](https://blutarsky.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/screenshot_2020-08-10-marco-rubio-on-twitter-even-before-covid19-many-of-those-pushing-to-cancel-collegefootball-have-spe...1.png?w=500)
Dear Senator Rubio,
I can’t say I’m a fan of yours, but I’ve never perceived you to be one of the crazier members of Congress. So I hope you’ll take this suggestion in the spirit it’s offered.
Right now, the folks who are pushing to cancel college football are the schools. They are choosing to do so because they fear the only way to save the season is to acknowledge what most people in this country already know, namely, that college athletes aren’t regular students pursuing sports as part of the academic experience, big time programs are making serious money exploiting their efforts and the schools are more worried about the threat of empowering them than salvaging a football season.
As long as the NCAA and its member institutions believe there is a chance they’ll be able to continue to cling to their amateurism protocols, they have no incentive to recognize that and make changes. That’s why we’re on the verge of losing college football in 2020.
If you want to do your part to save that, the first thing you can do is pull your bill regulating college athletes’ NIL rights and tell the NCAA and schools they can’t look for any Congressional action to preserve their business model. More than any tweet you could post, that would force them to do “an honest cost-benefit analysis”.
Your consideration is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Senator Blutarsky
************************************************************************
UPDATE: Another Senator writes a letter.
Get The Picture 
Senator — honest question (request?):
Would you consider posting that — verbatim — back to him and the world?
ED
LikeLike
I place the over-under for play-pen warnings on this thread at 8.5.
LikeLike
That’s not the way it works now.
If the thread goes off the rails, I won’t warn. I’ll just shut off commenting.
LikeLike
Dang!!! I was going to take the over.
LikeLike
You could always do the over/under on the number of comments before it ends. 😉
LikeLike
I would say 150.5.
LikeLike
I’m an optimist.
LikeLike
I am thinking more like 42…
LikeLike
Meh. He’s got a point. The same crowd that has hated football forever because it’s masculine now has a new weapon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So what?
They’re not the ones shutting down the football season.
LikeLiked by 1 person
College Presidents are by and large LIBERAL…Liberals want things shut down..
Meanwhile, Seagrove Beach is as crowded as I’ve ever seen it. The weather is great, come on down. Honestly, I wouldn’t come down here nearly as much if it was always this crowded in Mid August…usually school has started back about now…
LikeLike
Like that has fuck-all to do with this.
Glad you’re enjoying life on the panhandle, though.
LikeLike
This comment could have been divided into:
“Shot,” and
“Chaser.”
LikeLike
Is there really a big political movement to shut down football because it’s “masculine”?
I love the sport (maybe too much). But there is clearly a very real problem with traumatic brain injuries that needs to be addressed. And, I suspect far more people are concerned about youth participation because of that than because of “masculinity”.
That problem (like the pandemic) can be solved, but not by pretending it doesn’t exist and dismissing anyone who mentions it as a liberal snowflake. Unfortunately, for a disturbingly large segment of the population that seems to be the default approach to any challenge that can’t be solved by cutting taxes.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m not buying the “masculinity” argument if there is one. Now the traumatic brain issues, is definitely a major issue. Another issue that gets some folk offended by all sports is that there is a score so it’s a zero sum game. That doesn’t work in the uber PC world.
LikeLike
I saw a truck with a “T*U**&) bringing back masculinity and leadership” sticker on the window. Whoop-tee-fucking-doo.
LikeLike
Can you please fill in the asterisks, I have no idea what that means.
LikeLike
I think it rhymes with “dump”, but 84 isn’t taking any chances on getting the whole thing shut down with such a juicy subject on the line…
LikeLike
Oh. Right. I’m an idiot.
I agree, let’s not get this shut down just when things are getting interesting.
LikeLike
And yet, schools aren’t shutting down on-campus, in person learning.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not until the tuition checks clear.
