College Football = Hunger Games

[zemo]

Or any other fictional story where children are pitted against each other for the profit of grown ups. :3

Discuss!

[Weeto]

College football can hardly be considered exploitation of children as the players are young adults but I do see an issue that playing four years of amateur football in college is generally the only way to play professionally. I don't know why 18+ year old guys can't just join a club of their choice rather than being allocated to teams after college.

In soccer, players can join clubs while in school and can be paid professionals as teenagers.

Colleges make a fortune from football and basketball with enormous crowds and TV coverage yet the players get nothing much more than free tuition as their reward.

[FanboyStranger]

College football can hardly be considered exploitation of children as the players are young adults but I do see an issue that playing four years of amateur football in college is generally the only way to play professionally. I don't know why 18+ year old guys can't just join a club of their choice rather than being allocated to teams after college.

In soccer, players can join clubs while in school and can be paid professionals as teenagers.

Colleges make a fortune from football and basketball with enormous crowds and TV coverage yet the players get nothing much more than free tuition as their reward.

They actually don't have to play four years. They have to be three years removed from high school, which generally amounts to two years of playing and a redshirt year. Most high draft picks in the NFL tend to be underclassmen.

In priniciple, I agree that any player with the ability to play at a professional level should be allowed to enter a professional league whenever he/she is ready. However, the NFL spends so much money developing their players that they don't want players who have not faced off against commensurate competition, something most high school players never see. The amount of highly touted high school recruits who turn out to be busts on a collegiate level is extremely high, which explains why Notre Dame always wins recruiting but has sucked for the last decade. The jump to the pros is an even higher level of play than top collegiate play (SEC, really, these days), so a team wants all the data they can possibly have before choosing a player. It's a far leap from, say, the NBA where high school players like Kobe and LeBron were able to enter the league immediately and excel. (But let's remember that for every Kobe or LeBron, there's three Kwame Browns and Sebastian Telfairs, which is why the NBA insistuted the even more ridiculous one-year removed from high school requirement, aka the Calipari rule as his programs have suceeded mostly on the backs of rent-a-players.) Also, American football is a sport where one player can never really dominate by himself-- it may seem that way at times, but every player on the field is participating in an intricate design with his own role that makes that one player look good. There is no Peyton Manning or Tom Brady without his offensive line and specialty players. That takes development and experience even more than talent. Basketball and soccer aren't quite that contingent on tightly knitted team play.

My solution to paying collegiate athletes would be to simply make practice a work-study job since athletes are not permitted to have jobs during their sport's season. (You can't practice more than 20 hours a week by NCAA mandate.) That way you give them a little bit of pocket money and avoid a lot of the violations that kids with no money get caught up in. It's not a perfect fix, but it's a step in the right direction. The problem is that you'd have to do that across all sports because of Title IX, and a lot of people have a problem with paying a student-athlete in a non-revenue producing sport.

[Corrina]

There's no question that everyone except the athletes are doing well in college football. Look at Eric LaGrand, paralyzed and can't cover all his medical bills. At the very least, these young men need *lifetime* medical insurance. And the demands of high-level college football are so great that they can't really get the education they're supposedly getting for "free." that 20 hours a week on football is bogus. I bet everyone bends those rules.

The colleges and universities and coaches rake in money while the kids lose both the chance at an education and 90 percent of them even at top level program will never get any job in the NFL.

I won't say it equals the Hunger Games. They are all volunteers, for example, and the object of the game isn't to injure or kill but rather to score. But it sure seems violence is encouraged. Maybe not, now that the NFL is coming down on it.

And it's sad that you posted this on the day Junior Seau committed suicide. I think he's the eighth member of the 1994 SuperBowl chargers team to die. He was 43. Was it related to possible head trauma? I suspect we'll find out. But I'm getting a little bit squeamish about watching the NFL knowing these men are literally shaving years off their lives. Decades, even.

[FanboyStranger]

There's no question that everyone except the athletes are doing well in college football. Look at Eric LaGrand, paralyzed and can't cover all his medical bills. At the very least, these young men need *lifetime* medical insurance. And the demands of high-level college football are so great that they can't really get the education they're supposedly getting for "free." that 20 hours a week on football is bogus. I bet everyone bends those rules.

The colleges and universities and coaches rake in money while the kids lose both the chance at an education and 90 percent of them even at top level program will never get any job in the NFL.

I won't say it equals the Hunger Games. They are all volunteers, for example, and the object of the game isn't to injure or kill but rather to score. But it sure seems violence is encouraged. Maybe not, now that the NFL is coming down on it.

And it's sad that you posted this on the day Junior Seau committed suicide. I think he's the eighth member of the 1994 SuperBowl chargers team to die. He was 43. Was it related to possible head trauma? I suspect we'll find out. But I'm getting a little bit squeamish about watching the NFL knowing these men are literally shaving years off their lives. Decades, even.

I played college football for a year, but at the D-III level. We never practiced more than fifteen hours a week. My brothers played D-I at a major university, and they never practiced more than eighteen hours a week during the season. (That's three hours a day on the field, M-F, because you play on Saturday and Sunday is almost always a recovery day. You get a lot done in three hours. The other hours are usually film study with your position coaches and because there's limited facilities you don't all do that on the same day. Also, my one brother was a kicker, so it's not like he really practiced at all.) That doesn't include weight training or any non-organized conditioning activities, though, which are considered at your leisure. There are programs that try to get away with pushing the envelope, but for the most part, the penalties are too great for the little reward that practice time actually gets you.

