[NU Sports] Very provocative commentary

[mlinhardt at netzero.net]

I am not sure how I feel about such articles.

Part of me enjoys the slam against the football-only schools where education is secondary.  I always love going to Northwestern booster functions where a coach talks about high graduation rates and there is a ton of applause.  

I have a connection with our players the same way I have a connection with the alums on the list.  We all spent 4(sometimes more) years of our lives at a place that after graduation we regard highly enough to invest our mental energies, time, and dollars in.

Beyond that I think if it ever came down to paying players I would rather drop football.  And yes I am serious about this point.  Now the NCAA could get the stick-out-of-their-butt and adjust some of the rules to be more player friendly, but paying Vince Young $5 mill or our QB $500k is wrong.

-- "Jeff Beamsley" <jeff.beamsley at hilgraeve.com> wrote:
I thought it an interesting read, had some new facts, easy to dance to, etc.
As others have already pointed out, it was in the end a shallow pop song
repeating common themes.

What would have been interesting is if he dug into the real question, "Do
those who play college football benefit from the experience?"  Instead he
took the easy road using "everybody knows" logic - everybody knows that
college football players don't get paid and everybody knows that only a small
percentage of them end up with NFL careers, so the rest must be exploited.

I would like to see some longitudinal study which compares non-athletes and
athletes and how they fare two, five, and ten years after they graduate.
That would give a better picture of whether or not those who received a
college education in return for their athletic contributions were getting a
good return on their investment.

Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On
Behalf Of Ben Adler
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 12:50 AM
To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: [NU Sports] Very provocative commentary

If you haven't seen today's commentary on the commercialism of college
football by author Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side) in the NY Times,
it's definitely worth a read.  Not exactly preaching to the choir...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11lewis.html

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports

_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports
_____________________________________________________________
Click for free info on rehab treatments for drug &amp; alcohol dependency.
http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijmXaag9INEsrWxRe2CZ0PLKlXt7ac5imtTtcVju6yKRCMrWf/