About Football And Education, Bullfighting And Agriculture

Football season is getting near, and for some of us that means we can get excited about sports again. Yes, I am one of those who enjoys sports, but basketball and baseball are just activities that fill out the rest of the year to get back to football. Now, let me say I am not as dedicated a football FAN as some of my acquaintances, but I do enjoy watching football and I do enjoy the rivalry between college teams.

But, in recent years college football has lost some of its luster for me. I liked the game when we had student athletes ... when kids went to college to get an education, and football was something any boy could come out for, and if he was good enough he would get to play. Those of you over the age of 50 know what I am talking about when I mention student athletes.

But things have changed. College football is now a proving ground for professional football. And high school football is a proving ground for college football. So we enter this football season with troubles on a whole lot of campuses. I won't get into the conflict at the University of Georgia because many of you know I went to Georgia Tech, but suffice it to say there is at least a perceived battle about what is driving that institution - education or sports. And Georgia Tech has some problems, so some of our alumni want to fire a coach who has only been there one year, and some other alumni think we ought to ease off on the academic requirements at Tech so we can recruit and keep more quality football and basketball players.

What brought all this to mind was that I was reading a book recently by one Elbert Hubbard who was somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek philosopher back in the early 1900's when football was just getting started, and he had this to say: "College football,"
Hubbard said, "is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture." He may have had it right, almost 100 years ago: College football bears the same relationship to education that bullfighting does to agriculture. Both football and education are great activities, but under today's conditions even more so than in Elbert Hubbard's time, they have very little to do with each other.

This is Gordon Sawyer from a window on historic Green Street.