Good essay. I am similarly rabid for college ball. Pizza Hut will be ordered and consumed along with a few ice cold Dr. Peppers as we send Farmageddon to Ireland tomorrow. Dublin won't know what hit it.
The sort of big money spent on high school facilities these days demonstrates how the incentive structure has changed with youth sports over the last few decades. The money just gets better and better for even marginal pros. You can claim the kids should be reading classics instead of reading zone coverage but even a marginal college QB makes an awful lot more money these days than your average academic. Sign O the Times.
Old men love grumbling about NIL money and transfer portal players but personally I like it. Means more agency and better compensation for the players. Gives the middle class a chance to compete with your Bama and your Georgia. I always side with labor over management and always side with the petit-bourgeois over the blue bloods. Hail to Pitt. Let's play some football.
As an ND fan I love NIL because that school is literally a pot of gold. What I HATE is the transfer portal. I loved knowing a guy or a team for 3-4 years and now its like the NFL where you dont know half the new people on the team unless you’re staying on it. But cmon - these kids are putting their health on the line for schools to make hundreds of millions of dollars. They certainly deserve a cut.
One of my heros is named Brandon Hoyte. A Jersey boy that was coached by my best friend’s uncle in highschool. He played LB and was the captain of ND. Straight A’s his whole life. He’s now homeless and mentally ill and he got no compensation for that. Its a shame.
I like the portal because it distributes wealth into the middle classes of the sport. Guys who would have rode the bench for 4 years at Bama or USC and watched their dreams die on the vine can now go demonstrate their skills at a Wisconsin or a Texas Tech.
The real losers in the portal are the G5 schools. The MAC will never have another Ben Roethlisberger because the minute he emerges he'll get a bag thrown at him by a blue blood in crisis.
Hey I'm a Pitt fan. We lost Jordan Addison to the portal (who won us the ACC with Kenny Pickett and is now enjoying a pro career of some renown with the Vikings).
I dated a girl who went to Michigan. I grew up Irish Catholic in Boston. She had a T-shirt in Michigan blue and yellow that said on the front "Rudy Sucked" and on the back: "But he would've started at BC." And damned if that isn't a top 10 T-shirt.
Worlds I can’t fathom. In Germany, it was a repurposed soccer field with makeshift uprights atop the soccer goals. Penna was a blur, then I was off to ROTC color guard at the _one_ stadium in Bad Newz shared by all of the high schools. (And reading there might have been a problem, too, but the scrawny lefty kid who could fire a football 60y basically flat-footed ended up showing proficiency with numbers….)
Speaking of football in Germany, there were two guys from the 1988 team that went on to play in the NFL……Ron George who went to Air Force before playing LB for like eight years (Failcons 34 OLB, if memory serves…), and Eric Zeier (who came back to the States to finish HS, went to Georgia).
There were a few of those floating around things like WLAF, NFL Europe, etc., but we were military brats.
Actually, Michael Strahan played a couple of years at Mannheim before coming back to TX to finish, and go to college.
There was some good football, but HS athletics were kind of an afterthought. When I was at Heidelberg, it was one of the bigger schools, and I don’t think we had 900 students.
Oh shit thats right. Forgot you were a military brat! Hahah thats pretty cool you still played football over there! Can take the Americans out of America but…
Could you have mentioned that your mom cursed your football coach everyday during my morning walks 🥴
hahahaha - I might have to make an entire separate post for that!
Good essay. I am similarly rabid for college ball. Pizza Hut will be ordered and consumed along with a few ice cold Dr. Peppers as we send Farmageddon to Ireland tomorrow. Dublin won't know what hit it.
The sort of big money spent on high school facilities these days demonstrates how the incentive structure has changed with youth sports over the last few decades. The money just gets better and better for even marginal pros. You can claim the kids should be reading classics instead of reading zone coverage but even a marginal college QB makes an awful lot more money these days than your average academic. Sign O the Times.
Old men love grumbling about NIL money and transfer portal players but personally I like it. Means more agency and better compensation for the players. Gives the middle class a chance to compete with your Bama and your Georgia. I always side with labor over management and always side with the petit-bourgeois over the blue bloods. Hail to Pitt. Let's play some football.
As an ND fan I love NIL because that school is literally a pot of gold. What I HATE is the transfer portal. I loved knowing a guy or a team for 3-4 years and now its like the NFL where you dont know half the new people on the team unless you’re staying on it. But cmon - these kids are putting their health on the line for schools to make hundreds of millions of dollars. They certainly deserve a cut.
One of my heros is named Brandon Hoyte. A Jersey boy that was coached by my best friend’s uncle in highschool. He played LB and was the captain of ND. Straight A’s his whole life. He’s now homeless and mentally ill and he got no compensation for that. Its a shame.
I like the portal because it distributes wealth into the middle classes of the sport. Guys who would have rode the bench for 4 years at Bama or USC and watched their dreams die on the vine can now go demonstrate their skills at a Wisconsin or a Texas Tech.
The real losers in the portal are the G5 schools. The MAC will never have another Ben Roethlisberger because the minute he emerges he'll get a bag thrown at him by a blue blood in crisis.
Fair. I guess I do like that.
Hey I'm a Pitt fan. We lost Jordan Addison to the portal (who won us the ACC with Kenny Pickett and is now enjoying a pro career of some renown with the Vikings).
I've gotten both sides of it. I like it, I think.
Loved this Alex. I spent two years as a walk-on at a scholarship school and your words are spot on.
That is actually why I loved playing and coaching d3. Everyone was there for their love of football, nothing else.
that makes me wish I wasn't such a cocky little asshole graduating high school! I probably would've loved playing D3! haha
I dated a girl who went to Michigan. I grew up Irish Catholic in Boston. She had a T-shirt in Michigan blue and yellow that said on the front "Rudy Sucked" and on the back: "But he would've started at BC." And damned if that isn't a top 10 T-shirt.
hahaha that's great. Irish forever baby! (Rudy was NOT offsides)
Nice thumbnail image 😉
gonna shout you out in a few here! haha
can you pencil me in for Tuesday
Worlds I can’t fathom. In Germany, it was a repurposed soccer field with makeshift uprights atop the soccer goals. Penna was a blur, then I was off to ROTC color guard at the _one_ stadium in Bad Newz shared by all of the high schools. (And reading there might have been a problem, too, but the scrawny lefty kid who could fire a football 60y basically flat-footed ended up showing proficiency with numbers….)
high level football is NO joke anymore haha cash flying left and right.
Speaking of football in Germany, there were two guys from the 1988 team that went on to play in the NFL……Ron George who went to Air Force before playing LB for like eight years (Failcons 34 OLB, if memory serves…), and Eric Zeier (who came back to the States to finish HS, went to Georgia).
Was it semi-pro in Germany?
There were a few of those floating around things like WLAF, NFL Europe, etc., but we were military brats.
Actually, Michael Strahan played a couple of years at Mannheim before coming back to TX to finish, and go to college.
There was some good football, but HS athletics were kind of an afterthought. When I was at Heidelberg, it was one of the bigger schools, and I don’t think we had 900 students.
Oh shit thats right. Forgot you were a military brat! Hahah thats pretty cool you still played football over there! Can take the Americans out of America but…
Welcome back Alex, it’s been a while ❤️