Who's glorifying and exusing athletes more than DZ?

Blount was "academically ineligible" for Auburn. So he enrolled in a JuCo, and then given a taxpayer-funded "scholarship" at Oregon, which which should have gone to a poor kid who actually wanted to go to class.

The Oregonian:

Blount was repeatedly suspended for not going to class and missing team workouts.

'I wasn't attending class as much as I was supposed to, but now that I'm back on track, everything is fine,' said Blount, a senior who became the 13th player in Oregon history to rush for 1,000 yards.

As for the suspension, Blount said it was a combination of losing focus on schoolwork along with missing occasional team workouts.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindducksbeat/2009/03/blount_reinstated_to_oregon_fo.html

Dave,

you bring up a very good point in defining college football as "a multi-billion dollar spectacle of unpaid labor and unhinged fandom," and it is true that all student athletes are at the absolute mercy of their coaches and superiors.

But the real ugly underbelly of this sport is that these teams only exist because of the Universities and Colleges they represent, but somehow the athletics department calls the shots in school administration.

I attend FSU, in a state that faced a $6 billion budget shortfall this year, we saw 22 programs cut, our in state scholarships hacked up, and a significant raise in tuition. If FSU's administration spent half as much time lobbying the state government (which is LITERALLY down the street) to stop the butchering of public higher education as they did to stop the NCAA from taking away Bobby's precious wins, we certainly wouldn't have to release professors and cap enrollment. (our president was also former speaker of the house in Florida, but was too concerned about insulting Stanford's football program).

Urban Meyer at UF has become one of the highest paid coaches in college football, at $4 million a year, while the student body that essentially pays him suffered the same cuts as us.

Shouldn't absolutely every dollar generated by College athletics go right back into the University?(that includes paying the labor that generated it i.e.- players) Why do we allow football programs to act as if their independent of their University?

These are the questions that need to be addressed, the exploitation of student athletes is but one part of the college football industry.

@Rays the Trop

Good points. That so-called paper currency can do wonders in this country, though its sometimes used for nefarious reasons. They might as well call college sports the semi-pro leagues with the amount of $$$ thrown around into "certain" hands. I'd also look at organizations like the NHL, who do very little when scuffles break out. They'd fill up the county jails with all the assaults during play.

It's not like the money wouldn't have gone to a non-scholarship kid and there's no guarantee the money would have gone to an athlete of limited means.

Of course Blount should be sanctioned for he punch, Dave wasn't saying he shouldn't, he was simply saying the punishment was excessive.

Why do you think it wasn't?

which was more violent...the "sucker punch" or the illegal hit on Masoli last season?

Dave,

I was surprized at the year suspension for Blount. But a couple of points I'd make. Number 1 you mention a NFL exec saying that the draft status of Blount was made zilch in 5 minutes but Blount could be injured in 5 seconds and his draft status would be in the toilet. Are the OU officials supposed to consider this when handing out their punishment?

Point number 2 is the Blount punch was thrown after the game ended. I do think there needs to be a line drawn,however fuzzy, between conduct during the game and after the game. By the way Ron Artess did have a year suspension for his exploits in the Detroit fracas.

Maybe there are other factors such as post-game fighting with the fans and Blount's past troubles with OU that we don't know about that are contributing to his punishment.

It's ridiculous to think such a talented player's career is truly up in smoke. This guy is a shoe in when it comes to European or Canadian ball. Heck, I would bet if he demonstrates on field prowess in either league, the NFL would snap him back up, all sins forgiven.

Tornado: You don't understand anything about how college football scholarships work. Scholarships for football players aren't taken from academic scholarships. An athletic department operates independently and autonomously from the academic institution. I am now stupider for having to write that. Please learn how to do something other than google before you comment again.

Where did I say academic scholarship in that post Comrade Z?

If we're going to have taxpayer-funded athletic scholarships at all, then they at least ought to go to academically-eligible, poor "student-athletes" who will actually show up for class. Do you object to that?

As for Googling, it's called "fact-checking"-- you know, something that real journalists. I know it's a strange concept.

Question: in lambasting his coaches for his suspension, why did you fail to mention that LeGarrette Blount had been suspended before, skipped team meetings, and didn't show up for class?

Dave,

I agree 100 per cent with you. A two game suspension would have been appropriate.

Some of the posters on your message board sound a lot like "old men eating." Ha ha.

Great work - look forward to hearing you on Morency.

Chris

thanks Chris. For the uninitiated, Morency's show Hardcore Sports Radio, is the shit. I do a segment on it every Wednesday at 11:30pm.

As for the posters, some people can't engage in serious debate though. That's why they post on blogs under wacky names and confuse being able to google with having something worthwhile to say. ;)

Dave why would they try to engage in serious discussion when they can just spam this place with copy/paste jobs and yelps of "socialist"?

I can't wait to read DZ's apology for Serena Williams. Dave Zirin - the Badly Behaved Black Athlete's best friend.

And, by the way, the comparison to the NHL is totally invalid. Look up 'Todd Bertuzzi' for a point of reference.

Blount lost his composure. He has no one to blame but himself.

The Todd Bertuzzi comparison is so off it's incredible. That you would even bring it up shows you have no understanding of that incident.

I'd have paris-dakar actually read Dave Zirin's books. He is the athlete's best friend, long established. Listen, that many athlete's are Black shouldn't so throw you off; that is, if you do actually care about sports more than about your racist fixations. On Serena just that one NYT pictures may tell the story: it's Serena being in-your-face upset, protesting a "toe-call," against the foreground of a pure white tennis image of the Polo logo. If I give you 100 photos of routinely uncalled toe-vaults do I win this argument?

Trolls - We do have a zero tolerance policy on racism here at Edge of Sports. There are sites across the interwebs where you can be racist to your heart's content. If you have an argument about Serena please make it. Otherwise you just played yourself. Racism makes Baby Jeebus cry.

So how is the Bertuzzi comparison invalid? One (Blount) was an attempted sucker punch to the throat. The other (Bertuzzi) was a cross check to the back of the neck. Both were deliberate (I'd say malicious) attempts to do serious injury to someone who wasn't expecting it. Sounds pretty similar to me...

As far as the Racist/troll comments, LULZ. Criticizing a Black athlete who behaves like an indisciplined thug is racist? Let me guess, you're going to defend that argument with a tendentious reference to 'hip hop' culture (just like the defense of Michael Vick and Allen Iverson). It's 'fresh', right? lol

And the Serena comparison was also appropriate - both performed horribly and took out their frustration on someone else.

I applaud Oregon for defending the integrity of their program. They have every right to set standards.

'Faced with a choice between calling people racists and making sense, Zirin prefers the former . . .

[Zirin's writing] is an object lesson in how lefties who affect to be looking out for blacks are often looking out for no one but themselves.'

' -- John McWhorter

http://www.city-journal.org/html/rev2007-06-28jm.html