At 3:00 p.m. today, the institution at which I received my Bachelor's degree and at which I am currently employed will take the field for a college football bowl game as the Bowling Green State University Falcons will play the San Jose State University Spartans in the Military Bowl. In past years, I would have already written a little bit on this blog about this bowl game, as it likely would have been at the top or near the top of my ranking of the season's college football bowl games in terms of how much watching each appeals to me. Like in previous years, that ranking would have offered an honest assessment of my interest and would have been meant to provide a counternarrative to the lists on major sports news websites that are dominated by games featuring teams from leagues that have automatic qualification for the BCS bowl games -- you know, those lists that reflect a perspective that correlates in some ways to the sentiment of outrage that was articulated when Mid-American Conference member Northern Illinois earned an invitation to one of the BCS games this year.
This year, there was no list because ... well ... there is no appeal to watching any of the games. After deciding in August to give up college football, I have not watched a single moment of any college football bowl games this year, and I have no plans to watch any of them. Thus, I offer no list.
I had thought about going through each of the 35 college football games and demonstrating a reason for not watching each one by pointing to some way in which one or both institutions place football in too powerful of a position, by pointing out a practice at one or both institutions that demonstrates the troubling ramifications of how football programs are run and/or financed, or by pointing out a troubling ramification of the bowl game itself. It was easy to start seeing and finding examples for many games, but frankly, I didn't want to write the post up and scout out a link to an example to provide for every game. College football doesn't warrant that much of my time.
So, instead, I'll just reiterate that sentiment. My alma mater is playing in a college football bowl game today. It's a bowl game that is problematic as a bowl game for some of its ramifications, as Michael Butterworth and Stormi Moskal have pointed out. It's also featuring, in my alma mater, an institution that, amid a climate of concerns about rising tuition, already has its students on the hook for $50 a semester in a student fee to pay for the basketball arena that opened in 2011, yet, as reported in the Toledo Blade, members of the Board of Trustees for this institution attended a football game at the University of Akron this fall to "gain ideas for a renovation of Doyt Perry Stadium."
Yeah ... college football definitely doesn't warrant any more of my time.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Serving Up Christmas
I am not a Christian. I do not belong or adhere to any particular set of religious beliefs. Rather, as I have written on this blog, I found spiritual peace when I came to the conclusion that I neither believe nor disbelieve in God (or, for that matter, any particular religious perspective). So, Christmas does not have particular meaning for me as a celebration of the birth of the son of God and the various significances that go with that. Still, there would seem to be much of worth in the philosophies associated with Jesus, and so, as I have been contemplating that this year, I have come to the view that celebrating Christmas as a means of commemorating and reflecting upon those philosophies may have value. That value, though, would seem to call for celebration of Christmas in a very different way than how so many of us currently celebrate it, and for that I'd like to contextualize it within other views of holidays that I have developed in recent years.
As I have indicated on this blog, I think we should rearrange some of the meanings we currently associate with winter holidays. Thanksgiving should be removed, as it and its mythology of oppression have little meaning, or it should be changed to a National Day of Mourning. I think the day of thanks that many now observe on Thanksgiving should be moved to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A day celebrating those who have worked and sacrificed in the name of civil rights seems much more appropriate as a time at which to be thankful. The day of giving gifts that we now celebrate on Christmas should be moved to New Year's Eve/Day. The time when we both look back at the past year and look forward to the next year seems like the appropriate time for gift giving and merriness.
Christmas, then, in this reconfiguration, would take over for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a day of service. There certainly are good reasons to associate Martin Luther King, Jr., and civil rights with the theme of service, so it's not that I'm opposed to that connection (though there may be some problematic racial coding occurring when the concept of "service" is associated with the holiday that is most prominently associated with the contributions of racial and ethnic minorities). It seems, though, that that holiday is much more appropriately themed as a time of thanks. Meanwhile, the messages offered by Jesus seem to align so squarely with the concept of service and seem to have their most use to both Christians and non-Christians as they are associated with service that I think, at least insofar as we might wish to maintain Christmas as a holiday, we ought to make it the day of service.
With that in mind, I am making plans this Christmas to increase my forms of service this coming year, and I resolve each Christmas Day and/or Eve going forward to spend a few hours volunteering in some form of service capacity. That seems so much more deeply in line with my understandings of Jesus than anything else I might do that day.