LikeLiked by 7 people
Just wanted to say before thread gets shut down:
Perfect letter. Publish it, tweet it, everything.
Amen.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Senator, I agree with your post. I don’t want Congress to bail out the NCAA’s labor price-fixing cartel in exchange for a different set of NIL rules written by the NCAA. I really wish the NCAA could reform itself, but Emmert and his members don’t want to do it for whatever reason. I wish Rubio (who isn’t a crazy member of Congress) hadn’t sponsored this bill.
Rubio is right about his assertion. There are plenty of people who look at football as bloodsport for the masses/common man and want it gone or significantly changed where it’s no longer recognizable. The current health crisis is a way for these people to take another shot at ending the sport. I played this game until I realized in junior high school that I wasn’t cut out for it (being run over in a scrimmage by a kid one year older than me who ended up in the NFL as a running back for a number of years cemented it). It taught me lessons that have lasted a lifetime:
Be a good teammate even when you’re sitting on the bench.
Show up at practice every day even when you don’t feel like it.
Don’t quit on your teammates when things don’t go your way or the team’s way.
Do your assignment and if the other guy is better, that’s ok. Get up and do it again.
LikeLike
My dad insisted that all four of us (three boys and one girl) play a team sport for just the reasons you listed above. He didn’t care which sport or at what level, but the lessons learned from being a part of an entity bigger than yourself were as important as any classroom experience to him, and he spent part of his career as a college professor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Butts?
LikeLike
Yup
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ouch.
LikeLike
I don’t remember the rest of practice after meeting up with him in the hole. All I do remember is that I didn’t take the rest of practice off. I counted down the days until the end of the season after that. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Getting a concussion has nothing to do with the lessons you enumerated above. What you did was dangerous Though nobody knew it at the time. And saying “I’m fine” while ignoring mass data is what’s called survivorship bias.
I appreciate that your experience w concussions was, to you, not permanently disabling. But that there are some of us (im a liberal that works on democratic campaigns and also a season ticket holder w my own – now idle – UGA blog) have concerns about concussions and (poor minority) and players risking everything so that coaches and admins can make lots of money and we can hoot and holler isn’t crazy. It’s just not.
I love college football. But watching this pandemic play out and seeing how the schools and conferences really feel about the players – they’re shutting it down because they’re aftraid of players organizing – is troubling. And that’s not because I’m some brainwashed libtard.
I say all this recognizing your right to your experience and opinions. And reading the lessons you learned I think they’re good points. I just can’t find a single one of those lessons that couldn’t be taught in a different sport.
LikeLike
Almost all of us not-ready-for-prime-time players have a story like ee’s. Mine played DT for the 1990 tech champs and spent a couple of years in the NFL. He played tailback for us, was half again as big and twice as fast as anyone on the team, and my 125 lb OLB ass didn’t have a prayer on that particular toss sweep. I sweated through the whole ordeal and never saw the field in a game that season. I decided it wasn’t worth it to me and not coming back the following year was a difficult decision but in the end, the better one.
I’ve seen your moniker here a couple of times so I’m fairly certain you realize that a lot of us feel the same way about the risks CFB players take for our entertainment, only I wouldn’t single out the “poor minority” ones. Everyone that buckles a chinstrap takes a risk.
You can learn the lessons ee describes in other sports. I just don’t think they get hammered home as hard. Football is a gloriously brutal crucible.
LikeLike
Growing up where I did, there were 3 team sports to play competitively – football, basketball and baseball. I played golf in the spring, so baseball was out (even though I loved it). I never considered basketball because I knew I wasn’t athletic enough to play. Football was it. Did I say I was fine? No. I knew that day I wasn’t going to come back out for freshman football and that my ticket to success was going to be due to my performance in the classroom and not on the athletic field.
CTE and concussions are big deal in football … I didn’t say a damn thing that could be considered survivor bias. I think CTE and litigation against the NFL and colleges will eventually be the death of the sport unless the game changes to glorified 7-on-7 which will be the end of football as a spectator sport.
