In defense of Jameis Winston

Winston is by no means the exception when it comes to “student” athletes.  It would be easier to find bigfoot using the payphone outside a S.S. Kresge’s five and dime with his Delorian double parked than a big name “student” athlete on the campus of a major American university.  Athlete, sure.  “Student” uh, no.

Given grade inflation and the pathetic academic standards at most universities these days, you’d think it would be easy to be a good student.  Bill Bennett said America has a great K-12 education system.  It just takes 16 years to get through it.  Sadly, America’s universities are providing the education that mom and dad received in high school.  I suppose that is why people say, “These days you have to have a college degree.”  You have to have it because it really means, after college, you might know what the last generation knew in high school. Not having it I suppose is the equivalent of being a high school drop out 20 years ago.

So why isn’t something done?  There are two reasons.  The first is money.  As long as universities stand to gain so much money from TV and logo merchandizing, they are incentivized to field good teams no matter what.  Poor grades?  No problem.  Stole a computer from another student?  No problem.  Rape charges?  No problem.  Assault charges?  No problem.  Drug charges?  No problem.  I cannot think of one thing short of murder that universities have not been willing to cover up in the name of protecting coaches, players and teams.

The second is racism.  Of course it is.  In today’s post racial King Dopesalot era, racism taints everything.  Weird huh?  We elect a half black president twice, yet according to the race baiting industry we are more racist than ever.  Post racial my big butt.

Big time college football and basketball – the cash cows in the athletic departments of most universities – are dominated by black athletes.  So anything that is done in a good faith effort to strengthen academic or character standards of college athletes is seen as racist.

To fix this I’d do the following:
Scholarships would be tied to the graduation percentages of a program.  So if you have a 100 football scholarships but your graduation percentage for the football team over a 5 year period (sure give them an extra year) is 65%, you only have 65 scholarships available for that year.  If the percentage goes up next year so does the number of scholarships.  Here’s why this is important.  When Johnny football Manziel left Texas A&M after just 2 years, he wrote a letter to the university thanking them for the opportunity to play football at Texas A&M.  An ESPN commentator noted that his good bye letter was probably the longest paper Manziel ever wrote while at Texas A&M.  Who in the name of Pete is being well-served by this kind of system?  The focus of college athletics should be returned to the “college” portion of the equation.

Next, freshmen should be required to sit out their first year.  The NCAA used to require that athletes sit out their first year.  This was considered racist because it was keeping the black athlete from jumping to the pros for a full year.  What is the point of college athletics?  Field teams of student athletes or provide a regular supply line of uneducated athletes to the pros?

Last, I’d consider some scheme whereby universities had to recruit local athletes first.  Concentric circles based on population could be established with fewer and fewer scholarships being available the further from the university the athlete had to travel.

I know.  The college football season is long over.  Iran has been given the green light by King SFB to develop a nuke bomb.  Al Qaida is on the march.  N. Korea is a mess.  Liberty is being eroded bit by bit day by day.  The world is basically going to hell in a hand basket, so why a post on college “student” athletes?  First, I think the system is symptomatic of bigger problems in America, race, privilege, ever decreasing standards, etc., but it’s just what was bugging me this A.M.