I never thought this would happen but if you ever paid attention to how screwed up the game we all loved is....for example:
1) The money being spent by maybe 10 or so programs around the country, with the majority of the being SEC, is truly an arms race. Coaching, on the college level, matters so much in this game. I'm not only talking about head coaches. I'm talking about all the way down to support staff and who can have it. Only a few schools can afford the money being pumped in for these assistant coaches & support staff. I think we at, FSU, know this very well.
2) Likewise to coaching salaries, facilities is another top 10 schools.... and everyone else. It matters. Who has the best weight rooms, who has the best locker rooms, best stadium experience, etc.
3) I think what I loved about college football was the fact that these guys were students first. Maybe I was young and naïve but today it seems like these guys are minor leaguers. Then you live in my state, and have GA Tech, which is not a football factory yet they try to compete with the football schools of the south and you begin to realize how screwed up this is. How many FSU, UGA, or UT football players can pass real science/math calculus? They ALL have to do this at GA Tech. Likewise, just a general question but are the admission standards the same for football players at Duke, Wake Forest, Vandy as they are for Alabama, Arkansas and LSU?
Part of the problem is me living in suburban Atlanta. Where all things live and die through Georgia football... 365 days a year. The whole concept is weird.... if you have your daily ups and downs on what an 18-21 year old does on a football field (and yes, 21, if they are that good they will go pro at 22). When I lived down in Florida it was FSU on Saturday and the Dolphins on Sunday.... and then bball in the winter, and baseball in the summer. I think living here makes you wonder about the emphasis that is put on college kids for their athletic accomplishment.
Does this bother anyone else? Make you think? Wonder? Or just as a UGA friend puts it--- "nope. I like what it is".
It was kinda exciting and almost surreal when we found out Bobby Bowden was the first college coach to ink a million dollar contract. Now, some teams have how many assistants making more?
I was lucky enough to score great seats to watch a couple of Noles games this year. Jeez, where did the football game go? Every one around us spent more time on their phones than watching or cheering. When off the phone, they looked at the entertainment on the big screen/scoreboards...fans dancing, hugging, ads, etc... more often than watching the game.
The big screen spurred fans to cheer rather than spontaneous outbursts based on the field of play. Folks I know spent the game in the boxes or the champions club, meaning they went to a restaurant/bar that happened to have a football game available for entertainment.
The first time I encountered interminable timeouts was at ACC tourney basketball games. Now, even for a team as pedestrian as FSU this season, fans are disconnected from action for five minutes at a time due to ad sales.
There is no pace to the game and it drags on with a stupid amount of stoppages that mostly add nothing to the game. The officials are scared to make calls without referring to a committee that is also scared to make calls.
More importantly, the plug in to players that seemed like real students playing a game is long lost history. They come and go at a pace having nothing to do with gaining a four year degree. A kid waiting his turn for playing time is becoming non existent, even tho that is the time honored way to learn the game while supporting the starters.
Football has been exposed as a game that uses up its player’s health, fan’s time, and university/community assets in order to enrich a system beneficial to coaches, admins, TV, advertisers, and a long list of others who have nothing to do with education or real community. The money spent on one act facilities is farcical in the face of student and community needs.
One of my brothers was very plugged in to FSU football under Bobby. They traded books, had real social interactions, and talked shop. When Jimbo took over, brother told me he was a real ace hat who would denigrate the FSU program.
Anybody agree? It quickly became a systematic game of holding the school hostage for salary jumps, investment by a university in one use facilities, (the indoor practice facility should have also been built as a state of the art indoor track house) and separation from the academic commmunity.
Long ago I started following the woman’s sports more avidly. There is such a different sense of priority... mostly meaning a lack of money grubbing.
FSU football, where art thou?
