This has very little to do with football, but constitutes an important cause worthy of your time nonetheless. As I mentioned yesterday, a Sippin' on Purple post alerted me to a contest which would see to it that Pitbull would be sent to whichever local Walmart location received the most likes on its respective Facebook page. Yes, I know...contain your excitement for one moment.
As of right now, the Walmart in Kodiak, AK has a whopping 47, 901 likes, and based on anecdotal evidence, seems to be firmly entrenched in first place. With that said, we all know that in these sorts of Internet contests, nefarious influences will always seek to rig the results for a cheap thrill. We cannot allow the people of Kodiak, AK to be robbed by such shadowy commanders of Internet bots and computer programming sorcery.
If you haven't already, go like the Kodiak Walmart's Facebook page and like it. It takes but a second, but in doing so you will potentially be giving the proud natives of Kodiak with a memory that will last for a lifetime.
I don't need to tell you what this means for you, the college football fan (but I'll tell you anyway). Once you get to Alaska, you're probably not leaving unless you play hockey or happen to be Carlos Boozer or Trajan Langdon. As far as I know, Pitbull is none of these things. As such, this would present a victory for the college football world. After doing some amateur research, my findings confirmed that 1 day in Alaska is equivalent to approximately one college football season. Even if Pitbull was able to un-exile himself from the wilds of Alaska, he'd return to the mainland as the season was over or nearly over.
This, of course, means that Pitbull would be unable to pollute the college football airwaves with the real good time for which we never requested in the first place. Noon starts, fullback dives, and a real good sanctimonious rant are the only "real good time" we require, sir. By the time Pitbull's "Alaska day" expires, college football fans will already be arguing about whether or not Alabama should be allowed to play the Tennessee Volunteers for a third time in this season's national championship game.*
You want a Pitbull-free college football season, don't you? Of course you do. Let's get this done, you guys.
College football is an ecosystem unto itself; it expands and expands until it cannot anymore, often doing so at irregular and asymmetrical intervals--on the surface, at least--and seemingly without rhyme or reason or any sort of guiding hand. Teams try their hand and fail. Others, over time, improve their fitness and survive, live on, and prosper until someone else surpasses them or a catastrophe occurs (tough hand, dinosaurs). Then, conditions change once again, and the evolutionary adaptations that were once existential kevlar vests become useless. If Darwin were alive today and enjoyed watching sports, I have no doubt that he would find the most thematic overlap between his subject matter and sport within the realm of college football.
Charles Darwin, the first college football fan
This is all to say that the next big thing is coming, and by that I mean the somewhat dread notion of the "superconference." As the realignment craze began with Nebraska's defection and carried onward throughout the last two years, the concept of superconferences was always there, lingering in the background like an unpleasant memory or the realization that it's Sunday and you should probably do some laundry, man. The whole thing seemed tacky, the college football equivalent of replacing every 5-star restaurant in America with a bloated monstrosity Golden Corral. It seemed inevitable, but inevitability does not have to precede acceptance.
While this has always been something that you don't need to be Nostradamus to have presaged, it seems that the media is slowly starting to hint at college football's eventual transition into the superconference age. Tom Fornelli of CBS asks the question outright: "Is college football moving toward four superconferences?" Therein, he links to a piece from the Dallas Morning News, in which a source from the Big 12 said the following (on the heels of the recently inked Big 12-SEC agreement):
I really can't believe I'm saying this," one Big 12 school source said. "We might be moving to four superconferences -- and the Big 12 would be one of those.
Its sort of amusing to see everyone involved in this little game of chess feigning disbelief at this potential outcome, but the fact that people--like this Big 12 source--are being explicit about this says that this is almost definitely going to happen. I would imagine that this is only the beginning of the media talking about superconferences authoritatively rather than in pointlessly secretive, hushed tones. Come on, College Football, we all hear you whispering bad things about Eastern Michigan in the corner. You clearly don't embrace the process.
