Ashli Howell, Staff Writer
Football may not be America’s past time, but it is America’s heart. Football has become an integral part of American culture and it doesn’t take much to realize how true this is. Even if someone is completely uninterested in football, it is impossible to escape. On Oct. 16, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and his midterm opponent, Jason Carter, went to battle over who supports the University of Georgia’s recently-suspended football star, Todd Gurley, with more conviction; as if they didn’t have more important or pressing issues to address.
Even more troubling, however, is a recent report by the New York Times titled At Florida State, Football Clouds Justice, written by Mike McIntire and Walt Bogdanich. The article alleges that, upon investigating police records and reports,
“Police on numerous occasions have soft-pedaled allegations of wrongdoing by Seminoles football players. From criminal mischief and motor-vehicle theft to domestic violence, arrests have been avoided, investigations have stalled and players have escaped serious consequences.”
The authors of the article also spoke with Gerald Gurney, a former senior associate athletic director at the University of Oklahoma, who said, “Too often, that relationship between the athletic department and local law enforcement is too close, where we lose objectivity and lose the ability to have a fair investigation if these students are athletes. Why? Number one is the love of the sport, of college football and the public’s attention to it, and the celebrity of the head coach and celebrity of the athletes.”
FSU isn’t the only university with these problems. They exist at all levels of the game, from high school to the NFL. In fact, at Sayreville War Memorial High School, seven players have been accused of a locker room ritual that involved sexual contact. The football season has been suspended and it is believed that what players and parents in this New Jersey town call “hazing” may not have been limited to the current season, but conduct that occurred in past seasons as well. A student who spoke to the New York Times on conditions of anonymity out of fear of retribution, told the newspaper that he was told by the junior varsity players that the same “hazing” rituals had been done to them when they were freshman and that the younger players would just “laugh it off.”
It seems to me that football has indeed clouded justice and has become something much more than a game. Football now supersedes justice, education, and safety. Ray Rice, after a video surfaced of him knocking his current wife unconscious, escaped the typical criminal charges that accompany violence of this kind. According to TMZ, who spoke with some of the prosecutors from the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office under conditions of anonymity, said, “If there is violence or even the threat of violence by the perpetrator, prosecutors almost always object to a PTI (Pre-trial intervention, which lessens charges for first time offenders) and judges always follow the prosecutors wishes”. Another prosecutor added, “Never did I see a case this violent get PTI. It’s off the charts abnormal”. Yes, he was suspended indefinitely from playing for the NFL, but his suspension was met with harsh criticism and the NFL Players Association has appealed the decision.
Football has also corrupted the college education system. This is not to say that many college athletes do not take their education seriously, but according to The New Republic, close to one-third of Division I football players never graduate from college. When I think of the University of Georgia, University of Florida, Florida State University, Auburn University, and University of Alabama, I think football. It seems that for universities with football programs, college is less about education and more about playing on Saturdays. Universities also spend significantly more on football players than they do other students. According to Andrew Zimbalist, a top sports economist at Smith College, schools in the SEC spend close to 12 times more on student athletes as they do on the average student.
Football also puts players in a position where one in three players can expect to develop long-term cognitive problems and have a higher rate of severe brain damage. The NFL released these findings after years of disputing any evidence of increased risk of brain injury, in federal court documents following the lawsuit involving five thousand former players. The report, from data prepared by actuaries hired by the NFL, confirms what many doctors have been saying for quite some time, “…playing football increases the risk of developing neurological conditions like chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” According to the Sports Legacy Institute, chronic traumatic encephalopathy is associated with confusion, paranoia, memory loss, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, and progressive dementia.
I can’t help but be concerned about the possible changes in the culture here at KSU that will likely accompany the football program. While the KSU football team is brand new, my only hope is that KSU stays committed to its mission statement to enhance student success, improve institutional quality, and respond to public demand for higher education; not football.