As I have indicated on this blog, I think we should rearrange some of the meanings we currently associate with winter holidays. Thanksgiving should be removed, as it and its mythology of oppression have little meaning, or it should be changed to a National Day of Mourning. I think the day of thanks that many now observe on Thanksgiving should be moved to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A day celebrating those who have worked and sacrificed in the name of civil rights seems much more appropriate as a time at which to be thankful. The day of giving gifts that we now celebrate on Christmas should be moved to New Year's Eve/Day. The time when we both look back at the past year and look forward to the next year seems like the appropriate time for gift giving and merriness.
Christmas, then, in this reconfiguration, would take over for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a day of service. There certainly are good reasons to associate Martin Luther King, Jr., and civil rights with the theme of service, so it's not that I'm opposed to that connection (though there may be some problematic racial coding occurring when the concept of "service" is associated with the holiday that is most prominently associated with the contributions of racial and ethnic minorities). It seems, though, that that holiday is much more appropriately themed as a time of thanks. Meanwhile, the messages offered by Jesus seem to align so squarely with the concept of service and seem to have their most use to both Christians and non-Christians as they are associated with service that I think, at least insofar as we might wish to maintain Christmas as a holiday, we ought to make it the day of service.
With that in mind, I am making plans this Christmas to increase my forms of service this coming year, and I resolve each Christmas Day and/or Eve going forward to spend a few hours volunteering in some form of service capacity. That seems so much more deeply in line with my understandings of Jesus than anything else I might do that day.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
On Maryland, Rutgers, and the "Benefits" of Their Big Ten Memberships
So, word is that the University of Maryland and Rutgers University are joining the Big Ten (or whatever it is called now) conference, and amid all of the discussion regarding the pros and cons of these moves, regarding the reasons why the moves are happening, and regarding the various kinds of ramifications for the moves, we have this story by Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples that sums up the case for Maryland's move (and, I think, by extension, much of the same would be applied to Rutgers).
As Staples notes, the University of Maryland -- like many other state universities around the country -- is facing drastic budget cuts that affect programs throughout the university, including college athletics. So, the move to the Big Ten for Maryland's athletic programs will presumably help the athletic department pay for itself and thus not be as reliant on the university's budget. As Staples notes, this means the athletic department will be able to "meet its budget without taking more money from taxpayers or students." So, this sounds like a pretty good argument, right? For all us critics of big-time college athletics, this takes away much of our case, right? After all, now at places like Maryland and Rutgers, athletics won't draw money from the university, and that money could be used for other things. Indeed, as Staples notes, "Some schools in big-revenue conferences such as the Big Ten and the SEC actually give money back to the academic side after balancing their budgets." Heck, can't beat that they'll actually give back, right?
Well, yeah, you see, I think we can beat that. To do, so let's see how this new scenario looks at a place such as the University of Maryland.
Let's say Maryland athletics make so much money that they contribute a few million dollars -- heck, even 10 or 20 million dollars -- back into the budget. Even the high end of that range ($20 million) does not equal half of the $50 million budget cuts with which the University of Maryland system was threatened this past spring. And, remember, Staples says that "some" Big Ten programs give money back to their universities--not all. And I would get the feeling that places like Ohio State and Michigan are more likely to be the "some" than places like Rutgers and Maryland. Still, even if a place such as Maryland does give back, it's not making up for the cuts other parts of the university are facing. So, athletics at a place like Maryland grows, while other parts of the university suffer and shrink (although apparently not the president's house), and at best athletics provides slight assistance in warding off some of that suffering an shrinking.
Meanwhile, there is another alternative. We could take all of the money we spend on athletics -- and especially football, since it's the sport that's driving this -- and spend it instead on funding education. Given estimates of revenues that the athletic department at a place like Maryland will generate based on joining the Big 10, if we applied all that money to other aspects of the university -- buying tickets for events at the university that support academic programs, donating it for education and attending a two or three hour reception for donors rather than a two-hour basketball game or three-hour football game, giving money and time spent on college sports to student support services at the university, and so on -- we would more than make up that threatened $50 million budget cut. (And, by the way, doesn't look just like another amount that's prominent in the University of Maryland's move to the Big Ten -- i.e., the amount they are asked to pay to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference in order to join the Big Ten?) Tuition would not have to rise, and folks would not have to be asked for more tax money to support higher education.
As I've argued before, and I continue to argue, this is a matter of priorities. If we're going to continue down the road of less state support for college education, forcing collegiate programs of all sorts to find other ways to fund themselves amid the marketplace (a model that I find problematic, but that's a discussion for another time), then our choices as consumers in that marketplace really, really matter. And despite how deeply so many of us have become socialized to participate in the support of college football and other big-time college athletics, we have to start resisting through the choices that we make if we are going to have worthwhile, effective, and accessible higher education. We need to change our priorities, and I think that starts with giving up college football. College football is what's driving conference expansion, and college football is driving too much of the ship at too many universities. I've already made the choice to give it up, and today, while reading about Maryland and Rutgers joining the Big Ten, I'm even more resolved in the idea that I made the right one.