The aforementioned source of course goes out of his way to mention that yes, the Big 12 will be one of these superconferences. Naturally, someone's going to be left out. In the interest of brevity, the ACC and the Big East are likely going to be tossed to the dustbin of history, having failed to, by way of evolution, develop the correctly shaded plumage or the most fearsome set of teeth.
The ACC and the Big East; going the way of the dodo
Florida State has handled its potential move poorly, to be sure, but I can't imagine that they don't end up in the Big 12: 1) because they're FSU, and the Big 12 will want them and b) the 'Noles are fighting for survival here. This isn't about whether or not they can afford to leave the ACC, or if it is advantageous in the here and now; if they don't bounce, they're done. By the way, this makes the Big 12's survival even more evolutionarily impressive. Catalyzed by unadulterated survivalist instinct, the Big 12 conference has lifted itself from its nearly made bed of extinction; Darwin nods in approval.
Similarly, schools like Clemson and Georgia Tech could very easily find homes in the SEC (thus bringing that league to 16). Paul Myerberg of Pre-Snap Read does a little thought experiment regarding this hypothetical domino effect. This all seems less and less hypothetical by the day:
Here’s another fear: This new partnership is just the first domino to fall. The chasm between the four new leaders – Pac-12, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC – and the rest of the F.B.S. provides another impetus for Florida State and Boise State to bolt to the Big 12. The SEC moves to 16 teams, taking Clemson and Louisville; suspend your disbelief in this scenario.
The Pac-12 moves to 16 teams. The Big Ten adds Notre Dame Rutgers and others to get to 16 teams. The SEC is at 16. The Big 12 gets to 16 teams. These 64 teams become college football. The remaining 60 teams are filler, fluff. They become the new F.C.S. – the new have-nots, minus the playoff.
To continue the Shakespearean bent of that post: therein lies the rub. Although haves and have-nots obviously clearly exist right now, it has become increasingly difficult to realize and reconcile with the fact that schools like UT-San Antonio, UMass, Georgia State, and many others, are joining the FBS ranks. In lay economic terms, this is like falling in love with plastic money. In ecological terms, this is blatant overpopulation. In middle school science class terms: within the diverse ecological community that is college football, there is currently a glut of snowshoe hares compared with not too many lynxes. Can you guess what happens next?
The problem with all of this is that while I find the superconferences strange and probably even distasteful and/or deleterious to the game of college football, I have also complained about the multitude of FBS teams and FBS teams-to-be that simply have no business competing at that level as things currently stand. I know that it's a convenient statement to make for me, a Michigan fan, but that's just the way it is. I fear that the age of the superconference could both not make the conundrum that is crowning a champion any easier or more equitable while simultaneously continuing to NFL-ize and dilute the sport that we love. In short, superconferences sound like an economically and/or evolutionarily sound idea on paper, but I worry that it might end up representing the worst of both worlds.
Maybe teams would play more conference games in the Superconference Era, and maybe the cupcake games against the have-nots would consequently get phased out as these teams will have essentially become meaningless non-participants occupying lower rungs of the food chain. Still, think of all the things that will be lost. College football is far from perfect, but it will be losing a lot of heart and sensibility if this is the evolutionary path the game is pursuing on a macroscopic level. Casualties are expected--this is evolution, after all--but these new conferences, more ponderous associations or federations then "conferences," will be based upon administrative, not regional or cultural lines. There are, of course, many instances of this specific brand of folly littered through the course of history like so many glaring lights in the distance gone unheeded.
I was going to make this a mere bullet point before it ballooned to practically Terry Bowden-esque proportions. In any case, it's an important enough topic to talk about at some length at least one time.
When I wrote the other day that I was mostly dismissing Gladwell's points about the nature of the game of football, I quickly realized that I was more than a little hasty in doing so, in addition to feeling a certain amount of guilt. One could still make some sort of argument--invoking notions of free will, "assumption of risk," and other behavioral/emotional explanations, i.e. "they like doing it"--against some of Gladwell's points, some being more valid or persuasive than others. For what it's worth, I have not read any of his work, so my vague understanding of his place in the cultural and intellectual marketplace is entirely based on what I've read others say about him on message boards, in the media, etc. In short, I have no biases or prejudices against his style of thought because I don't know what that may or may not entail. In the case of this debate about college football, that's probably a good thing.
