Professional College Football

Tonight I attended the Humanitarian Bowl between Fresno State and Northern Illinois. I admit, it was not the greatest matchup in the world, but honestly I knew that going in. Neither school finished the regular season ranked; neither school even won their division. In fact, that's the reason they both ended up in Boise for a low-end bowl game on the blue turf. But college football is college football, so I was determined to go and partake of the bowl-game environment, even though the weather was not exactly ideal.

However, even though these teams finished their lackluster seasons without conference championships, at least the bowl system gives both squads the opportunity to showcase something that no professional sport still retains in its entirety, despite the efforts of the BCS system and pay-to-play pacts proffered by greedy parents to demean and degrade the game of college football: team pride. Real, honest-to-goodness pride. The kind that the Ochocinco's and the TO's of the NFL have buried under a pile of self-seeking megalomania. They kind that they forgot about when they started picking up a multimillion dollar check and endorsement deals. They kind of team pride they push to the side because they're so busy with their MTV shows, their Twitter updates, and every single opportunity they can find to shoot their mouths off, pull cellphones and pens from their socks, or take a fan's popcorn after a touchdown.

Some people, during this whole Cam Newton charade, have suggested that we should start to pay our college players. What an excellent solution. Make this sort of chicanery go away by legalizing agentry and the exchange of funds between schools and players. Perfect. That's like legalizing marijuana just so we can make the number of drug possession arrests decrease. Pay our players indeed. Don't they already receive scholarships to play at elite schools, as well as receiving an education there? (Granted, they do major in things like communications and underwater basket-weaving so they actually have time to practice, but my point remains). What else do they need? As if colleges are not enough of a business already; do we really want to start trafficking in people again? I thought we abolished all of that.

The ultimate consequence of a decision would only result in the further tarnishing of that which still draws us to college football, the reason I will stay through most of a game, in rain and wind and snow, between two teams from out of town who are only playing for nothing but pride (seeing as how the Humanitarian Bowl does not provide a huge payout like the more prolific bowl games do, they really do receive a pittance afterwards). Pride is what gives two teams from mid-major conferences with nothing left to play for something to play for. There is no narcissism, no egotism, megalomania; it's just just one team against another, playing to prove that on this day, they, a collective of players, a group of like-minded individuals, put their bodies on the line in behalf of their program and their school. Afterwards, they'll walk off with their bruises, their turf burn, and their sprains at the wrong side of a 40-17 loss. Regardless, they were here and represented their school with dignity. And that is something that the Owens's and the Ochocinco's and the Newton's know nothing about.