Look ... I get that no one cares about the opinion of an intern pastor at a small, rural church in flyover land, but I just have to say that I am so utterly disappointed in the Big Ten's reversal on its decision not to hold its college football season.
If you missed it, the the Big Ten announced today that it will try to play football as soon as the weekend of Oct. 23-24, which undoes the conference leadership's decision in August not to play a fall season at all.
I cheered the conference's decision in August when Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren announced that there was "too much uncertainty, too much risk" in holding a football season this year.
“You have to listen to your medical experts,” Warren said then. “There’s a lot of emotion involved with this, but when you look at the health and well-being of our student-athletes, I feel very confident that we made the right decision.”
The Big Ten's decision came on the same day as the Pac-12's decision to do the same. And the two conferences became the only two of what is known as college football's Power 5 conferences to cancel football for the fall.
I was incredibly proud of the courage chancellors at the major if the Big Ten's schools (which has 14 members schools, by the way) that voted in favor of cancelling. Only the presidents of the Universities of Nebraska and Iowa voted to play back in August. They were under tremendous financial pressure, as football is the most lucrative sport that any school has. And rabid fans and media folks, who seem to think the touchdowns and tailgating are more important than public health hammered the school presidents and the conference for their decision. But they stuck with it.
Even when the remaining Power 5 conferences, the SEC (Southeastern Conference), ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) and the Big 12 stubbornly refused to play on, Big Ten conference officials seemed to hold strong. In fact, nine days after the decision was made, Warren, the commissioner wrote an open letter to Big Ten players, coaches and fans, which said the decision would not be revisited.
Until today ... when it was. ... And it was reversed.
I'm sure there are many all over the Midwest who are applauding and cheering the decision. We all knew that the coaches and players and the parents of those players of big time football programs did not support the league's decision to cancel. None of them -- coaches or players -- get into the business (because it's not a game anymore ... if it ever was) of big-time college football for the fun of it. This is a job for them: A career for the coaches, and essentially an internship for the best athletes as they train for their pro football days.
There are probably even many who are crooning about the fact that the Big Ten caved and reversed its decision. ... In fact, even the President is.
But this is not a win for anyone. ... Rather, it's a loss to all.
What today's decision means is that the those who place profits and entertainment above public safety won, which isn't really winning.
Inevitably, there will be the defenders who say that other schools are doing it; that colleges stand to lose too much money if the football teams don't play; that other sports will benefit because football pays the freight for smaller, non-spectator sports; that the young men who play all of their young lives to make it to big-time college football should have the right to play on; that parents should have the right to see their investments (because that is what they are valuing) take the field. ... But at the end of the day, all of the arguments come back to money and greed and arrogance and selfishness.
Yes, I know that everyone of the Big Ten's football teams is littered with pro football prospects, and that for many of them, this sport is a ticket to a better life, for them, for their families and possibly even for a community. Pro sports fuels big time payouts for the minuscule number of athletes that make it to the pro ranks. But, only 6.8 percent of the most elite Division I college football players make it to the National Football League, or about one out of every 50 players. That means that last year, of the 3,491 Football Championship Subdivision players, only 238 players were drafted by an NFL team. ... And that doesn't even guarantee that they make the team.
If I were 20 years old, faced with the possibility of an NFL fantasy coming true, I'd clamor to play as well. ... But, thankfully, I'm well past that impressionable age and have reached a place where my priorities are a little different.
And it's not like I don't have skin in this game either. I have a high school senior who has played football for eight years, and this fall he learned that he'll have to wait until spring to take the field because the Minnesota State High School League moved football and volleyball to next spring because of the pandemic. So don't tell me that I don't understand. ... It's just that I think there are some more important things to weigh right now, and the safety of my child who will play at most a dozen more high school football games, but then have approximately six or seven more decades to live, is more important to me.
What saddens me about the Big Ten's reversal decision is that money and greed has won out. Think about one small example. The University of Minnesota just last week announced the cutting of three men's collegiate sports: men's gymnastics, men's tennis and men's indoor and outdoor track and field. In an open letter Thursday from the U of M athletics department, the university said due to the pandemic and the Big Ten's decision to postpone the fall athletic season, the athletics department is projected to lose about $75 million this fiscal year, and so they had to make cuts.
I get it. ... These cuts mean that dozens of collegiate athletes in non-spectator sports who trained all of their lives for this moment will be devastated. The rug was pulled out from underneath them.
But before you get lost in the tragedy, look at the reality. At the U of M (and I admit, I am a Gopher fan), there are only three sports that make money: football, men's basketball and men's hockey. All the rest of the 23 collegiate sports teams lost money. ... Just let the sink in for a moment.
And so, if you are a university athletic director or a university president or an athletic conference commissioner, don't you think you are forced into decisions that aren't necessarily in the public's best interests, but that are absolutely financially based? ... Simply stated: This would be an entirely different discussion if big-time college football weren't a business ... but actually rather an amateur sport.
And don't even get me started about the racial undertones in the major college football discussion, as about half (48 percent) of all Division I football players are Black. ... Sure, let them play, it's just a bunch of underprivileged black kids vying for a slice of our entertainment dollars, so why not! Play on!
Today's decision by the Big Ten was one more example as to how we are turning a blind eye to the spiritual, ethical and moral issues at play during this pandemic. ... Today's decision by the Big Ten conference to allow football to return was not about loving one's neighbor. it was about the love of money. Shame on us.
College football can wait. ... High school football can wait. ... Entertainment at the expense of exploited young men can wait.
That is why today I can only find faith ... in a new day.
It's Pollyanna- ish, I know, but I pray that one day soon that our country will come to the same realization that many other countries in the world already have: This pandemic is serious, and it kills.
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