Dave Duerson (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
No matter where your beliefs lie across the spectrum (ranging from "ban the game completely" to "it's fine as is"), it should be fairly clear that this is a discussion that needs to be had, and Gladwell is doing his part in pushing this discussion forward. It's a discussion that should've been seriously had a while ago, to be honest, but given that the science is only somewhat recently starting to catch up to the game with any comprehensiveness or specificity (re: concussion research), perhaps the people of the 70s, 80s and 90s get a pass. In 2012? Not so much.
Here are some things that do not add to the discussion:
Dismissing Gladwell because he's any one of the following is pointless: liberal, Ivory Tower academic, one-percenter, snooty, a pansy (and all other related forms of that particular pejorative), etc. You get the idea. This is what they call ad hominem, and, like I said the other day, is basically like Ogre screaming NERRRDDSSSSSS. He may well be any number of those things, for better or worse, but part of being an adult is separating the man from the idea or the sentiment. This is difficult for many people. I've often found that people react in such a way when they're presented with a kernel of truth that is somewhat inconvenient for their respective worldviews.
Citing players' salaries (or college scholarships) as a reason why we shouldn't spend too much time thinking about this: ridiculous, obviously.
Throwing your hands up and saying "well, nothing we can do about it." There is, actually, although what that is in practice can, and will, be debated extensively.
Continuing to hold up some sort of "assumption of risk" as a catch-all magic wand of exoneration for both the NFL and college football. The whole point of all this is that: a) the people in charge of the game and the people that play it don't exactly know what the repercussions of serious head trauma related to playing football may or may not be and b) the NFL's practices, from the employment of team doctors with a significant conflict of interest to the NFL's use of discredited science until relatively recently indicates that the league that is certainly not without blame. Saying that the players "know what they're getting themselves into" is just a bit disingenuous, regardless of how much money they make. Heck, the NFL didn't even admit or acknowledge long-term concussion effects until a couple of years ago.
Saying something along the lines of "I played and I had X many concussions and I'm just fine" is silly because you probably did not play in either college or the pros. Also, you are just some guy on the Internet. Also also, using the aforementioned as a way to discredit the toughness of modern football players is doubly insane. When human beings are accepting death over life, of their own volition, primarily as a result of injuries sustained while playing a game, it's not only extremely petty but incredibly offensive to casually dismiss their pains.
What equates to basically a THEY TOOK OUR JERBS reaction regarding his point that college football should be "banned." Upon closer inspection, I think that that was probably just an attention-grabber and not actually his primary assertion or goal. In fact, he does basically say he would at minimum suffer college football if players were paid. Whether or not this is logistically possible or fundamentally desirable for universities can be debated, but it seems that player safety is his issue, not some crusade against the ruffians that deign to play and watch the low-brow spectacle that is college football. In any case, football will *never be banned as long as more transparently brutal sports like MMA and even boxing, in its lesser unpopularized state, are extant. The question is how can the game go on without continuing to compromise player safety, and if the answer is "it cannot" then the game will either gradually decline in importance or alter its face to the point that it resembles another game entirely (i.e. the football of "back in the day").
*Well, probably never. Never say never, as they say.
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I don't claim to have all of the answers or know where the game should go from here at either the amateur or the professional level. However, it is pretty obvious that something needs to change. The last point that Gladwell made was perhaps the most important one, although many will misconstrue it, and that is his reference to the ethics of watching football. As I get older and older, it has become increasingly difficult to enjoy this game that is so inherently flawed. The "student-athlete" doesn't exist, really, and the system of deciding a champion is absurdist nonsense, trading the Bowl Alliance's vaguely anarchist jib for the BCS's transparently hypercapitalist/corporate way of doing things. Despite it all, I still watch because, up to this point, I have firmly believed that college football is the best brand of sport there is (warts and all).
