re: Wall Street Journal: Why College Football should be banned

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I understand and agree with the basic principle that schools should be about academics first and foremost. However, I've never understood the argument that because a handful of football players may not be taking their college academic career seriously enough it means that the entire sport should be scrapped.

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That's just one element of the argument. And it's more than a "handful" of football players. And how much energy, effort, and money goes into going the extra mile to make sure these players make the minimum grades necessary to stay eligible? University-paid tutors for athletes, dedicated study buildings for athletes, pressure on or acquiescence by professors to "accomodate" athletes, numerous excused absences from class for athletes, or even outright cheating by the athletes and/or school ... all in the name of keeping football players eligible with the NCAA and on the field.

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It's an even crazier idea when you consider that football makes well over a hundred other scholarships available to serious students in a wide range of other sports available at each school. I assume the author realizes those opportunities go bye bye with college football's elimination.

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What if we scrapped sports, pumped all available resources into actually educating students, and watched the school's endownment grow by leaps and bounds when alumni who were given top-notch educations become hugely successful in the real world and decide to give back. No football needed.

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The benchmarks are a good idea because despite the veiled racist overtones of the author's article, a significant majority of these college football players actually graduate and become functioning members of society.

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But it's not significant enough to justify the erosion of emphasis on academics.

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What's with the sudden righteous indignation over college football anyway?

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Nothing more than yet another periodic reassessment of the reality of modern-day college sports and whether it is "good" for higher education and society as a whole. No matter what side of the argument you are on, questions at least need to be asked.

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Heck, if the idea is meaningless entertainment that is a distraction to secondary education then why limit it to college sports?

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College sports is by far the biggest meaningless entertainment "distraction." I can't think of anything that comes close. I'd put frats at a distant second. Enormously distant.

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If escalating coaching salaries are so evil then why not attack professional sports that benefit from the free athletic training that colleges provide in football, basketball, and baseball?

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Pro sports is complicit in the elevation of college football, but it's the university presidents who are to blame. They are the ones with the (arguably) misguided priorities. Pro sports is just a business that is going to do what's best for itself ... and having college football as the de facto minor leagues of the NFL is good for business.

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You have single MLB players making annual salaries that equal the entire combined coaching salaries of entire BCS conferences and it's college football that is out of control?

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MLB teams don't put themselves out there as educating the youth of America quite like colleges and universities do.

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The author would probably lose his s### if you suggested New Yorkers had screwed up priorities following a team that had players making over 20 million dollars a season playing baseball. College football should be banned the same day MLB teams agree to lower their salaries in line with normal working people.

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Entertainers make what they make because there is high demand for it. I don't care whether followers of sports have messed up priorities. That's their choice to make. But it shouldn't be up to colleges and universities to produce sports entertainers. They should be producing scientists and accountants and businessmen and teachers and economists and doctors and lawyers, etc. I don't have a problem with people wanting to become pro athletes, but it bothers me that institutions of "higher learning" have become their training grounds.