Four Eye Openers

So one of the realms of sports I rarely ever bother going into is college sports. College baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc... I don't pay attention to any of that.

Except maybe on MLB draft day to see what players did in college performance wise. But other than that, college sports aren't my thing. Why? Well the most obvious reason why is that my college(s) up here in the northeast doesn't exist in the world college sports (none of the local colleges here do). But the biggest reason can be summed up in one acronym.

NCAA

Yup, one of the most controversial, shadiest and secretive organizations in America (which is saying a lot). The debates surrounding college sports have been around for as long as I can remember, and they'll probably stay around until we're all wiped out in the upcoming nuclear war.

Everybody has their opinions on the various issues surrounding the NCAA and their collegiate athletic programs around the country. The biggest of all being whether or not the players deserve compensation. Some argue they're students and they're being compensated for with a scholarship. A counter argument is that the amount of revenue they bring in every year far exceeds the value of the scholarship and they deserve a bigger cut of the pie that is the NCAA's revenue. Which reportedly topped $1 billion in 2017.

Now please spare me your opinions on this. I really don't care. I've been alive and on the sports-faction of the internet long enough to know that people telling others what they think isn't changing shit about the current situation that the NCAA and the athletes are in right now. It's just regurgitating the same conversations over and over again. And if I wanted to see that I'd just read the comments on (insert popular sports blog here) articles.

I just wrote all of that because that's simply what keeps me away from college sports. Too much bullshit around an inferior grade product.

That said, every now and then I can enjoy college sports related things, depending on how they're presented to me.

So let me introduce a video series called "Foul Play". A four part video series created by SB Nation that focuses on the debacle centered around the University of Mississippi aka "Ole Miss" in recent years where they've been under investigation by the NCAA for giving money to players in exchange for commitments to come play for their football team, the Rebels.

The videos (all adding up to about/less than two hours) are amazing. Well produced, well shot, well made. I binge watched all of them in one sitting.

For me this was an amazing look at one sliver of the things that go on in the world of college football. Things that happen in southern football culture (though at this point I assume this happens well beyond Mississippi's borders in other parts of the country too, looking at you California). Things that are happening to real people, in real places, in real-ish time.

On top of that, (the later two episodes especially) go into what is the underlying root of the problem. Why are the schools, teams and athletes in situations like this? What can be done? What should be done? What ultimately will be done?

If you have two hours at your disposal this weekend I'd highly recommend giving these videos a shot. I wouldn't say that they made me interested in college sports (nothing really could), but it made it interesting enough that I'd willingly go back and watch these videos just for the heck of it even in spite of the subject matter.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).