At the very least, these indignities damage things that aren't tangible, like our sense of feeling okay about all of this or Team X's claim to a title in a given year, like Auburn in 2004, Utah in 2008, and TCU in 2010. This concussion issue is a different thing entirely, and for obvious reasons. It is flesh and blood and life and death.
Of course, most of the sports-related head trauma discussion has revolved around the professional leagues, namely the NFL and the NHL, what with the latter's fighters and brawlers and grinders and goons. Both leagues have attempted to reform, to draw a line in the sand by saying you can't do this or that on the field of play (or the ice). For the NFL, as ESPN has been telling you non-stop since the story broke--when it's taken a second off from talking about Tim Tebow or the Boston Red Sox clubhouse--the Saints bounty saga has shone additional light on the issue of player safety, a light that will prove beneficial for the ongoing reformation of the game.
Yes, a lot of this has discussed the theme of head trauma/CTE and its causes/effects for pro athletes, but we should be wary in assuming that this is not something that plagues the college gameas well. Steven Threet and Owen Thomas are just two examples of concussions either ending a career, or, in Thomas's case, leading to the early stages of CTE at the age of 21. These are just a couple of examples, of which there are certainly many more. Let's not forget that the accumulated pain and head trauma caused by subconcussive hits don't typically become physiologically apparent until later on in life. It is a harrowing thought, but keep that in mind when a player for a team you like sustains a second, third, or fourth concussion. As a fan of a the Chicago Blackhawks, I've seen a professional medical staff let players (Brent Seabrook, Marcus Kruger) return to the ice far too soon after a concussion, after which it became plainly obvious that the guy still wasn't "all there", or whatever innocuous euphemism people use to describe these sorts of injuries. The Blackhawks aren't the only team that have been either incompetent or imprudent in dealing with concussions; in fact, it seems to be the norm across all sports. After all, while your star is sitting, other teams are racking up wins, points, and jersey sale dollars while yours go on the downswing. Despite the facade of amateurism, even the college game is a thriving business in the end.
After sustaining the above hit, Kruger not only didn't immediately head to the "quiet room," he missed only a single game before returning, only to shortly thereafter "shockingly" have the dreaded "concussion symptoms" pop up after his next outing. This is just one example from one season in one sport; sadly, there have probably been thousands of instances of this sort of injudiciousness on the part of professional teams, and it stands to reason that the same sort of thing happens with regularity on the amateur level. I mean, just watch college football on any Saturday this fall and you're likely to see (or hear about it afterward) at least one case of a mistreated concussion case.
While I don't have much use for Gladwell's comparison of college football to dog-fighting, I will say that the issue of concussions draws to mind the same themes regarding tobacco use. Football players taking a lifetime's worth of subconcussive blows as a product of playing the game from Pop Warner all the way through high school (and, for some, college and the pros) is akin to the longtime tobacco user that doesn't think his or her day is coming. Knowing the risks, millions of people still smoke, partially because the immediate specter of disease and death isn't right there before them. What's one more cigarette? Sure, there does not exist a common denominator of addiction in this analogy (although you could argue that some football players are in fact addicted to the concept of the big hit...many in fact have said that, outright), but I think it's a useful comparison in that the responses to both ills have been similar in their tragic slowness. The football world is essentially stuck in its very own "it's the 1960s and we're just discovering how bad cigarettes really are and now we're going to do something about it" period vis-a-vis concussions and dangerous, illegal hits.
At the risk of running on too much longer, it is clear that the game is going to change; it has to. Additionally, it seems unlikely that the game of football won't experience some sort of decline in popularity in the coming years. While it is easy to make fun of Gladwell for using Wilbon of all people as an example of "even this sports guy won't let his kid play football", many others across the great wide Internets are having the same reaction. I don't have a kid, but if I did, it would getting incredibly difficult to rationalize allowing a child to play a game that has the ability to ruin him before he even gets the chance to fully develop. You could say that it's mostly an issue at the professional level, and you'd be right except there have been cases of CTE at lower levels of football (as linked above with the UPenn case). It becomes a risky game, and if you let a child play, at what point do you decide that it has become too dangerous? Middle school? High School? What if he gets a scholarship to play football in college...do you say no to that? Given the aforementioned game of risk, it's clear that many parents will simply push their kids toward other sports.
