The Outstater
The Fatuity that College Football Has Become
“The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, football for the alumni and parking for the faculty.” — the late Chancellor Clark Kerr of the University of California
CONFINED TO MY RECLINER with a sore foot, I spent a recent Saturday — the entire afternoon and evening — watching college football. I had some thoughts, chained to the mast as I was, some troubling thoughts.
First, the obvious: None of the teams had anything to do with their college or even their states. All but a few players were from distant elsewheres, a good number recruited from the environs of the opposing teams. The coaches were vagabond millionaires.
The play-by-play announcers flew in that morning from New York City. They serve at the pleasure of the NCAA so the commentary was flat and devoid of critical insight. There’s a lot of fluff (they actually show simulated x-rays of various injuries). The incomparable sports writer Red Smith would only report on what happened on the field. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Teams now can acquire players practically overnight from other schools as hired guns, and these “amateur” players are allowed to earn hefty sums in commercial contracts and residuals. The last vestige of community, e.g.,the shady car dealer buying a Cadillac for the star wide receiver, has been priced out of the market.
Finally, today’s strategy and technique are so advanced that only a fraction of the fan base understands what is happening on the field. I have a friend who played on Woody Hayes’s last national championship team. He no longer recognizes the basic elements of the game.
Yet, the stadiums that Saturday were full of fans, some in terrifying costumes, all cheering wildly, madly even.
For what?
I will let the social anthropologists handle that question but I doubt the answer will be flattering. What I witnessed from my recliner was some sort of deep primal scream that had nothing to do with football per se — far, far, far older. It was easy to imagine that the “fans” would have been cheering as energetically if the spectacle on the field in front them had been the feeding of Christians to lions, the drowning of witches or ritual human sacrifices to the collegiate gods, whoever they may be these days.
I write this, please know, as a lifetime fan myself. I followed the colors of my alma mater for 50 seasons until it became impossible for me to imagine that its players had any connection with my school, my state or my life there. Lately, I have been disgusted by the disrespect for the flag and the national anthem during pregame. I would prefer these ceremonies were omitted as the affectations they have become.
But there is good in the game still. The modern football player can stand on his own. He is an amazing athlete in one of the world’s most competitive endeavors. That of course is worth watching in itself. But so is ballet or curling.
If you want to see the pure sport of it, without the spectacle and the hype, you can attend an 8th-grade game. There you will find the boy down the street whom you coached in pee-wee soccer now able to run a wheel route or a shallow cross with the determination of Travis Kelce. Four of the starters on a recent state champion high school team graduated from my wife’s preschool — that’s team-building on the level of Alexander the Great.
As a one-time sports writer, I have known dozens of college players and a couple of professional ones. My hero, however, the trading card I would most prize, is the quarterback of the Belleville (Kansas) Buffaloes. When he died some time back, his widow found a clipping in a box of keepsakes — just three paragraphs. It told how young “Tommy” returned so many punts for touchdowns that the opposing team quit kicking.
That was my dad. That was football. — tcl
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