As Staples notes, the University of Maryland -- like many other state universities around the country -- is facing drastic budget cuts that affect programs throughout the university, including college athletics. So, the move to the Big Ten for Maryland's athletic programs will presumably help the athletic department pay for itself and thus not be as reliant on the university's budget. As Staples notes, this means the athletic department will be able to "meet its budget without taking more money from taxpayers or students." So, this sounds like a pretty good argument, right? For all us critics of big-time college athletics, this takes away much of our case, right? After all, now at places like Maryland and Rutgers, athletics won't draw money from the university, and that money could be used for other things. Indeed, as Staples notes, "Some schools in big-revenue conferences such as the Big Ten and the SEC actually give money back to the academic side after balancing their budgets." Heck, can't beat that they'll actually give back, right?
Well, yeah, you see, I think we can beat that. To do, so let's see how this new scenario looks at a place such as the University of Maryland.
Let's say Maryland athletics make so much money that they contribute a few million dollars -- heck, even 10 or 20 million dollars -- back into the budget. Even the high end of that range ($20 million) does not equal half of the $50 million budget cuts with which the University of Maryland system was threatened this past spring. And, remember, Staples says that "some" Big Ten programs give money back to their universities--not all. And I would get the feeling that places like Ohio State and Michigan are more likely to be the "some" than places like Rutgers and Maryland. Still, even if a place such as Maryland does give back, it's not making up for the cuts other parts of the university are facing. So, athletics at a place like Maryland grows, while other parts of the university suffer and shrink (although apparently not the president's house), and at best athletics provides slight assistance in warding off some of that suffering an shrinking.
Meanwhile, there is another alternative. We could take all of the money we spend on athletics -- and especially football, since it's the sport that's driving this -- and spend it instead on funding education. Given estimates of revenues that the athletic department at a place like Maryland will generate based on joining the Big 10, if we applied all that money to other aspects of the university -- buying tickets for events at the university that support academic programs, donating it for education and attending a two or three hour reception for donors rather than a two-hour basketball game or three-hour football game, giving money and time spent on college sports to student support services at the university, and so on -- we would more than make up that threatened $50 million budget cut. (And, by the way, doesn't look just like another amount that's prominent in the University of Maryland's move to the Big Ten -- i.e., the amount they are asked to pay to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference in order to join the Big Ten?) Tuition would not have to rise, and folks would not have to be asked for more tax money to support higher education.
As I've argued before, and I continue to argue, this is a matter of priorities. If we're going to continue down the road of less state support for college education, forcing collegiate programs of all sorts to find other ways to fund themselves amid the marketplace (a model that I find problematic, but that's a discussion for another time), then our choices as consumers in that marketplace really, really matter. And despite how deeply so many of us have become socialized to participate in the support of college football and other big-time college athletics, we have to start resisting through the choices that we make if we are going to have worthwhile, effective, and accessible higher education. We need to change our priorities, and I think that starts with giving up college football. College football is what's driving conference expansion, and college football is driving too much of the ship at too many universities. I've already made the choice to give it up, and today, while reading about Maryland and Rutgers joining the Big Ten, I'm even more resolved in the idea that I made the right one.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
I Hear There's Been Discontent with the NFL ...
When I made the decision in August to give up college football, I also decided to throw in the NFL as well. So, just I have not been paying attention to college football, I have equally not been paying attention to the NFL. I didn't even know that the NFL referees had been locked out until I happened, while reading about other sports, to see a story about it heading into the first week of the NFL season.
Meanwhile, while I wasn't watching, many who have been watching have apparently voiced their discontent following the game this past Monday, using, as Michael Butterworth has noted, the language of armageddon.
Frankly, I don't care a whole heck of a lot about "botched" or otherwise controversial calls. I suppose it's good that fans have voiced their outrage, but I'm happy that I wasn't even watching in the first place. Remember -- the NFL locked out its referees; the referees did not strike. And then, while locking out the referees, the NFL hired replacements ...
This does, I think, as Butterworth suggests, offer "a glimpse into our eschatological future." And I think it's telling about our present and potentially that future that the articulation of discontent came now and not when the NFL locked out the referees. It's telling because it reflects the worrisome disregard for the place of labor in the United States and the troubling adherence to the corporate organizational structure that has become so entrenched in U.S. society. When are folks upset? Apparently only when the product they want suffers, not when the folks who make that product do.
