[Husker] The Feds

[STUART JONES]

The only way to make this thing a federal issue meriting gov't involvement
is the anti-trust thing which suggests in my mind we are indeed crossing
over to college football as business per se as opposed to a student thing
with business aspects. Worse yet, coming after the Mass. election it is a
political diversion. To be "non-partisan" (though I am not really) I resent
both Hatch and Obama on this. This injects the power of federal offices into
something I treat as a welcome diversion from politics. Hatch also gives the
current administration another venue of life in which to inject government
for its own purposes. If we go down the business qua business line of logic,
then get rid of Title 9 which has probably resulted in the elimination of
some men's sports that were more financially viable (or equally unviable)
than some women's sports. I have enjoyed rooting against BYU on occasion
because of their political meddling.
To get this a bit more Husker related and "playoff" related, I mention the
particular pride most Huskers had in the decision to go for 2 back in in the
1983 Orange Bowl. The premise was that every game should aspire to greatness
or perfection or best effort; and that greatness is a better goal than a #1
rating. There would not have been the same courage and honor demanded if
there was a playoff then. But more to the point (since we now have tie
breaker rules), we could turn college FB into the sort of "business" where a
team like the so called "Colts" (in Baltimore some of us call them the 'Indy
Irays' still) basically toss aside a game for strategic reasons--reasons
that may be sound in the pro system--but reasons that do not encourage
greatness; reasons that cheat the fans from seeing each game as a serious
competition where 100% matters all the time. The system could still be
tweaked but keep the politicians out of it. It is not in my mind so much a
matter of "law" as the illusion of law for political purposes at work here.
If it was just law, Obama could turn the matter over to the justice dept and
keep his name out of the news on the matter (fodder for another type of
forum here).
Stuart in Baltimore.