Saturday, March 20, 2010

 

So this irritated me...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan: No Graduates, No Game for College Basketball

What a ridiculous load of grandstanding horseshit. How many objections can I have? Let's count!
  1. The notion that the Secretary of Education even exists as a policy-making figure is unnecessary at best, very harmful at worst.
  2. Even if we accept that the Secretary of Education is a necessary figure, why the fuck is he commenting on how individual schools run their sports programs?
  3. Even if we accept that the Secretary of Education deems it necessary to comment on how individual schools run their sports programs, did he just wake up recently? Is he really surprised to see that the focus of major-college basketball programs isn't the education of the scholarship players?
  4. Well, then, what would be the focus of major-college basketball programs? I'm guessing - and please, leave a comment if I'm off-base here - winning basketball games.
  5. Okay, we can pretty much agree that the main focus of a major-college basketball program is winning games. So what do you need in order to win games? Good basketball players.
  6. It follows naturally that good basketball players want to play professionally. Well, in order to play professional basketball in America, one has to play in college for at least one year first.
  7. Just in case you didn't get #6, I'll rephrase: The only reason most good basketball players even attend college to begin with is because they're legally prevented from pursuing a professional basketball career in America without at least one year of college.
  8. So to put a fine point on it, we'll just say that getting that required English credit out of the way isn't John Wall's (or whomever's) number one priority.
  9. How did he come up with the figure of forty percent?
  10. Does the world of college athletics need another self-righteous prick crowing about "student athletes"?

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