I used to care about college football. In the three years I lived on the west coast and was single I would watch football most fall Saturdays starting at 9 until it was time to go to bed that night. I particularly loved the Oklahoma Sooners, who won a national championship during that time.
As I have gotten older, though, college football has dropped off of my interest radar. I guess it was 7-8 years ago that I made the decision to quit cold turkey and, except when I have been at a restaurant or somebody's house and it is on and I can't remove it from my line of sight, I have not watched it. Having kids and being more interested in their activities and the introduction of new interests (hello, soccer!) means that it's no longer an option. But there are also some very real negatives about it:
1)College football coaches are regularly the highest paid state employees. Even as education suffers, we pay our coaches up to ten million dollars a year to foster a group of usually non-academic students through an extracirricular activity. This is wrong.
2)Even as coaches profit greatly, student-athletes make little to nothing. It was thought by now that lawsuits about profiting through video games licensing would have changed this, but no, the athletes get nothing but a college education in 'communications' or 'general studies'.
3)What does having a great football team have to do with education? Again, it reminds us that what we think of as 'good' in this country is all out of whack.
4)Enough evidence has been accumulated about the physical toll of football to make me thankful my kids want nothing to do with it. In particular the brain injury CTE stuff is terrifying if you are a parent. How can we support a sport that regularly destroys futures? Professionals make this choice and are at least compensated. High school and college students, though, may have chosen this but likely were never taught about its dangers before they started playing.
5)When you root for a college football team (or any team that you do not have family or friends playing for) you are rooting for laundry. How many 'Oklahoma' kids are actually on the Oklahoma team? I know none of them...why do I care so much whether my group of strangers beats your group of strangers? This applies not only to college football, but most sports in general.
6)College football borders on idolatry in many places. Watching otherwise godly people become either giddy or depressed about their team's performance makes me wonder what it is we really worship.
7)College campuses have buildings dedicated to science, housing, the arts, and accounting...but none of those buildings cost nearly as much or are maintained nearly as well as the football stadium. When T Boone Pickens gives Oklahoma State almost a quarter billion dollars to renovate the football stadium, something is wrong.
8)University administrators are often tasked with fund-raising for athletic teams as much as increasing academic performances.
9)College football itself is often mind-numbingly dull. Watching top teams regularly plaster less opponents by 50+ points is not worth my time.
10)People who regularly complain about the costs of everything think nothing of paying hundreds of dollars for uncomfortable and not very good seats at a football game. Again, priorities, people.
Maybe I do care about college football...but I care because it is become something so bad for our culture. Count me out of the worship of young athletes.