LikeLike
Rubio may not be one of the crazier members of Congress, but he’s one of the ones who can be counted on most reliably to make a simple-minded, irrelevant comment in any situation. The only thing that surprises me about this latest tweet is that he didn’t bother to offer thoughts or prayers to anyone involved.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Doug-
I like your transparent style.
Jason Mirabella.
LikeLike
College presidents have been trying to eliminate football and now they have the chance.
They could have chosen CTE to do it, but decided not to because that would have been permanent and temporary is better because something something garble garble nonsense.
LikeLike
“College presidents have been trying to eliminate football”? I’m going to need some evidence for that one…from where I sit it appears that group is awfully invested in the revenue stream. (Now, if you’d said faculty have been trying, well, that’s for sure the case…though faculty are nearly powerless when it comes to college administrations.)
LikeLike
Sarcasm….
LikeLiked by 4 people
Derp. Not enough coffee yet.
LikeLike
I believe his comment was made in jest.
LikeLiked by 2 people
test
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why do people think college presidents are trying to shut down football? I get it that Mike Adams was an elitist dick, but a top football program brings $tudent$ to the campus. I saw there Adams’ ego couldn’t stand sharing anything with Dooley, so is that it with other campuses as well?
I just don’t get this conspiracy theory that people want to shut down football. There’s too much money in it for that.
LikeLike
Its just a distraction.
Its simply pointing sheep at a scapegoat to prevent the herd from going astray.
Its too transparently dumb to be anything else.
LikeLike
Doh. We need a sarcasm font.
LikeLike
I am not sure that I wholeheartedly agree with this take. Just so I am clear, what you and others are claiming is that those who run college football are willing to forgo millions of dollars in an attempt to retain their current business model? This is the very same group whom we have been told will tackle their granny to gain a dollar? The very same group who view fans as walking wallets. Now I am to believe that they are going ignore millions upon millions of dollars to retain their business model? I may be incorrect, but I view that as a liability and feasibility problem. Due to lack of leadership from the NCAA, conference commissioners and AD’s, these programs now see the longterm liability and financial exposure they will inevitability face due to illness. And the cost of running a profitable football program in 2020 would be astronomical, to the point of being unfeasible. In short, the juice is not worth the squeeze in 2020. These guys make a huge mistake walking blinding into the 2020 season all the while hoping that this virus would disappear. These guys are studying P&L spreadsheets like nobodies business and the outcome looks bleak.
LikeLike
As somebody said this weekend, lose a season and that’s only one season; lose your business model and that’s it forever.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Politicians, administrators (academic and athletic), coaches and players all deserve each other… Have been telling people since June there’s not going to be any CFB this season, but even if it comes back next season, not sure I’ll be interested anymore – there’s only so much greed and avarice I can take…
LikeLike
Hey Senator, how do I use my former Nickname? My real name and picture show up now. Thanks
LikeLike
Look in the comments to Saturday’s PSA post. Might have been something there about it.
Also, if you log in from Google or Facebook, I think your moniker transfers.
LikeLike
I created a stand-alone wordpress account.
It will register your in all small caps, no spaces. After you’ve created your account, you can edit your profile and change the name, add a picture, all those things.
Just ignore the prompts to create your own site.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with you, Senator. Rubio is barking up the wrong tree on this one.
LikeLike
Bluto, I don’t necessarily agree with you on all points about the politics of COVID, which has corrupted everything COVID-related, including decisions about a college football season or not.
But you are 100% dead spot on about an honest look at college football’s business model being absolutely necessary for an honest cost-benefit analysis. I said it here weeks ago and I’ll say it again, I’d hate for COVID to kill the season, but I’m willing to live with it if we come out of it with a better business model for college athletics.
LikeLike
I’m not saying this smugly, but if the P5 do shut down this season because they don’t want to make changes to their business model, any sincere amateurism romantic ought to question their beliefs.
