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Why College Football Should Be Banned
The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 4, 2012 | Buzz Bissinger

Posted on 05/05/2012 6:28:24 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.

That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.

Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: liberalagenda; nancybissinger; rushwasright
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To: sean327
There may be something in your point and you make it well. I'm more of the opinion is that football is not so much unique in its martial features. I'll admit it's probably at the top in world sports as far as those qualities, but almost all sports hotly contested have elements of the battlefield.

Thanks for contributing something worth considering. Believe it or not, I am a gridiron football fan too.

101 posted on 05/06/2012 11:39:19 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: ghannonf18
You might be interested in the recent Sports Illustrated piece on "College Football and Crime"

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/the_bonus/02/27/cfb.crime/index.html?eref=sihp"

102 posted on 05/06/2012 11:41:46 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: beandog

You thought that was a clever response? How old are you, six?


103 posted on 05/06/2012 11:59:15 AM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: momtothree
The world has become a better place based on two types of individuals IMHO. The people gifted with intellect and the people gifted with athletic ability. (some people are gifted with both).

I don't doubt that. And there are times and places for both. But a college is first and foremost an ACADEMIC institution, not a physical training camp, nor a foundry for forging fleshy war machines. Support football all you like; just don't do it in an environment where LEARNING is supposed to reign supreme.

For example, for every strategic brilliant General... you need the men with courage and physical athletic ability to carry out his plan and win a battle.

I agree. So train the generals in colleges and the ... athletes ... somewhere else. The two share very little. Why superimpose one on the other?

You were the one who ridiculed college athletes and demeaned them by referring to them as animals and unintelligent.

Which probably wasn't fair. In fact, some athletes are quite gifted intellectually. However, that doesn't bear at all on the reasoning behind putting football (and athletics) on college campuses.

Frankly, you bore me. You attempt to impress others with your so called intellect.

The boredom is probably the result of your own insecurity. And this is less about demonstrating my intellect than in soliciting a valid rebuttal to my assertion that football does not belong in a college environment.

What you don’t see is that you are closed minded and jealous. Yes, jealous. Instead of seeing that people have different gifts and abilities, you demean those who aren’t just like you.

Yawn. The classic retreat of a cornered "victim." I don't necessarily pretend to be an intellectual, nor have I ever said I was not athletic. You have assumed that because I question college athletics, I must be some bow-tied Melvin with a shoulder-high wedgie.

Closed minded people are so transparent.

Yes, you are.

I admire the work ethic and athletic ability that athletes obtain. (whether that is football, swimming, soccer, whatever...).

What "ethic" would that be? Let's ask Charles Barkley or Dennis Rodman or Joe Paterno or Michael Vick or the baseball Steroid Bunch or the New Orleans Saints ...

Yeah. Ethics. Like Bill Clinton had ethics.

College football is bought and paid for. Ethics went out the window a long time ago, along with all that other Andy Hardy nonsense about honor and fair play. Today it's about winning. Winning means money. And money rules everything else.

I'm done with this thread. You can have the last word if you'd like.

104 posted on 05/06/2012 2:20:37 PM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Why College Football Should Be Banned

After watching the Gators on offense last season, I'm inclined to agree.

105 posted on 05/06/2012 2:21:37 PM PDT by dfwgator (Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)
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Comment #106 Removed by Moderator


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