An article by the author of "Friday Night Lights" on WSJ.com: (Hat tip to Drew Carey's Twitter)
Why College Football Should Be Banned
"That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.
Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy."
It took this long for someone to make the OBVIOUS statement that college football serves no academic purpose, and, at the major levels, only exists as an NFL feeder/minor league?
It is stupefying to me (but, at the same time, indicative of the societal hold football has on us) that it took this long for someone to state Captain Obvious, especially in the day and age that only 15 schools (and mostly, if not all, football powers) made money on their athletic programs last year.
And:
"According to the NCAA, 43% of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision lost money on their programs. "
That's 52 of the schools, if you lost count.
And then he brings the hammer home:
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits. There is the false concept of the football student-athlete that the NCAA endlessly tries to sell, when any major college player will tell you that the demands of the game, a year-round commitment, makes the student half of the equation secondary and superfluous. There are the scandals that have beset programs in the desperate pursuit of winning—the University of Southern California, Ohio State University, University of Miami and Penn State University among others."
I'll let his words here speak for themselves.
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