I absolutely agree that anyone suffering a major injury while playing college football (or any sport, for that matter) should have access to a university health plan and its full benefits. You were injured in service to the school, same as any faculty or staff.

The Junior Seau thing really bothers me. Seau was the absolute portrait of what a good role model is during his playing days-- he gave 110% on the field, always had time for his fans, and provided an astronomical amount of community service in the San Diego area. As much of a beast as he was on the field, he was the nicest, most gregarious guy off it, the kind of guy who would give the shirt off his back to someone he had known for five minutes. Something changed when he retired. There was the domestic assault charge against his then wife and a messy divorce, plus a terrible accident that is now presumed to have been a first suicide attempt. He seemed like a completely different person. Like a lot of former players, I think he was overwhelmed by depression from no longer having the roaring crowd behind him, and like a lot of men in general, I think he was too ashamed to go get help for that depression, not that it excuses his behavior. The things we're finding out about post-concussion syndrome and its effects on the brain are staggering, and that's why the NFL has tightened up the rules. I wouldn't be surprised if Seau were suffering from the same kind of trauma that Dave Duerson and Andre Waters had. This is just morbid speculation on my part, but I think he chose to shoot himself in the chest so that doctors would be able to study his brain after he was gone without obstruction.

One last thing: the fact that the NFL does not pay full health care for its former players is criminal. I know it's always a sticking point in the collective bargaining agreements (and the NFLPA often talks a good game, but backs off when current players are asked to contribute to funds for players who have gone before them), but something has to be done beyond the small strides made last year. I know people will counter with, "Oh, but they're millionaires", but most players on a team, while doing pretty well, aren't breaking the bank, especially when you consider how easily anyone one of them can experience severe injury any time they stap on the pads. There is no reason why the NFL can't set up something similar to what the military has in USAA for former players beyond greed.

[Corrina]

So you're talking 18 hours of practice, plus time with position coaches, plus weight training and conditioning, which is excluded. Sounds like that could easily add up to about 30 hours per week and I suspect the weight training and conditioning is 'optional' in name, as if everyone is doing it, not doing it puts one behind.

That's nearly a full-time job with a full courseload. I did that. It's very, very hard. But at least I had money in my pocket. They're not allowed more than, what, $20 or so spending money? That's system ripe for under the table funding.

I agree about Seau. It strikes me as so very, very sad because until the incident with the domestic violence, I had never heard or read a bad thing about the guy and that's somewhat unusual in this day and age. Part of me hopes it was brain trauma, because that would at least explain the personality swap. Part of me worries that it will confirm that our enjoyment of the sport is basically killing these guys. I hope Seau's family does send his brain in for testing. Perhaps, like Duerson, he left instructions that way.

Before Andre Waters, there was a former Pittsburgh Steeler offensive lineman who basically spiraled down into clinical depression and paranoia and died in a high speed crash.

[FanboyStranger]

So you're talking 18 hours of practice, plus time with position coaches, plus weight training and conditioning, which is excluded. Sounds like that could easily add up to about 30 hours per week and I suspect the weight training and conditioning is 'optional' in name, as if everyone is doing it, not doing it puts one behind.

That's nearly a full-time job with a full courseload. I did that. It's very, very hard. But at least I had money in my pocket. They're not allowed more than, what, $20 or so spending money? That's system ripe for under the table funding.

I don't think it would ever get up to thirty hours unless you're a real workout freak. After practice, you're pretty damn tired, so if you put in an hour in the gym, you're doing pretty well. Believe it or not, there are some coaches who actually want you to study and will kick you out of the gym.

But yeah, it is like a full-time job on top of going to school with the side benefit of nagging aches and pains. That's why I'm in favor of making practice like a work study job. Athletes would make about $150 a week, and it would be under institutional control. Like I said in my earlier post, it's not a perfect solution, but it would get rid of some of the temptation to take handouts from boosters and get the program in trouble.

[The Mandarin]

I thought the "Hunger Games" was a metaphor for lots of things.

It was a metaphor for the way the rich talk about everyone getting rich when the reality is that very few people will.

It was a metaphor for the way young people from poor regions are sent to war to preserve the way of life of people who risk nothing.

It was a metaphor for the way the media appeals to the lowest common denominator.

It had a lot of layers to it.

[DungeonMasterJim]

Slightly off-topic but related is the research going on with brain injuries incurred by concussions from football. While I've forgotten the details the basic gist is that high schoolers are suffering traumatic brain injuries that only now are being studied. I could've sworn that I heard something like the average high school football player takes over 100 blows to the head. And I want to say that that stat is more for like a season or less, not their entire high school 4 year duration. I don't know what will happen in the future, I figure football will never go away due to its popularity but helmets have to be improved or the rules of the game changed in some way. So in a way America is training its youth for gladiator combat and only now is science beginning to tell us what effect it is really having.

EDIT: Since territories 1 & 2 in The Hunger Games had youths train tributes regularly for the games it doesn't seem all the different from many American communities.

[Hugin]

On the Junior thing, I heard that his chosen method of suicide was likely because he was suffering mental problems and he wanted his brain intact as a warning of what could happen. Another player apparently did the same thing last year.