A Vindication of the Rightness of Me

Back when I was in elementary school, I was so busy watching reruns of Monty Python and new episodes of Uncle Floyd and Georgia Championship Wrestling that I never quite got around to watching college athletics. I followed a few professional teams but between the Saturday games and the vast number of schools involved with ever changing line ups of teen agers, I couldn't find the energy to follow college sports.

By the time high school rolled around, I understood that I was supposed to care about college teams, but my own distaste for high school jocks soured the entire topic. A bunch of guys who got away with stuff outside of class, and weren't held to the standards I was, because they took of their free time to play sports. How noble. They made me mad. Kids who should be failing. Kids who didn't follow rules. Teachers who bent rules, administrators who showed preference for certain groups, and a school more interested in the newest trophy than in giving proper academic guidance. I hated jocks.

In college, I was able to step out from behind my own inability to play sports and base my revulsion on more real and reasonable grounds. I saw the abuses first hand -- the alcohol consumption both condoned and facilitated by coaches. The classes missed by team members because of practices and long trips. The lower academic expectations applied to incoming and current students on many teams (but not all -- I knew students on the baseball team who seemed to work hard...unless that was just because the classes I found easy were a real challenge to them...). The artificial stress by the school on tournaments and games with results sent out to alums to instill pride when the bulk of the student body was busy writing papers and getting no glory for being hard working, intellectual beings. Every time I walked past someone's dorm room and he was watching a college game on a Saturday afternoon, all I could think of was "don't those guys have a test on Monday or a paper due for a History class this week?"

Bottom line was that it made me angry.

After college, I saw the flaws in the system even more starkly. Alumni giving spurred on by athletics; programming and other educational opportunities slashed while the sacred cows of jockdom remained; applicants for jobs who graduated without basic skills because of their presence on teams and the reduced expectations that that allowed for.

I have never liked college sports.

This whole Penn State scandal should have no bearing on my feelings. I condemn violence against and abuse of anyone so I see that the assistant was criminally wrong and those who didn't not stand up to bring him to justice should be punished. But, theoretically, this has no connection to my feelings about the entirety of athletic programs. So when I started reading articles which expanded the critique from an attack on pedophiles and institutional cover ups into an expose on college athletics, I jumped for joy. Metaphorically -- as stated, I'm not overly athletic.

This sad state of affairs has allowed writers to question the whole notion of sports programs. Yes, they give opportunities to students who otherwise might not have had any, but I'm not sure that that is a good thing. Need based and academic scholarships can be more effective motivators and if the money funneled into new stadiums (stadia?), uniforms, PR and staffing for teams had been donated to other school causes, the rest of those scholarships and grants could exist. We should be encouraging high schoolers to get good grades and value their learning. Their evenings shouldn't be about a game, but a book. For most of them, their sporting lives won't become a career and won't equip them with the skills or knowledge to help them move into another field. Sure, the Ivy League players will still have the name of an Ivy League school on the diploma, and sure, some players have the smarts or the built in opportunity to succeed, but the majority of students who mortgage their educational futures to play ball will have their opportunities foreclosed upon.

This is how I have felt all along. Maybe it was because of my own limited time, or energy, or ability. maybe it was because of my experiences with the system. Whatever it is, it seems to have taken the mainstream media a while to get around to it -- pity that it takes so long, and such a horrible act of violence for people to wake up and feel empowered to question bigger systems. Welcome to the curve. I've been waiting just ahead for the rest of you.