The NFL is a high-stakes corporation, and it seems to have all of the oppressive side effects of such an organization. In other words, I don't regret giving it up at all ...
Meanwhile, while I wasn't watching, many who have been watching have apparently voiced their discontent following the game this past Monday, using, as Michael Butterworth has noted, the language of armageddon.
Frankly, I don't care a whole heck of a lot about "botched" or otherwise controversial calls. I suppose it's good that fans have voiced their outrage, but I'm happy that I wasn't even watching in the first place. Remember -- the NFL locked out its referees; the referees did not strike. And then, while locking out the referees, the NFL hired replacements ...
This does, I think, as Butterworth suggests, offer "a glimpse into our eschatological future." And I think it's telling about our present and potentially that future that the articulation of discontent came now and not when the NFL locked out the referees. It's telling because it reflects the worrisome disregard for the place of labor in the United States and the troubling adherence to the corporate organizational structure that has become so entrenched in U.S. society. When are folks upset? Apparently only when the product they want suffers, not when the folks who make that product do.
The NFL is a high-stakes corporation, and it seems to have all of the oppressive side effects of such an organization. In other words, I don't regret giving it up at all ...
Monday, September 3, 2012
Building a Society
In recent weeks, much has been made of a comment by President Obama in which he said, "You didn't build that." With the statement pulled from its context, many folks have taken exception to it, particularly people who have suggested that the statement dismisses or devalues the hard work that people put into building businesses. This theme featured prominently at the Republican National Convention this past week. It even served as context for a bakery in Virginia to turn away Vice President Joe Biden.
I'm certainly not the first to comment on Obama's statement and the context of the statement and/or to offer a counter-criticism of the complaints about the statement. Heck, the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign were, as one would expect, quick to jump on that. Yet, on this Labor Day, I want to touch on one aspect of those complaints. In the speech in which Obama made this statement, he was talking about all of the various things that helped people be in positions to build their businesses. They were taught by other people. The roads they used were built by other people. And so on ... Again, plenty of other folks have already covered that. I want to focus, though, on how these complaints reflect on laborers.
As the story above about comments from the Republican National Convention demonstrates, these complaints take part in a tradition of thought focused on individualism. They build out of a myth of the American Dream in which people build success in their own lives out of their own hard work and effort. And they then argue that Obama's comment flies in the face of the logic of that mythology.
Yet, in the process of suggesting that their work should be valued, these complaints belie a particularly troubling self-centeredness. Yes, insofar as we place value on labor, the work that one puts into creating and developing an organization warrants recognition. Yet, anyone who thinks that they are alone in that process is either rather naive or rather uncaring. In addition to the teachers, road builders, and others to whom Obama was referring when making the comment, businesses don't make it without employees. Sure, some employees work harder than others, some have more commitment to their jobs than others, and so on, but individuals who perform labor allow organizations to succeed. Without people doing the day-to-day tasks that any organization needs, the organization does not function and, thus, does not succeed. Still, in the U.S. we're quick to deny these individuals much recognition. Focus placed on things like "business leadership" invoke the idea that executives and owners of businesses provided the means for businesses to be profitable and, as such, they deserve large sums of money and large amounts of social and political power. We then hear how that's their money--they earned it, and they should be able to do with it as they wish.
Except that they didn't earn it all by themselves. When someone like Terrence Pegula has $88 million available to donate to Penn State hockey programs and still has $189 million left to buy the Buffalo Sabres, he got that money from investing in something. And, in this particular case, he got it from sale of an oil and gas company that he owned (and which, by the way, made considerable money from fracking). People worked for him in that company, doing many of the tasks, often very dirty tasks, that made that possible. Yet, where are they in getting to have a say in the use of that money and the priorities used when doling it out?
In the end, the U.S. gives plenty of credit to business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives who run organizations. Indeed, the Mitt Romney presidential campaign is centered on the idea that that's what makes someone qualified to be president, and Romney is far from alone among politicians from various sides in articulating such a sentiment. We do just fine in recognizing their contributions. On the other hand, we are much less effective in recognizing the labor that accompanied these folks' contributions. When business owners complain that Obama's comment devalues their work because they did build their companies, as if they did it themselves, they're succumbing to the rather self-centered, undemocratic notion that lies at the heart of our ineffectiveness in recognizing the contributions of laborers.
