{"id":3268,"date":"2011-09-15T05:25:30","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T13:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2011-09-15T05:28:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T13:28:51","slug":"evil-thy-acronym-is-ncaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2011\/09\/15\/evil-thy-acronym-is-ncaa","title":{"rendered":"Evil, Thy Acronym Is NCAA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stanford<\/a>Tech\u00adni\u00adcal\u00adly, NCAA is an ini\u00adtial\u00adism rather than an acronym<\/a> \u2014 but you know what I mean. <\/p>\n

I have long been irked at the way the col\u00adlege sports com\u00adplex abus\u00ades stu\u00addents, but I was absolute\u00adly floored by some of the details Tay\u00adlor Branch shared in \u201cThe Shame of Col\u00adlege Sports<\/a>\u201d (pub\u00adlished in The Atlantic<\/i>).<\/p>\n

Two snip\u00adpets to whet your appetite:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhy,\u201d asked Bryce Jor\u00addan, the pres\u00adi\u00addent emer\u00adi\u00adtus of Penn State, \u201cshould a uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty be an adver\u00adtis\u00ading medi\u00adum for your indus\u00adtry?\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nVac\u00adcaro did not blink. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t, sir,\u201d he replied. \u201cYou sold your souls, and you\u2019re going to con\u00adtin\u00adue sell\u00ading them. You can be very moral and right\u00adeous in ask\u00ading me that ques\u00adtion, sir,\u201d Vac\u00adcaro added with irre\u00adpress\u00adible good cheer, \u201cbut there\u2019s not one of you in this room that\u2019s going to turn down any of our mon\u00adey. You\u2019re going to take it. I can only offer it.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And lat\u00ader:<\/p>\n

\nBut after an inquiry that took me into lock\u00ader rooms and ivory tow\u00aders across the coun\u00adtry, I have come to believe that sen\u00adti\u00adment blinds us to what\u2019s before our eyes. Big-time col\u00adlege sports are ful\u00adly com\u00admer\u00adcial\u00adized. Bil\u00adlions of dol\u00adlars flow through them each year. The NCAA makes mon\u00adey, and enables uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties and cor\u00adpo\u00adra\u00adtions to make mon\u00adey, from the unpaid labor of young ath\u00adletes.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nSlav\u00adery analo\u00adgies should be used care\u00adful\u00adly. Col\u00adlege ath\u00adletes are not slaves. Yet to sur\u00advey the scene\u2014corporations and uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties enrich\u00ading them\u00adselves on the backs of uncom\u00adpen\u00adsat\u00aded young men, whose sta\u00adtus as \u201cstu\u00addent-ath\u00adletes\u201d deprives them of the right to due process guar\u00adan\u00adteed by the Constitution\u2014is to catch an unmis\u00adtak\u00adable whiff of the plan\u00adta\u00adtion. Per\u00adhaps a more apt metaphor is colo\u00adnial\u00adism: col\u00adlege sports, as over\u00adseen by the NCAA, is a sys\u00adtem imposed by well-mean\u00ading pater\u00adnal\u00adists and ratio\u00adnal\u00adized with hoary sen\u00adti\u00adments about car\u00ading for the well-being of the col\u00ado\u00adnized. But it is, nonethe\u00adless, unjust. The NCAA, in its zeal\u00adous defense of bogus prin\u00adci\u00adples, some\u00adtimes destroys the dreams of inno\u00adcent young ath\u00adletes.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole thing is worth read\u00ading, so zip over to The Atlantic<\/i> and read \u201cThe Shame of Col\u00adlege Sports<\/a>\u201d now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tech\u00adni\u00adcal\u00adly, NCAA is an ini\u00adtial\u00adism rather than an acronym \u2014 but you know what I mean. I have long been irked at the way the col\u00adlege sports com\u00adplex abus\u00ades stu\u00addents, but I was absolute\u00adly floored by some of the details Tay\u00adlor Branch shared in \u201cThe Shame of Col\u00adlege Sports\u201d (pub\u00adlished in The Atlantic). Two snip\u00adpets \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cEvil, Thy Acronym Is NCAA\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-opinions-and-general-contrariness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-QI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3268"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3277,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions\/3277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}