Let’s acknowledge that the NCAA’s first and foremost concern is for the well-being of student-athletes . . . ostensibly! Similar to the hollow concern of the Department of Education for “the children,” the NCAA has a nurturing nature towards student-athletes. Indeed this is a bit odd, being that student-athletes are a bit too old to be treated as children. Nearly all of the players are adults between 18 and twenty-two years of age. Nevertheless, the NCAA watches over them as a mother hen her brood, especially when it comes to financial matters.
The NCAA would like to have us believe that it does not care a bit about self aggrandizement; that it is not concerned with growing in size or influence; that it is not concerned with making money for the participating schools, the coaches, or people who work within its governing body; that it is not concerned about increasing control over sports; and that it reluctantly assumes a policing role solely for the benefit of helpless student-athletes.
The NCAA vigilantly makes the distinction between student-athletes and professionals. The NCAA wishes to keep the public and, most certainly, the players forever mindful this. If this distinction were not made repeatedly, before long athletes would start acting like professionals. Heavens forbid! Just imagine the correlative problems! The NCAA realizes that student-athletes have the rest of their lives to worry about money and does everything within its power to keep the dear boys and girls financially worry free. This certainly seems to be the NCAA’s major concern and that everything else pales by comparison. Indeed, the NCAA is on the ball ─ the love of money is said to be the root of all evil. Certainly, nobody in the NCAA would dare gainsay this maxim of life!
Ever since the public has become aware of the high incidence of injuries in football ─ especially brain and spinal injuries ─ the NCAA has been acting even more maternal-like making football safer for student-athletes. Their concern, however, seems to be a tad disingenuous. Hopeful, this is not true. Nevertheless, on this ever so important matter they act more as cold-hearted surrogates than loving natural mothers. Strangely, the NCAA, which knows so very much on how to protect student-athletes against financial predation, knows so very little on how to protect them against physical abuse.
Although nary a fan likes to see players maimed, crippled, or disabled for life, fans do like to see hard hitting ─ hard hitting as distinct from cheap, malicious, wicked, or wanton hitting. The NCAA does not seem fully aware of this. Apparently, they think the public can never quench its thirst for blood and gore. Apparently, they think fans are more like beasts of the jungle rather than compassionate human beings greatly concerned for the well-being of players ─ both theirs and their opponents’.
Whether it’s empathy or discretion that the NCAA lacks, they most certainly act as though football will always render considerable collateral damage, and that all they can do about it is change the rules of engagement . . . slightly, that is. This they have done. The changes that they have proposed are woefully ineffectual. Fatalities and debilitating injuries will persist ─ without any doubt whatsoever.
It seems, at least to this writer, that the NCAA’s principal concern regarding injuries is not so much in preventing them as it is in not offending those thoughtless rabid fans, accustomed to bread and circuses, who would take offense even over the slightest perceptible change in play. Continue reading →
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