If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Is it a choice I would recommend? It's a tough, personal and likely uncomfortable decision to make -- especially for those who drive around town with the mascot of their former school plastered across their car's license plate (just saying). It's not for everyone.
When coaches evaluate and break down players during practices and showcases they look to see how balanced they are and if the balls of their feet are on the ground.
The spate of recent criticisms regarding college sports center on two arguments: that their existence is detrimental to the university's mission of education and scholarship; and that their prominence in university life is new. Neither claim is true.
I love the game of football. I went to a Big Ten school, and my wife and I still return to our alma mater for games. But the game can and should be safer.
What is needed is a non-Euclidean collegiate model, in which NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision and men's Division-I college basketball players would be recognized as employees, while other college athletes retained their "amateur" status.
The NCAA's collegiate model -- if it ever really existed -- died long ago and cannot be resuscitated. No matter how many times the big-time college-sport triangle is measured and re-measured, the sum of its angles is clearly not 180°.
This season has been devastating for those of us who believe that college football can be about more than just money and big egos. But perhaps that's because it may not be about anything else anymore.
It is college football bowl season once again. Over the next three weeks millions of dollars are up for grabs. The only group that will not make money is the players playing the games.
As with any dominant college big man, a lot of talk has swirled around the NBA prospects of Ohio State sophomore Jared Sullinger, and rightfully so. Sullinger has been an absolute monster from the very first day he stepped on campus in Columbus.
Shortly after he was elected, President Obama said of a college football playoff, "I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do." Well, what better time than now?
The cruel, cold months of December and January bring warmth to the hearts of college football fans everywhere -- but only if their Division I team is involved in one of the thirty-five scheduled "major" college bowl games.
It's not just colleges, or sports, or the Catholic Church. To make sure that parents and children are not afraid, we need to reconsider and reconfigure the norms in every institution that they participate in.
The Heisman Trophy is the most prestigious award a college football player can earn; and yet, like the BCS, its internal processes remain an imperfect science. In the case of USC junior quarterback Matt Barkley, it represents the perfect snub.
Instead of caring whether a coach will stay (because he won't), kids and parents need to be asking questions more in line with the culture of today.
There's no argument. It's classic. It's archetypical. It's big. It's the Iron Bowl, due to be played for the 76th time this Saturday, November 26, before a sell-out crowd.
I think fear is a real quandary for society. All we have at the moment is exposure of crimes and a salute to the victims, the brave ones who courageously stand up to these bullying organizations and institutions.
