GET OUT!

It’s an organization I wish existed. The acronym represents Get Every Thug Off Our Teams, and is a reaction to the disgustingly commonplace news of so-called student-athletes’ arrests and convictions for a great range of crimes. More disturbingly, very often the criminals have been hired, by means of athletic scholarships, which are publicized, and often bonuses and perks, which are clandestine.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of “university” is rather simple and refers to two classes of people, students and faculty; athletes are not mentioned. Looking at the world, in fact, shows that the American model of a university as a training ground for professional athletes, many of them scarcely associated, aside from ubiquity, with their institutions, is rare. In most countries, universities have no teams, none at all. Athletes with no interest in education may attend sports colleges, where those are the subjects taught, or join sports clubs, devoted to particular endeavors of that sort. Another option for them, of course, is to secure athletic scholarships in the U.S., and quite a few do just that.
Despite the fact that athletics have no definitional part in colleges, I have absolutely no objection to them. I have exercised regularly all my life, have enjoyed watching some university athletic contests, and my children were intercollegiate athletes. I object very strenuously, however, to participants’ being paid to perform, and, regardless of what euphemism is attached to the payment, that is what it is.
For what are called major sports the universities function as no better than minor league teams. The usual, specious argument to justify this is that athletic scholarships permit some that otherwise would not, to “get a college education.” For the major sports this is entirely laughable. Trivial courses and feeble, useless programs of study are formulated for those whose presence is solely for the purpose of running around the fields and courts. For many, the most popular major must be Student Union, because, when not indulging in their professions, that is where many are often to be found.
The actual reason for the practice is, as with much corruption in this country, money. Buying more capable players helps XYZ U to win, which attracts television money, bowl game money, ticket and souvenir revenues, etc. Most of this return, naturally, goes back to athletics, and winning teams gratify old grads, the pecunious of whom will donate money to XYZ to propagate the cycle. One has only to review the graduation statistics for athletic scholars in the big money sports. How many graduate in reasonable time? How many graduate at all, and, if so, in what – Playground Management or African or Women’s Studies? Observe what a lie is the “get a college education” excuse for importing them.
If you’ve spent any time around a school with a large athletic “program,” which designation is appropriate, since it’s all entertainment, you’ll have noticed that the athletic department budget is an enigma, a sacred cow, the horns of which never get trimmed. When financial troubles develop, the Library will have to eliminate research materials the faculty need, whole academic departments may be erased, staff and faculty forego raises, but football never takes a hit. It’s also important to recognize that at some schools the abuses are not with basketball and football, for hockey, lacrosse, and other sports are the big attractions at other places.
I shall describe the sensible way for university athletics to work. Students take entrance exams and present other academic credentials. If accepted for a valid course of study, they matriculate, and, in interested, try out for the team(s) of choice. They are first students, secondly athletes – just as the bogus, hyphenated term indicates – and receive no special consideration for that activity. It’s the same as the Knitting Club, an amateur drama group, or the Mechanical Engineering Society – extra-curricular activities taken up by those with the interest, ability, and time for them. What is better than this about the uncontrollable monster of the semi-pro to full-pro system we have today?
Next, to the subject of crime. It is far from uncommon that some of those engaged to represent the schools, with which they are so tenuously connected, are criminals. The ways by which university administrators – also not mentioned in the definition – deal with the phenomenon bear examination.
Some months ago news reports from the University of Montana, a place not ordinarily construed as a football factory, told that part of the team broke into an apartment to steal some of the illegal drugs in use there. Whether the whole squad is armed or not is unknown, but these representatives were, and in the course of the felony a woman was slugged over the head with a revolver barrel.
The school’s president determined that the root problem was not having thugs in to play football, but rather that the criminals had not been provided adequate “mentoring,” to employ his own, fashionable terminology. In short, the felonious behavior was the university’s fault! Consequently, a new, salaried position was added to the budget and a person engaged to attempt to inculcate civilized behavior upon any barbaric student-athletes. If this is representative of logic at places of advanced learning, we should bail out after eight years, and, by the way, do you think high schools are less tolerant of high-performance, low morality student-athletes?
The University of Texas is an institution more closely identified with major league athletics, so it was less startling to see it distinguished in a column headed “Book ‘em, Horns” and leading off with reference to its new honor system; “Yes, your Honor.” “No, your Honor.” After six weeks of a season the Austin team had four wins and six arrests. The crimes included burglary of a vehicle; aggravated robbery and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence; aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon; beating up a witness to one of the foregoing crimes; driving while impaired; and drug possession. How did the team deal with the offenders? Hardly with rigor; one criminal transferred to another, lucky school, two were suspended indefinitely – meaning?, and two were reinstated after three-game suspensions. Wasn’t that severe?
After the University of Florida won it’s so-called national football championship, it had had nine players arrested by the middle of the following season. Want additional evidence? Just open your newspapers.
To digress a moment, parents of children shopping for colleges should be cognizant of incidents like these, whether on or off the confines of a campus, and should also research the institution’s crime data, which schools are never anxious to advertise but which federal law compels them to gather and make available.
Let’s assume that a school is so eager for glorious victories and the even more glorious dollars as to perpetuate the present system of paid amateurs. It is still possible, in fact, simple to operate in a sane, circumspect fashion.
The first step is to ascertain more carefully the backgrounds of candidate recruits, because it is unlikely that exposure to a university and the “college education” that explained his presence converts a civil young person into a thug. People with histories of behavioral problems or previous police records should be avoided. Concurrently, much grief can be avoided by the obvious tactic of utilizing existing information. List the chief attributes of athletes that have been guilty of crimes, discover the types that have caused trouble, and refuse to offer any inducements to bringing them. Universities are well staffed with statisticians and information technology specialists to make the development of such a system an easy task.
Further, those that hire university athletes should be made responsible for their decisions; if a person that available information marks as a risk proves to have justified that label, then whoever brought him or her should be fired. This policy would immediately ensure more sensible recruiting of athletes, and university presidents, boards of regents, and the like should promulgate it. In the Montana example, some football coach should have been kicked out on his ear for indirect responsibility for the muggings and larceny. A firing or two, and we’d not find such unacceptable nonsense peppering our newspapers. Like it or not, anyone that pays taxes pays to support the operations of one or more universities. Make yourselves heard. “GET OUT!” should be a battle cry.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Do you recall when commercials exhorted us to defeat B.O.? Today, it’s more vital than before, when all one had to do was lather up his or her bod with Lifebuoy soap. Today, suppressing B.O. means voting for John McCain or some other alternative to B.O., Barack Obama.

