COLLEGE SPORTS.

That’s today’s topic.

I go to Wikipedia. I hit random article. And the 2010-2011 Florida State Seminole’s men’s basketball team came up.

Which is weird (fitting). Why is there a whole page dedicated to one year of a basketball team’s season.

I guess if I read it I might find out. BUT THERE’S NO TIME FOR THAT.

It’s Weird Thursday and we’ve got shit to do.

Like talk about how college sports are ruining the college-going experience for everyone, including the athletes.

I don’t like sports. At all. Never have, probably never will. I’ll never say never, because who knows what’ll happen over the next 40 years, but as of right now, I’m not a big sports fan.

I never understood the fanaticism behind it. Like, how can you be so involved with something that you have absolutely nothing to do with? How can you care whether or not this dude shoots this ball into this hole more times than this other dude? It doesn’t matter at all. Sure, you can argue that it matters economically for some cities, and that some cities with pro-sports teams do better economically than others. Or that even building a sports arena somewhere can pull an area out of poverty, like what they said here in San Antonio about the AT&T Center. But a shit lot of good that did.

But that’s professional sports. What about the multi-billion dollar industry that is college sports? The basically slave labor force that are college athletes? Don’t give me that bullshit that they make up for it later in life, that they get paid in ‘experience.’ Fuck that. 90% of the poor sons-uh-bitches don’t get into the pro level, let alone make it out of their league without completely destroyed knees, ankles, joints, bones, and brains.

It’s horrible, really, what these coaches and managers do to these teams. And a lot of people are totally complacent about it and don’t care at all. College sports may be great for some. They can allow someone to attend school who might not have attended otherwise by means of an athletic scholarship. They can help truly great athletes get recognized and make it into the professional leagues. But for the other 90% of athletes, their lives are ruined.

Football has been shown to be dangerous, no, deadly. 99% of the brains of former football players autopsied by Boston University were found to have CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. 99%. 111 brains out of 112. Who’s to say that they developed CTE while playing pro sports? That these injuries weren’t present in college, high school, or even earlier?

I’m not saying that they were. I’m just saying they probably were. That people are destroying the health of thousands of individuals every for their own personal profit.

Oh…then there’s that elephant in the room. Money.

Do you know how much the highest-paid college football coach makes?

Wanna take a guess?

$7,000,000

No, it’s not exactly that much. I rounded down.

You know how much college athletes make?

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis. Fuck. All. 

It’s not that they don’t want to get paid. That the promise of an education and of maybe making it pro is good enough and they’ll take one for the team. Oh, no.

They can’t get paid. It’s in their contract. They’re students, not athletes. They’re legally not allowed to get paid. They’re not even allowed to get licensing. So let’s say that a star quarterback makes it to the front cover of an NCAA video game. He doesn’t get any money for his skill or picture. The owners do. AKA the school. AKA the board of directors.

AKA people who are already rich as fuck.

So look at it this way. You’ve got a team of about 50 guys, including 2nd and 3rd string people, support staff, trainers, etc., who are all working for free to make their schools and their boards hundreds of millions of dollars.

That kinda sounds like a form of slavery to me, but what do I know.

…

What can we look forward to next time around on Weird Wednesday/Weird Thursday/Weird Whatever-day-I-decide-to-do-this-because-it-falls-whenever-I-want-it-what-are-you-looking-at-it’s-my-blog-get-that-mess-out-of-here?

Who knows. But it’s bound to piss off someone.