that they don't matter other than MBB and FB (both mens and womens..not a gender/Title IX issue..a financial one)...the entire debate is pointless.

Nobody has the 'huevos' to take that issue b/c of the politics and until it is taken on, we are left w/ lots of articles and talking heads wasting lots of energy b/c the math just does not work. Eventually, you could see the capitalists at the NFL developing a minor league system building the Austin farm-team that supports Texans and Okla farm team for Cowboys, etc. that drafts high-school kids and takes more chances on 19-year olds w/ one-year of college to develop them and pay them alot but from NCAA/college perspective, paying players not going to happen in our lifetime.

(09-20-2013 08:08 AM)owl40 Wrote:  We debate paying players as right/wrong w/out debating how it could be practically be funded. Thus it is purely an academic exercise. ]

Well we sure can't one of those in a fine athletic establishment such as our University! [/heavy dose of sarcasm]