College Sports

With the release of the Freeh Report on the PSU rape scandal I have been thinking today about college sports. College football is my drug of choice, and I have invested countless hours and a not insignificant amount of money into watching, reading about, and generally enjoying the sport. I have long had a bit of cognitive dissonance between how much I enjoy Saturdays and Thursday nights in the fall and the value I place on academic quality and integrity. Usually I just ignore it and enjoy another beer while watching Utah State nearly beat the reigning national champs in week one. However moving to Oz and the Freeh Report today both make me take a step back.

I have tried to explain college sports to my coworkers and friends and they just don't quite "get" it. The NCAA is a uniquely American thing. Nowhere else in the world are schools as tied to athletic training as they are in the US. Generally the conversation ends with me admitting that big time college sports damages the quality of education at US universities. A joke is made by someone, beer is drunk, and then we move on with out lives without delving too much into that topic. The Aussies move on, but I usually end up pondering my statement for a while.

So after all of this thought brought on by the disgusting cover up of systematic pedophilia at Penn State and explaining the arcane system of collegiate athletics that leads to academic fraud and under funding what conclusions have I come to? I don't know to be honest. I know I will still watch my Hokies this fall. I will probably watch as much other college football as possible. Come bowl season if I am stateside I will probably attend the Military Bowl, and maybe the bowl the Hokies get to. I will likely continue to vote with my dollars(the only votes that matter!) to keep a corrupt system in place. I will be a hypocrite. I may at some point walk away from college sports, football in particular, because my educational concerns win out. For the time being though nothing will change. I will sit back, open a few beers, and from half a world away watch Logan Thomas fall down like a giant sequoia for a first down.