College football going the way of the NFL

The National Football League has been getting over on America and American universities for decades.  The league uses college football as its minor league development program.

In Major League Baseball clubs have to develop a farm system to analyze and develop talent. MLB has two levels of A ball, then AA ball and finally AAA ball.  That’s a lot of teams in a lot of cities.  That’s a lot of stadiums, hot dog vendors, parking lot attendants, managers, secretaries etc.  In the end, it costs a lot of money.

The NFL is burdened with none of it.  American universities are quite happy to act as the NFL’s farm system for free. The universities eligible for the BCS are now charging confiscatory rates for non-athletes to attend their establishments while raking in millions from football TV and radio deals.  The football coach is often the highest paid member of the faculty often making more than the university president.

Student athletes, for the most part, are joke. They often graduate these fine “establishments of learning” unable to read, write, add, subtract or point to the Gulf of Mexico on a map.  Uh, strike the last one.  Apparently, neither can the current President of the United States who thinks such great Atlantic cities such as Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville are located in the gulf.  Smarmy know nothing dip-$h!t.

OK back on track now.   Universities often care more about expanding the capacity of the football stadium than expanding the science dept.  In the process they have ruined classic stadiums like Notre Dame and THE Ohio Stadium to add luxury box seating for pamper swells.  Their efforts are like up dating the Statue of Liberty by putting red spike high heels on her or bringing Lady Justice up to date by putting her in a Versace summer print sun dress with Bill Blass sunglasses.

And what do the universities get in return.  A butt load of tv money for sure.  But they get teams that have loyalty to the team but represent the term “college student athlete” about as much as calling purveyor workplace violence Maj Nidal Hassan a typical American soldier.

What to do?
Limit 50% of all scholarships to athletes who live within 100 miles of the university.

Divide the rest using concentric circles radiating from the university.

Reduce available scholarships based on a 10 year graduation rate of student athletes.  If a university wants to run a football farm, fine, but soon they will find themselves with fewer and fewer available scholarships.

Require the NFL to fund academic programs and non-athlete scholarships at some great rate for every athlete they poach from a university.  Quadruple the rate if they poach an athlete before graduation.

Never going to happen.