LikeLike
Not being snarky, but how would we know outside of an AD going on record and stating it as such. After all, it’s not just football that is being shut down but all Fall sports.
LikeLike
How the hell do you manage this from a college eligibility standpoint? What about kids that have graduated from high school? What about the high school seniors who WILL graduate without playing a senior season? Do you blend two year’s worth of players into one class? What about scholarship limits? I’m sure Larry Scott has it all gamed out.
LikeLike
I think if you stay on scholarship and are enrolled in school, you lose eligibility —- either redshirt or real year.
LikeLike
But the point is the Presidents, ADs, commissioners and players don’t understand…if no season happens there is no business model because the money at most schools will be gone.
LikeLike
How do you know?
LikeLike
Another honest question (because you won’t answer the one below)…do you honestly think that the mid tier schools, the patsies, the lower echelon schools are going to survive with business as usual? I don’t know, but I understand revenue and there will be very little of it when the season is cancelled. Programs will be shutdown (care to wager) and sports are going to be dropped. It will never be the same. Maybe that is what you want but I promise you the players won’t benefit from this. Voluntary or not.
LikeLike
Nah. Most P5 programs have enough leverage to secure LoC’s enough to float a season. They’ll furlough and freeze salaries, cutting whatever they can but they’ll ride it out just fine.
Smaller programs will do the same thing we’ll do with our high school programs if GHSA calls off the season. Close the fields, close the locker rooms and shutter the programs until we get the OK to start again.
The players? Well, they’re just SOOL. “Sorry about that whole scholarship thing, but you know you can probably get a Pell Grant, right?” The cool thing (#sarcasm) is there’s another crop of players waiting in the wings.
You’re correct in your statement below. The players won’t benefit from this. But it’s all about doing it for the kids, right?
LikeLike
Honest question: If something is 100% voluntary how is it exploitation?
LikeLiked by 1 person
100% voluntary? Gee, I don’t think that’s an honest question.
LikeLike
Why? Are the players forced to go to school and play football? How is that not honest?
LikeLike
There is a huge gap between forced and voluntary.
LikeLike
Because if one entity (Party A), who has a 100% chance of unimaginable riches, can offer a path of unimaginable riches to Party B, with zero guarantees, and an understanding on both sides the odds do NOT favor unimaginable riches for Party B, and Party B has lived with those odds as stated, even as they became aware of CTE, and even as Party A has found new sources of revenue off of Party B, while the odds have not tilted all that much in Party B’s favor, even as our understanding of the life-long risks faced by Party B have come into clearer focus…and now, with nothing new offered to Party B for the additional risks faced by Party B, they are asked to accept the current terms even while exposed to a world-wide pandemic with suspected but unknown and uninvestigated potential long-term pulmonary and cardiac negative and permanent effects, Party B is supposed to accept that and just play the game…
That disproportion of negotiating power does not equal “100% voluntary.” It equals exploitation.
LikeLike
Good for the kids for figuring that out. Shame on me for taking 44 years to do the same. I love college football and I want it to be played. But I don’t make a dime off these kids and I feel like sucker for perpetuating a system that would exploit them even in a pandemic. And yeah, not many young, healthy people DIE from COVID. But read about the long-term pulmonary and cardiac damage we know NOTHING about. Not only do we risk these kids brains, we’re potentially exposing their lungs and hearts to permanent damage.
LikeLike
That’s a good letter, Senator. You should broadcast that over social media as well as sending it to Rubio.
LikeLike
Excellent letter and it contains too many concepts for Marco to process. Even if he is not one of the crazier members of Congress, he is certainly one of the top three slowest
LikeLike
“He’s one of the worst; which means he’s one of the best…?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Marco is an ass clown. He should defer all football commentary to Corrine Brown. Go Gata, Corch.
LikeLike
Should have taken the over!!
LikeLike