For every business owner out there who takes exception to Obama's "You didn't build that" statement, there are scores of laborers who helped those business owners build what they are acting like they built themselves. On this Labor Day -- this day of all days on which we are asked to think about the contributions of laborers to our society -- it seems like a good time to reflect on that a little bit more.
I'm certainly not the first to comment on Obama's statement and the context of the statement and/or to offer a counter-criticism of the complaints about the statement. Heck, the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign were, as one would expect, quick to jump on that. Yet, on this Labor Day, I want to touch on one aspect of those complaints. In the speech in which Obama made this statement, he was talking about all of the various things that helped people be in positions to build their businesses. They were taught by other people. The roads they used were built by other people. And so on ... Again, plenty of other folks have already covered that. I want to focus, though, on how these complaints reflect on laborers.
As the story above about comments from the Republican National Convention demonstrates, these complaints take part in a tradition of thought focused on individualism. They build out of a myth of the American Dream in which people build success in their own lives out of their own hard work and effort. And they then argue that Obama's comment flies in the face of the logic of that mythology.
Yet, in the process of suggesting that their work should be valued, these complaints belie a particularly troubling self-centeredness. Yes, insofar as we place value on labor, the work that one puts into creating and developing an organization warrants recognition. Yet, anyone who thinks that they are alone in that process is either rather naive or rather uncaring. In addition to the teachers, road builders, and others to whom Obama was referring when making the comment, businesses don't make it without employees. Sure, some employees work harder than others, some have more commitment to their jobs than others, and so on, but individuals who perform labor allow organizations to succeed. Without people doing the day-to-day tasks that any organization needs, the organization does not function and, thus, does not succeed. Still, in the U.S. we're quick to deny these individuals much recognition. Focus placed on things like "business leadership" invoke the idea that executives and owners of businesses provided the means for businesses to be profitable and, as such, they deserve large sums of money and large amounts of social and political power. We then hear how that's their money--they earned it, and they should be able to do with it as they wish.
Except that they didn't earn it all by themselves. When someone like Terrence Pegula has $88 million available to donate to Penn State hockey programs and still has $189 million left to buy the Buffalo Sabres, he got that money from investing in something. And, in this particular case, he got it from sale of an oil and gas company that he owned (and which, by the way, made considerable money from fracking). People worked for him in that company, doing many of the tasks, often very dirty tasks, that made that possible. Yet, where are they in getting to have a say in the use of that money and the priorities used when doling it out?
In the end, the U.S. gives plenty of credit to business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives who run organizations. Indeed, the Mitt Romney presidential campaign is centered on the idea that that's what makes someone qualified to be president, and Romney is far from alone among politicians from various sides in articulating such a sentiment. We do just fine in recognizing their contributions. On the other hand, we are much less effective in recognizing the labor that accompanied these folks' contributions. When business owners complain that Obama's comment devalues their work because they did build their companies, as if they did it themselves, they're succumbing to the rather self-centered, undemocratic notion that lies at the heart of our ineffectiveness in recognizing the contributions of laborers.
For every business owner out there who takes exception to Obama's "You didn't build that" statement, there are scores of laborers who helped those business owners build what they are acting like they built themselves. On this Labor Day -- this day of all days on which we are asked to think about the contributions of laborers to our society -- it seems like a good time to reflect on that a little bit more.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
How I Fared in My First Weekend Without College Football
Thursday, as the college football season was beginning, I wrote about why I could not in good conscience watch the sport anymore, despite enjoying it quite it a lot over the past couple of decades. Well, after the first Saturday of the season, I can truthfully say that I did not watch or, with one small but important exception that I will note momentarily, follow along with any college football games over the past three days. As I expected, though, it was difficult. On Friday morning, as I checked the Arizona State University website to read other news, I saw that one of my alma maters, Arizona State, won big over Northern Arizona on Thursday night. Because I haven't been following the sport, I hadn't even realized that ASU played Thursday night. Seeing a headline about it gave me a small twinge of longing to have watched a bit of the game.
On Saturday morning, while checking other sports news on espn.com while eating my breakfast, I saw that Michigan State -- another of my alma maters and the team from among the big six conferences that I have most rooted for and identified with over the past 15 years -- won a close and apparently exciting game over Boise State on Friday night in what appears to have been billed as an opening weekend heavyweight matchup. Again, I had not even realized that Michigan State had played Friday night or had opened with Boise State. Had I been following the sport, I would have known this and probably would have watched, and so on Saturday morning, reading about this, I felt quite a lot more longing for college football.