Instead of fighting against the current, fans of the game should accept that this is something that has been ignored or, at best, dealt with insufficiently or on a superficial level. Whether or not this leads to players being paid, new (old?) helmets, and the non-existence of the game as a whole, we know that something needs to change. The game of football has changed countless times before and it will change again. Even our lexicon, the language of the "big hit," is probably in for a paddlin'.
When a player is hit hard, they say that his "bell was wrung." A brain is not a bell, and the effects of the percussional strike--the big hit--often reverberate ceaselessly and harmfully into the future. Unlike the bell, which is struck and makes noise for a short time, the brain when struck feels it and stores it, only to be felt again later down the line, an unseen ticking time-bomb.
For those of you who read Holdin' The Rope on a usual basis (I know there are some of you out there), you may have noticed a new contributor last week and today. I am Mike Taub.
There's Fouad waving on the left and me on the right during the Notre Dame game.
What do I know about football? The University of Michigan? Michigan Football?
I've essentially been a Michigan fan since I was born. I have early memories of crying after Michigan losses in the early 90s. I've been going to games since I was five years old. During my first game, I looked around the enormous stadium, saw the band run out, sang along with The Victors, watched the team touch the banner, and screamed and cheered the entire game. I was hooked.
In the late fall of 2004, my high school football team went to a Michigan practice as they prepared to play Texas in the Rose Bowl. Coach Carr spoke to our team, and I got to meet players like Mike Hart, Chad Henne, and Braylon Edwards. The most important aspect of this trip for me was getting to meet, and have a long conversation with Bo Schembechler. Four or five of us stood in a circle, for what seemed like forever, having a conversation about everything from football to life lessons with the legend. For reasons I will never know (maybe he needed it to keep his balance), Bo grabbed my elbow and just held on to it for most of the time we were talking. Needless to say, this conversation with Bo left my friends and me with a moment to remember.
In 2006, I started applying to colleges. Three weeks after I applied, I got a large envelope from Michigan State University welcoming me to East Lansing. It was nice to be accepted, but I wasn't thrilled, I had my mind set on Michigan. On November 17, 2006, I was on a computer at school, and I clicked over to ESPN.com rather than do my work. On the main page, the article was about Bo passing away. I texted a bunch of my friends (clearly I was paying attention that day), and everyone was shocked. When I arrived home from school that day, there were Maize and Blue balloons on my mailbox. When I entered the house, my mom handed me my acceptance letter to the University of Michigan.
The day I was accepted, Michigan was 11-0 and ranked #2 in the country. The next day, Michigan played Ohio State to see who would go to the National Championship Game. As we know, Michigan lost that game, then lost again in the Rose Bowl to USC. I arrived on campus in August 2007, and I was incredibly excited for my first game in the student section. We were ranked #5, Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Jake Long were returning seniors, and they were going to make up for the year before and take us to the National Championship. Appalachian State had other ideas. I sat around the 90th Row in Section 33, I was going to have a perfect view of the field goal that would keep us from losing to a FCS opponent. Instead, the kick was blocked, and I didn't even know what to do with myself. I had never seen a Michigan loss in person before. The next week Oregon demolished us. After the game, two of my friends and I just sat in our seats until security told us to leave. We couldn't believe that this had happened. We also thought this must be the worst Michigan would be while we were students. Boy were we wrong...
Of course now that I have graduated and live in Nashville, the Michigan Football Team seems to have an excellent future again. I don't have anyone here to talk about everything that is going on in the world of Michigan Football, so I have resorted to blogging. My writing is nowhere near the level of Fouad's, but I'll try to improve (if only I was an English teacher instead of a Math teacher). I'm always open to suggestion, so tell me what you think, either in comments or on Twitter (@mtaub). Hopefully you will enjoy what I write, because I know I enjoy writing about the Michigan Wolverines.
