Friday, October 16, 2009

Football, etc.

Well, I was going to post on USF's win over Cincinnati...but they lost. (Oh, well. I don't think they've ever won against the Bearcats. Those guys looked huge.)

I have to say though, when I was watching that overhyped game, I discovered that I'm not totally on-board with all the attention paid to college football. Is it really right that the majority of college athletes are ignored, while all the attention focuses on football (and sometimes basketball)?

What does it do to the athletes, when they are either watched not at all...or watched by over 60,000 fans? And what does it do to a college freshman, when he is on ESPN?

Several times during last night's game, the ESPN announcers talked about the "pressure" facing B.J. Daniels, USF's freshman quarterback. They seemed to not realize it's just a football game.

As a reaction to how his work was regarded, Alfred Hitchock supposedly once said, "It's only a movie." There seems to be no such sense of proportion facing football.

It's only a football game.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Athletes in the "nonrevenue" sports are just as devoted to their sports as are the football and basketball players but are largely ignored. It's very unfair, but I don't see things changing anytime soon.

Peter

Kirk said...

As an antidote to some of the big college games, I watched some of the Princeton/Brown game. It was nice to watch a bunch of guys I've never heard of play on what looked like a high-school field. There couldn't have been a thousand people in the stands.

I think the higher-division games are getting a bit unreal. Am I really supposed to believe the players are students?

That said, if USF wins next week, I'll get back on the bandwagon.

;-)

And for what it's worth, football does provide some publicity. My own brother once told me to go to Devry, as he's never heard of USF...