Then, during the say on Saturday, as I logged into Facebook a few times, I saw people using their Facebook status to provide updates on the game between Bowling Green and Florida. Apparently, Bowling Green scored first, was in the tie with Florida at 14 points apiece in the second half, and hung in well against an opponent that was expected to demolish them. I learned all of these things from other folks' Facebook updates, and this is when I had the biggest longing of all. It was very hard not to turn on the television and see if I could watch. This is when I most started stretching the boundaries of my pact, as twice I went to espn.com, eventually to read stories about tennis, golf, and auto racing, but also, to be honest, as an opportunity to look to the upper left quickly and see the BGSU-Florida score. It was hard to stop there, and it took a lot of my might not to do more to keep up with the game.
Then, last night, while surfing the net for some reading material while eating something, I saw the headline for this story on the main page of usatoday.com. Since my checks of espn.com when I glanced at the BGSU-Florida score also meant that I saw headlines indicating that the Nittany Lions had lost to Ohio University, I already knew the outcome of the game. And, since this was a commentary on Penn State and not a game story, I decided to read the piece. I'm glad I did, because while reading some of the signs from the Penn State game that are listed in the piece and while reading the tone of moving on from what happened at Penn State that the piece reflects, this story strengthened my resolve. It feels as if we have learned nothing from what happened at Penn State, nothing about how football occupies an inappropriate place in the structures of universities, and nothing about ourselves.
We are addicts. We have become addicted to college football, and my own behavior on Saturday demonstrated it. Like someone addicted to alcohol who finds a way to justify one drink at a social gathering or someone addicted to gambling who starts drawing distinctions between gambling for money and gambling without money, I was already on the first Saturday of the college football season looking for ways to skirt my own commitment to quit the habit. And as many an addiction program will tell us, the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.
A major reason why college football is able to keep driving the ship at universities around the country is because so many of us have a problem. We've become addicted to it. We spend gobs of money on it, we spend considerable time with it, and we allow it to have heavy influence on so many other parts of our lives. In the name of this addiction, we justify all kinds of things that we really have no business justifying, from boys being abused at Penn State to allocation of financial resources away from academic programs to a bunch of other things along the way. As I keep saying, this is a matter of priorities, and like an individual, when a society is addicted, its priorities are out of whack.
I learned this opening college football weekend a little more about the depths to which my priorities have been out of whack. I was then reminded in the story on usatoday.com how widespread those misplaced priorities are. I largely made it through the first few days of the college football season with my commitment not to follow the sport intact, yet the ways in which I circumvented that commitment are deeply telling. I have work to do to relinquish college football's hold on me, and I feel pretty sure that I'm far from alone.
On Saturday morning, while checking other sports news on espn.com while eating my breakfast, I saw that Michigan State -- another of my alma maters and the team from among the big six conferences that I have most rooted for and identified with over the past 15 years -- won a close and apparently exciting game over Boise State on Friday night in what appears to have been billed as an opening weekend heavyweight matchup. Again, I had not even realized that Michigan State had played Friday night or had opened with Boise State. Had I been following the sport, I would have known this and probably would have watched, and so on Saturday morning, reading about this, I felt quite a lot more longing for college football.
Then, during the say on Saturday, as I logged into Facebook a few times, I saw people using their Facebook status to provide updates on the game between Bowling Green and Florida. Apparently, Bowling Green scored first, was in the tie with Florida at 14 points apiece in the second half, and hung in well against an opponent that was expected to demolish them. I learned all of these things from other folks' Facebook updates, and this is when I had the biggest longing of all. It was very hard not to turn on the television and see if I could watch. This is when I most started stretching the boundaries of my pact, as twice I went to espn.com, eventually to read stories about tennis, golf, and auto racing, but also, to be honest, as an opportunity to look to the upper left quickly and see the BGSU-Florida score. It was hard to stop there, and it took a lot of my might not to do more to keep up with the game.
Then, last night, while surfing the net for some reading material while eating something, I saw the headline for this story on the main page of usatoday.com. Since my checks of espn.com when I glanced at the BGSU-Florida score also meant that I saw headlines indicating that the Nittany Lions had lost to Ohio University, I already knew the outcome of the game. And, since this was a commentary on Penn State and not a game story, I decided to read the piece. I'm glad I did, because while reading some of the signs from the Penn State game that are listed in the piece and while reading the tone of moving on from what happened at Penn State that the piece reflects, this story strengthened my resolve. It feels as if we have learned nothing from what happened at Penn State, nothing about how football occupies an inappropriate place in the structures of universities, and nothing about ourselves.
