I’ve just been catching up a bit on the whole Cam Newton affair. In a nutshell, his services were perceived to be of such value that he and his father decided to sell them to the highest collegiate bidder. Auburn won, and has been winning ever since.
Having watched this sort of stuff for years now, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the world would be a better place without “college” football. I think universities and colleges should disband the teams. I think that either the NFL should create a farm-system, or another league should form that caters to high schoolers.
I’m tired of the hypocrisy of college football. Sending kids to “school” to get an education because they play a sport well is a fantasy. These kids aren’t there to get an education. They are there to learn how to play football and stake their future on the chance that they’ll be a pro in a few years. If I give the NCAA the benefit of the doubt- then they have basically proven themselves incompetent stewards of college football. Completely incapable of reigning this sort of behavior in. If I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt then they are complicit and benefiting to the tune of millions of dollars off these kids. Either way, the NCAA doesn’t cover themselves in glory.
Let’s just drop the charade altogether. I don’t think a high schooler can possibly play pro-football. But they can go to a farm league where an organization teaches them how to play and prepares them for that life. Perhaps they can even draw a nominal salary of some sort in addition to other perks like meals and training facilities and the like. At the least, we won’t have to insult our intelligence that they are there for anything else.