To me the most significant as well as most frightening aspect of B.O. is the number of America-HATERS with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Among others, we have his great spiritual leader and mentor, Jeremiah Wright (Wrong?), who DAMNS America; we have Bill Ayers, who did his best to DYNAMITE America; and we’ve got Michelle, aspiring to the position of Worst Lady, who is ashamed of the country that propelled this Affirmative Action Princess into prominence. Birds of a feather, folks, birds of a feather.
GOOD GRIEF! THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE! This is a good, a great, country, and it deserves better than being piloted by an inexperienced opportunist that despises it.

A PENNY WAITING FOR ...

There was he, B. O., Barack Obama, grinning only slightly less broadly than he was waving, above a podium placard that read, “Change We Can Believe In.”

The poor placement of the preposition disturbed me less than his foolish grin, itself better than the implication that change is some sort of sure-fire catholicon. Am I averse to change? Why, certainly not. When I ring up the dermatologist’s office and discover the waiting time to an appointment is three months, it seems to me the AMA should change its quota system and allow more of that specialty to trickle though the system; when I’m driven off the roadway by a mammoth truck with an “oversize load” sign as license, I figure the laws that allow my brush with death should be changed; whenever the local high school library looks and sounds like a zoo, I feel that behavior tolerances should be modified there; and when I see a high school grad functionally illiterate or unable to make change for a $5 bill, I’m assured that what passes for education at places in this country needs drastic alteration.

I’ve lived enough years, however, and not many are required, that the fraction of things that change for the worse is too high, and that if government engineers one, the odds on improvement are about 12-5 against. Therefore, anyone that blabbers about the virtue of change for its own sake earns my instant mistrust. Too often it’s “Out of the frying pan, and you know what else.” Furthermore, I feel that those that say, “There are things I don’t like, and B. O. wants change, so I guess I’ll vote for him,” are too irresponsible to have that right. All in all, I feel I have things rather well and have no intention of risking the sacrifice of a good life for a politician’s idle claims.

Change is B. O.’s trademark, though, for his own stated views shift so frequently and drastically, he’s a regular chameleon.

When it comes to exactly what he longs to change and the means by which these revolutionary improvements are to be effected, B.O. is generally enigmatic, if not downright evasive. We must await his election to be informed of the panaceas in store for us. In one category of tactics, however, he has been explicit; like a political Robin Hood, he will tax the living daylights out of most of us. Flushing money down problem holes is standard liberal practice, after all, and in his evanescent Senate career, he has shown himself to be near the top of that heap.

In Yves Chauvire’s opinion, this fellow raises more alarms than were heard on September 11, 2001.

EVEN THE VENUS DE MILO?

Recently I was delighted when a majority of the Supreme Court proved it could read and understand the Second Amendment.

It seems to me the U. S. Constitution is generally a very clear and simple document, and I believe it was composed with clarity an objective. As an example, consider that very amendment; "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear arms should not be infringed."”

The colonial army began as a militia with people’s bearing their personal arms, kept in their homes. It seems to me that a person would have to feign obtuseness to suppose that the Second amendment did NOT guarantee the right to keep firearms in one’s home. Surprisingly, however, the loftiest court in the land confirmed the obvious by the narrowest of margins, a single, tenuous vote! Thus, it must be that education at a high-class law school followed by years of judicial experience are, in some cases, sufficient for vitiating common sense.

At any rate, thank goodness, the Supreme Court, in toto, interpreted accurately what the Constitution tells us dummies. Naturally, the right is still abridged by numerous, other, unconstitutional laws, and perhaps some of these soon will be challenged and defeated.

In the post-decision news reporting, journalists concentrated on its implications in CITIES. I wish someone would explain to me why the impact of this ruling – as if criminals had hesitated to store guns in their homes until the Supreme Court had told them it was legal – should be different in Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. than it is, say, in Wheatland, Wyoming, Ipava, Illinois, and Canton, New York. All I can imagine is that law-breakers have a predilection for cities; what do you think?

Finally, I wonder about the appellation, “liberal.” After the definition that corresponds to liberal arts, my dictionary shows the following meanings, in order, for the adjective. 2. "Free in bestowing; bountiful, generous, open-hearted.” 3. “Free from restraints; free in speech or action.” 4. “Free from narrow prejudice; open-minded.” It is a great inconsistency, one might say an irony, that, liberal politicians and judges, far from acting in bountiful, restraint-free, open-minded ways, are eternally doing their damnedest to SHRINK OUR RIGHTS! This misnomer is about as far-fetched as a minority faction’s electing to designate itself “Bolsheviks” or a murderous terrorist’s claiming to adhere to a faith named “peace.”