It is times like these that we sit and wonder; why do we do the things that we do? It is a question that often produces nothing but teeth-gnashing and cold sweats at 3:32 in the morning. I think I do it for reason X, but I'm not even really sure.
For many, the underlying motive of their life, at a given point in time, includes such sensible, rational things as raising a family, furthering a career, helping people, and so on. These are all nice things. People do these things because they are expected, but it is the other things that people do that make them what they are, that allow us to know that they are in fact different from their ambitious, family-raising neighbors. After all, we are all different, even in the things that we share an interest in.
While I do not enjoy talking about myself, I will for the purposes of this post. It is an average day in May, and yet, I cannot sleep. Why can I not sleep? A double-edged entity that attacks from both sides like a 19th century pincer formation refuses me the pleasure of doing so. That entity, plain and simple, is college football. Now, despite this less-than-flattering depiction, I would not have it any other way.
I am a Michigan fan. For the informed, that is a trying (physically, mentally and emotionally) thing in and of itself. But, I won't get into that for now. I will only lay the groundwork.
As I type this sentence, it is 2:21 a.m. here in my hometown in northern Alabama. On a normal football Saturday, I'd be waking up to begin the day in approximately 4 hours. But today is not a football Saturday, and for that reason I am not at ease. As I try to think about my reasons for living, other than the aforementioned, college football comes first. At the same time, I realize the ridiculousness of such a thought. I am not exactly covering new ground; college football fanaticism is a pseudo-disease that affects millions across this land.
College football is a funny thing. Its fans flock to college campuses across the country every fall Saturday to watch their team. Some of these people didn't even attend said school. Some didn't develop their maniacal, darn near fundamentalist support for their team till their college years. Some support a team because their father does.
It is late and I have mixed feelings about this. I have many things to say about the sport, and my team, but, then again, so do many other people. I fear that it is perhaps possible that I have nothing new to say; I hope that is not the case. I have had the pleasure of enjoying many informative, witty and well-written blogs across the blogosphere, and it is my intent to provide something interesting from a perspective that is perhaps slightly different than many others. I have had the opportunity to live all over the United States, and have been privy to the witnessing of college football across the Midwest, as well as in my current locale, the Deep South.
I love Michigan. I love everything about it. However, there was a time when I only loved Michigan. I haven't always necessarily respected the beauty of the college game as a whole. As I've grown older, I've come to realize that college football is more than just Michigan. I will of course attempt to relay my thoughts on the weekly news of Michigan football, but I plan to cover schools in other conferences. Who knows what will happen with this.
But for now, it is May, and all I or anyone else like me can do is pine for September. Sometimes I imagine college football as a country song (no, not that Kenny Chesney nonsense).
I've never seen a night so long When time goes crawling by The moon just went behind a cloud To hide its face and cry
The offseason is long and painful, and the season too short when it finally arrives. The season itself is often painful and full of moments where you sit on a hard stadium bench with your face in your hands, the sweat rolling unimpeded into your disbelieving eyes--or in your living room sitting at the end of your couch as if you wanted to fall of the face of some flat Earth--that you wonder why you keep coming back. But you do. Like a country song, it's sad. It's a sad song for every team in the nation but one. Michigan was not that one in 2009, nor in 2008, nor for many years before that. It was that one in 1997, but even that seems like it was long, long ago.
Most people don't possess much in the way of specific memory of the innocent single digit years of their life. I was 8 on January 1, 1998, and I remember it vividly.
Hello, Internet. I am Fouad Egbaria, a Michigan grad ('11) and recent graduate of the MSJ program at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. This is a blog that attempts to analyze the highs and lows of Michigan football and basketball; I'm just trying to capture the spirit of the thing. I will also write about general Big Ten news, as well as Chicago professional sports (from time to time).
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