• Drape, Joe. "The BCS Will Live, but Faces Tinkering." New York Times, December 9, 2003. See http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/sports/ncaafootball/09BCS.html • Wieberg, Steve. "Co-champs loom after Okla., LSU chosen for Sugar Bowl." USA Today, December 7, 2003. See http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2003-12-07-bcs-sugar-bowl_x.htm • Ratto, Ray. "Settle it the honorable way." ESPN.com, December 8, 2003. See http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=ratto_ray&id=1681390 Okay, three articles. It's hard to make a topic out of it, especially for internationals, but here's the essential story: For years, there has been an ongoing debate on college campuses, in conference halls, and in taverns and backyards and living rooms about how best to decide once and for all whose college football (American-style) team is the best. I actually despise championship time for college sports in general because it's a bit frightening to me how much energy people put into it. Insofar as social rituals are concerned, I have few objections--mostly aesthetic, none substantial--to dressing up the family car for the big game, and so forth. But ever since my teenage years--the advent of brass & fern, and bar & grille post-yuppie society, I've been subject to an explosion of sports-themed restaurants to the point that until that ugly something-or-another a couple of years ago in New York, and then that thing in Iraq, I would have sworn college sports to be perhaps the single most important issue in American culture. This, of course, is an overstatement, but only minor. In high school, I recall "Duke Fever" during the "Big Dance" (college basketball tournament of 64 teams.) After Michigan's "fab five" freshman team did wonders, I was amazed at how popular Michigan (Big Ten) became, even on the West Coast (Pac Ten), where the traditional interconference rivalry was. And when Brian Bosworth was (relatively) news, Oklahoma Sooner gear was the rage. I don't get it. On the one hand, you've got people abandoning their own faith (there is an odd value to the identity politic of a University among the United States) in their alma maters to cheer for the flavor of the month or else a traditionally corrupt (e.g. Miami) program. (Commentary aside: Fraud, recruiting scandals, firearms, drugs, prostitution--even murder, as events at Baylor University showed; and yet a newly-hired coach at Alabama--Mike Price--gets fired for getting drunk at a strip club?) And above and beyond it all is the fact that this is college sports. What the hell? Read the links above; for college football, Americans have invented a system for determining the best team that is so dense and screwy that three of the last four years neither of the top two teams were drawn for the championship game. I mean ... you're kidding, right? What the hell? Christ on a pony! Soon enough you can send your kid to college just so she can major in college sports statistics. What? What does it matter? Some thoughts that would relate vaguely to other fora: • WE&P: If you're not an American and want to see a little of our minds in action, take a trip to the US during college championship season; the greater the controversy, the better. Founding fathers spoke of taverns as centers of political sentiment; George Fox noted that even in the taverns, people spoke and daresay argued about issues pertaining to God the likes he'd never seen in the world. But almost as complex as fundamental political issues in the United States these days is the armchair pseudo-science of sport. Go to a tavern; you'll likely hear more talk about the BCS conundrum than Iraq. • Religion: In some posts, I've drawn a connection between the unreal expectation of anthropomorphic theism, redemptive theism, and so on, to the idea of a sports fan in America. Yet I find myself in this current post decrying the fickle nature of the American public insofar as it seeks any bandwagon to jump on. I'm not sure yet how the two ideas work and play together. • Art & Culture: The cultural ritual of college football is so important that the system is eating itself. What testament, America? • EM&J: This is college. These are students. For every one who makes a pro team are hundreds, even thousands whose sports careers stop when they graduate. (Certainly, they can coach pee-wee and high school, but it ain't much of a living.) Many Americans know, and the idea gets airtime on sport-talk radio. But these athletes often are not in college in order to learn, but to serve the greater glory of the sports program. In the 1980s, I remember scandals about steroids, grades, entrance test scores, &c. One of the great scandals of sports is that many former pro athletes know nothing else, and blow whatever money they make irresponsibly. Surely enough, others with a college degree have trouble making responsible decisions in the world, so we can't say it's exclusively the athletes who are let down by the system, but if you survey the NCAA's rules on compensating athletes, you'll find it frightening how far the rules have to go in order to merely allege fair play. What price, sports? What does it say about a society's priorities when something like college sports can become so important? Ramble, ramble, blather, murmur. What? Over a few pints and listening to the red-faced jagov at the end of the bar drone on about why USC doesn't deserve the ranking anyway, I might be able to make a more specific and issue-oriented post.
The BCS remains simply because of the money these bowl games generate. To me, the notion of a "national" champion is nonsensical and irrelevant; were Oklohoma to play USC or LSU, I'm they would beat both. This would be proved correct when the OU and LSU meet on Jan. 2. The system should be reverted back to what it was prior to the BCS. I am more concerened with rewarding the players. With the millions these universities generate from the bowl games, a player can get expelled for taking "gifts". And they wonder why the NBA is filled with H.S. school talent. Until admission is free, or until the "TV" money these schools get are used for the betterment of these players-- who play somne of these games during their finals week, I say the whole BCS crap is simply that, crap! The schools graduate morons and fill the bellies of already fat fucks.
When do these athletes ever get any actual schooling done? It would seem we should be trying to get students to graduate with honers rather than try to get headlines in sports. Why is it that the athletes never get paid for they do all the work and the colleges get all the millions. True the athletes get scholarships and room and board but the administration gets mercedes, new homes , raises, huge paychecks.