We are addicts. We have become addicted to college football, and my own behavior on Saturday demonstrated it. Like someone addicted to alcohol who finds a way to justify one drink at a social gathering or someone addicted to gambling who starts drawing distinctions between gambling for money and gambling without money, I was already on the first Saturday of the college football season looking for ways to skirt my own commitment to quit the habit. And as many an addiction program will tell us, the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.
A major reason why college football is able to keep driving the ship at universities around the country is because so many of us have a problem. We've become addicted to it. We spend gobs of money on it, we spend considerable time with it, and we allow it to have heavy influence on so many other parts of our lives. In the name of this addiction, we justify all kinds of things that we really have no business justifying, from boys being abused at Penn State to allocation of financial resources away from academic programs to a bunch of other things along the way. As I keep saying, this is a matter of priorities, and like an individual, when a society is addicted, its priorities are out of whack.
I learned this opening college football weekend a little more about the depths to which my priorities have been out of whack. I was then reminded in the story on usatoday.com how widespread those misplaced priorities are. I largely made it through the first few days of the college football season with my commitment not to follow the sport intact, yet the ways in which I circumvented that commitment are deeply telling. I have work to do to relinquish college football's hold on me, and I feel pretty sure that I'm far from alone.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Goodbye, College Football
Tonight, the 2012 college football season gets underway, and in past years I would have been very excited, ready to start another fall of having the sport in the background each Saturday, each Thursday night, and sometimes on other evenings as I worked. I feel that excitement again this year; however, I won't be watching.
After some deliberation this summer, I've reached the decision that I just can't justify watching, going to, or otherwise following college football, especially at the NCAA Bowl Subdivision level. There are, of course, concerns about football injuries that have been voiced prominently in recently years that have me similarly questioning consumption of football at any level. Indeed, I may choose not to follow the NFL either, though I haven't followed that as much as college football in the past three or four years, so that might not be as difficult to give up. Yet, for as important as that is, the determining factor in my decision not to consume college football is that I've come to the conclusion that it's being given too high of a place of importance at institutions of higher education, especially at the NCAA Bowl Subdivision level.
In July, I wrote that I thought Penn State University's football program should be shut down because if the head football coach is in a position to influence the president of a university to do something illegal (and in this particular case rather inhumane) that the president was otherwise prepared not to do, then the football program occupies too powerful a position in the organizational structure of the university. Shutting down the program and reorganizing its place in the institutional structure seems, to me, to be the most appropriate decision.
Yet, I think we'd be naive to think that Penn State is alone in offering such prominence to its football program. Universities around the country invest significant time and energy in their football programs, while their academic programs and student services programs -- you know, the things that are much more fully tied to the institutions' missions -- continue to suffer and suffer and suffer, from lack of funding, from lack of acknowledgement, from lack of exposure, and from other lacks as well. Meanwhile, football programs continue to grow -- in funding, in expenses, in exposure, and so on.
These concerns are not particularly new. Consider, for instance, what Jan Kemp went through 30 years ago after voicing concerns when administrators at the University of Georgia enabled nine football players to pass a remedial English course that they had otherwise failed so that the players could retain their eligibility. And, of course, questions about the prominence of college football programs predate Kemp's ordeal by plenty of decades as well.
So maybe I've just been fooling myself for a couple decades as I followed college football, finding ways to justify being a fan or excusing its excesses for some selfish consumption. And maybe I'm now being hypocritical or jumping on a bandwagon by making this decision this year. I'm willing to self-reflect to interrogate those possibilities; indeed, that has been part of the self-reflection process that has gone into this decision.
I suppose, though, I do think things have changed. The academic programs and services to help students succeed academically -- remember, though things that are more fundamental to universities' mission statements -- have very recently taken an unprecedented backseat at institutions of higher education. State funding has dwindled substantially in recent decades and even just in the past few years, and folks such as me are told at my institution to expect this as "the new normal." Programs at universities are being asked more than ever to rely on the market for their sustainability. Get donations, raise funds, convince people to send their money your way, all of us are told repeatedly and with increasing force.
And that is what I think ends up making such a crucial difference to me. If academic programs and student services are going to be forced by university administrators (and the political forces that are heavily influencing those administrators) to "market up" and join the competition for consumption against other entities at the institution, then I cannot in good conscience support an entity that I think is getting entirely too excessive of a share. As I argued on the Agon about the gift of $88 million by Terrence and Kim Pegula that created self-sustaining Division I men's and women's hockey teams at Penn State, this is a matter of priorities. Football should not be the priority that it now is, in terms of its financial power, in terms of its institutional power, and in terms of its cultural power.
