@Big Al
are deep dumbness:

Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare.

Instead of blah-blahing about the clean, healthy rivalry of the football field and the great part played by the Olympic Games in bringing the nations together, it is more useful to inquire how and why this modern cult of sport arose. Most of the games we now play are of ancient origin, but sport does not seem to have been taken very seriously between Roman times and the nineteenth century. Even in the English public schools the games cult did not start till the later part of the last century. Dr Arnold, generally regarded as the founder of the modern public school, looked on games as simply a waste of time. Then, chiefly in England and the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions, and the infection spread from country to country. It is the most violently combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest. There cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism—that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.

#3.2 considered (imo), get sports out of the education system. Maybe develop a club system approach that would give access to all levels of experience and ability. Particularly in high school and junior high the public school system sports programs are discriminatory.

@Big Al

Like alot of things, the best answer is the one not being considered (imo), get sports out of the education system. Maybe develop a club system approach that would give access to all levels of experience and ability. Particularly in high school and junior high the public school system sports programs are discriminatory.

The sole purpose of sports and physical education (PE) in high school and junior high is war preparation. Get the future cannon fodders used to taking orders and acting against their own interests.

A voluntary, club-based system would provide more and better athletes; but it wouldn't help make whole schools full of kids into obedient soldiers, which is why we don't do it that way.

For the vast majority of kids, taxpayer monies spent on PE and school sports are a pure waste. Time better spent almost anywhere else is wasted on non-development of talents most kids just flatly don't have. And the demonstration of said fact only does the kids harm.

A very few Enlightened districts are shifting their PE emphasis for the bulk of their kids to "healthy recreation" things like recreational swimming and mountaineering. But far too few of these exist.....

#3.2 considered (imo), get sports out of the education system. Maybe develop a club system approach that would give access to all levels of experience and ability. Particularly in high school and junior high the public school system sports programs are discriminatory.

@Ellen North
College football is where American football started and developed, but maybe the commercialization has got out of hand. Commercialization erodes honest, unbiased academics. Education over tailgating.

#3.2

https://www.thenation.com/article/ncaa-makes-billions-and-student-athlet...

The NCAA Makes Billions and Student Athletes Get None of It
Despite devoting forty to sixty hours per week to their sport most of the year, Division I football players lack basic economic rights under the NCAA’s cartel restrictions.
By Greg Johnson and StudentNation
April 9, 2014

For many years, the pay-for-play issue in major college sports was a no-brainer to me. A full-ride scholarship—a free education—is an invaluable experience. A college degree is something so many bright Americans struggle to afford, let alone attain. So the idea of athletes getting any kind of compensation beyond a free opportunity to pursue a degree was silly to me.

Not long after coming to Rutgers, I started to realize that student athletes are in a situation the rest of us cannot truly relate to. Universities recruit them to operate within the NCAA—a fully commercialized, multi-billion dollar industry that regulates players to the point of exploitation.

All television revenue, ticket and jersey sales, likeness promotions and other sources of income go to the NCAA, the schools, the coaches, the event staffs and everyone else involved in the business—except for the athletes creating the value. Last year, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament generated $1.15 billion in television ads, well beyond the revenue generated by the NFL and NBA playoffs, according to ESPN.

Despite devoting forty to sixty hours per week to their sport most of the year—more than many full-time jobs—Division I football players aren’t considered employees and lack basic economic rights under the NCAA’s cartel restrictions. That’s what former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter is pushing to change in his fight for unionization of the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA). He wants better medical insurance and academic support for players, and rightfully so.

The NCAA’s exploitative marketing comes in exchange for a scholarship incidental to the industry, and it requires far more time spent playing a major sport than studying for classes. Colter testified that advisors kept him from pursuing a dream of becoming a doctor in favor of easier classes to cater to his football schedule. That’s not putting someone in a position to succeed academically if they aren’t going professional athletically. ...

... The NCAA tags student athletes with the label of “amateur,” but it’s more of an excuse to control the distribution of billions of dollars than an institutional ideal. The notion that college athletes should play strictly for the love of the game is laughable. If so, why give them a scholarship at all? Oh, right, schools need athletes enrolled for revenue and institutional advancement.

To be clear, student athletes do not need salaries or monthly paychecks, even though the NCAA runs just like any other professional sports league. They should simply be allowed to operate within the free market like anyone else in America. Schools can pay what they want, and athletes should be able to sign endorsements for their own likeness and image. It’s fairly simple. ...