Secrets of the City

I just wish we could all be honest about college sports and realize that it’s all about entertainment dollars, alumni “glue” and other financial matters that have little to do with the academic accomplishments of the student-athletes. If we could get beyond that, then we can have an honest discussion about this. The problem is that if you want to have an honest discussion about it you end up saying that “student-athletes” serve the economic purpose of making money — during their tenures — for the university. A very few of them will go on to professional sports…and that’s the dream universities and colleges sell. A vast majority will not make it to the Big Leagues. But their economic impact while they’re “failing” at actually getting into the big game is making a lot of money for the university.

Remember, student-athletes are not recruited to achieve academic excellence. They are recruited to be great athletes only during their “career” in college sports. The odds of post-college career in sports is so far stacked against them it’s silly. We would never hold any other endeavor to those standards.

I don’t know what to say more it, except that it might be the most dishonest aspect of college and university systems.

Yeah, but look at that view!

Thanks a lot to the people of Minnesota! You folks out there are got to be the most stupid and dumbest people on the face of this Earth, when it comes to voting for your state representive during each and every mid-term, regardless of their political party idendity! Here we have a classic example where our democratic offficals don’t give a flying fuck about the concerns of the people on the subject of a flawed bill that came into law; instead, our democratic representives only hear to a bunch of arrogant country club elites that wanted nothing more than a worthless, outdoor toy so that all the male jocks can show off their sexual bodies to the crowd in the form of physical violence and barbaric savagery, we call football. And you big dummies got duped by believing in this fairy tale about how the Uof MN Gophers are doing “the best interest of the state” by allowing the poor folks in the West Metro and the rest of the other economic classes to increase their taxes to pay for this lying shit. Personally, you people are the main reasons why this country is heading for its downfall: Pax Romana. Both the Ancient Greeks and Romans did this before and we, the United States, are next on the list.

American Federal Republic R.I.P.: 1789-2006

Over three centuries that went to waste!

…and it makes for great TV!

The flip side of big time college sports is also the fact that without really big, maybe dumb football players and high flying basketball players, we wouldn’t also be able to offer scholarships to really smart cancer research biologists who are swimmers, global economists who are kick ass pommel horse pommelists, and public health disease stoppers who are wicked fencers.

So, you see dear ones, we do need those guys on the gridiron so that horrible, horrible death by weird strands of avian flu doesn’t kill us all.

Either build big ass stadiums that put cash in the coffers, or sign up for your season tickets to women’s volleyball.

Long live gymnasts.
(Hmm… playing the role of apologist for big time college sports… God bless red wine and fatigue..)

Jeez – if only a stem cell could *at least* throw a Hail Mary (and at get somebody’s attention!)

Whoa, time-out for a commercial break – All those guys on the field are in fact former embryonic stem cells! And they still have plenty of adult stem cells which keep them strong, healthy and which may provide medical cures for fellow human beings not quite so lucky! Let’s have a big cheer for stem cell research! Hurrah!! Hurrah!!!

Oh, Never mind!

HOORAY for BIG G!!!!!!!! But not all Minnesotans are stupid…I did NOT vote for Higgins or Stenglein in my district and I did as much as I could to fight stadium tax. What is the saying thay applies here? Oh, yes…the rich get richer, the poor stay poor.

This is simply all about Sid and Pinky and their Big 10 / Rose Bowl / cheerleader fantasies.

The joke is truly on the taxpayer.

I won’t submit everyone to another rant about this except to say that when I heard this on MPR yesterday I almost drove off the road. Maybe the solution is getting children to appreciate education and research for its own sake at a younger age, then they’d fund the book stadiums as adults instead of having to be tricked into supporting education by giving them a false sense of comradery with a couple of dozen trained apes.

guys we seriously need to get on Tom’s “Book Stadium” idea. Throw in some “Learning Colluseums” and a few “Science Arenas” while you’re at it.

Big G, “Pax Romana”–I don’t think that term means what you think it means.

I’m with nateek–there are a hell of a lot more non-football college athlete than “trained apes.” Athletic scholarships help other majors, too–I knew several people in my engineering classes that were on the rowing, track, or other teams. Even if you eliminated athletic scholarships, it’s not as if they’ll all be replaced by academic ones. A lot of the athletic scholarships are funded by boosters who want them used in that way.

I’m only calling the students that have no academic purpose for being associated with the university “trained apes”. You know who I’m talking about. The ones that belong in minor-league programs that don’t yet exist (like for baseball). I suggest we refer to other student athletes (myself included, in the past) as “hobbyists”, no more worthy of a scholarship than someone who builds model trains. If the athletic scholarships are eliminated and not replaced by academic ones, fine – that still makes things more fair for students who are academically qualified.

if they had a model train bulding scholarship I wouldn’t be in so much f#$*ing debt right now.

OK, one of my own personal rants over the years has been that the highest paid public employee in any given state has to be the various university football coaches. Unfortunately, I have no evidence to back this up, only vague indignant righteousness which apparently doesn’t count for much in a fact-based reality.

So, anyone have a clue here? Then I can bitch about the stadium *and* how the coach is the highest paid public employee.

Or for gods sake, just set me straight and tell me I am deluded.

The should erect giant penises for goal posts.

Make it fun!