It doesn't have to be like this. Sports can have a place at universities as community activities. Cooperative models in place of our contemporary hypercompetitive models of community structure and development are available. Unfortunately, we seem unable and/or unwilling to explore those models in ways that would allow for greater diversity, democracy, and humanity. In seeking to work with efforts to push toward exploring those alternative models, particularly as those models might be applied to educational institutions, a useful step appears to be refusal to take part in an institution that seems to stunt diversity, hinder democracy, and ultimately -- particularly in the Penn State case -- devalue humanity.
So, goodbye college football. Perhaps one day we can be friends again, but I fear it might get worse before it gets better. And to men's college basketball: You're officially on notice.
After some deliberation this summer, I've reached the decision that I just can't justify watching, going to, or otherwise following college football, especially at the NCAA Bowl Subdivision level. There are, of course, concerns about football injuries that have been voiced prominently in recently years that have me similarly questioning consumption of football at any level. Indeed, I may choose not to follow the NFL either, though I haven't followed that as much as college football in the past three or four years, so that might not be as difficult to give up. Yet, for as important as that is, the determining factor in my decision not to consume college football is that I've come to the conclusion that it's being given too high of a place of importance at institutions of higher education, especially at the NCAA Bowl Subdivision level.
In July, I wrote that I thought Penn State University's football program should be shut down because if the head football coach is in a position to influence the president of a university to do something illegal (and in this particular case rather inhumane) that the president was otherwise prepared not to do, then the football program occupies too powerful a position in the organizational structure of the university. Shutting down the program and reorganizing its place in the institutional structure seems, to me, to be the most appropriate decision.
Yet, I think we'd be naive to think that Penn State is alone in offering such prominence to its football program. Universities around the country invest significant time and energy in their football programs, while their academic programs and student services programs -- you know, the things that are much more fully tied to the institutions' missions -- continue to suffer and suffer and suffer, from lack of funding, from lack of acknowledgement, from lack of exposure, and from other lacks as well. Meanwhile, football programs continue to grow -- in funding, in expenses, in exposure, and so on.
These concerns are not particularly new. Consider, for instance, what Jan Kemp went through 30 years ago after voicing concerns when administrators at the University of Georgia enabled nine football players to pass a remedial English course that they had otherwise failed so that the players could retain their eligibility. And, of course, questions about the prominence of college football programs predate Kemp's ordeal by plenty of decades as well.
So maybe I've just been fooling myself for a couple decades as I followed college football, finding ways to justify being a fan or excusing its excesses for some selfish consumption. And maybe I'm now being hypocritical or jumping on a bandwagon by making this decision this year. I'm willing to self-reflect to interrogate those possibilities; indeed, that has been part of the self-reflection process that has gone into this decision.
I suppose, though, I do think things have changed. The academic programs and services to help students succeed academically -- remember, though things that are more fundamental to universities' mission statements -- have very recently taken an unprecedented backseat at institutions of higher education. State funding has dwindled substantially in recent decades and even just in the past few years, and folks such as me are told at my institution to expect this as "the new normal." Programs at universities are being asked more than ever to rely on the market for their sustainability. Get donations, raise funds, convince people to send their money your way, all of us are told repeatedly and with increasing force.
And that is what I think ends up making such a crucial difference to me. If academic programs and student services are going to be forced by university administrators (and the political forces that are heavily influencing those administrators) to "market up" and join the competition for consumption against other entities at the institution, then I cannot in good conscience support an entity that I think is getting entirely too excessive of a share. As I argued on the Agon about the gift of $88 million by Terrence and Kim Pegula that created self-sustaining Division I men's and women's hockey teams at Penn State, this is a matter of priorities. Football should not be the priority that it now is, in terms of its financial power, in terms of its institutional power, and in terms of its cultural power.
It doesn't have to be like this. Sports can have a place at universities as community activities. Cooperative models in place of our contemporary hypercompetitive models of community structure and development are available. Unfortunately, we seem unable and/or unwilling to explore those models in ways that would allow for greater diversity, democracy, and humanity. In seeking to work with efforts to push toward exploring those alternative models, particularly as those models might be applied to educational institutions, a useful step appears to be refusal to take part in an institution that seems to stunt diversity, hinder democracy, and ultimately -- particularly in the Penn State case -- devalue humanity.
So, goodbye college football. Perhaps one day we can be friends again, but I fear it might get worse before it gets better. And to men's college basketball: You're officially on notice.
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