2016 Sept 13^th

On Saturday afternoons in the fall, we are treated to a national pastime, college football. Then after watching college football players get their brains scrambled and their joints dislocated on Saturday, we can watch enormously more talented football professionals do the same thing for enormous amounts of money on Sunday.

There are two big differences between college and the pros: one is talent and the second is money. Your rookie year as a professional football player will pay you not less than 450 thousand dollars and possibly a great deal more if you were an outstanding college player. Your last year as a college player got you room and board. It was important that you keep your amateur standing, meaning that you could not get paid; only coaches get paid in college football. If college players got paid footfall would be a lot less lucrative for colleges. So colleges make sure that doesn’t happen.

College coaches make a lot of money and they are expected to win football games; not just win them but humiliate the opposing team if they can. They often arrange to play very weak teams early in the season so they can run up the score, thus convincing the administrators that “coach” is worth his inflated salary. This last Saturday Boston College beat Howard University 76 to 0, Closer to home, University of Michigan beat University of Hawaii 63 to 3, the next week they beat  University of Central Florida 51 to 14. Hey, is Jim Harbaugh a great coach or what. Harbaugh makes 7 million dollars a year from the University but adds to that income from various coach’s clinics, speaking fees and endorsements. Harbaugh is as well paid as any NFL coach. The University of Hawaii coach earns 400 thousand dollars a year, less than the lowest paid NFL rookie does.

There are handicaps in horseracing. Some horses must carry more weight than others. Why not have a handicap in college football? Base it on the difference in the coaches’ salaries. If the difference in salaries is less than two million dollars, normal rules apply. If there is more than a two million dollar difference then the team with the lower paid coach gets to add a man and continues to add a man for each million-dollar difference in coaches’ salary up to an additional four players. Under this rule Hawaii could field fifteen players and that might even the score a bit. Of course it’s silly; what isn’t silly about college football?

Why would the University of Hawaii agree to let its football team get beaten up and humiliated by the U. of Michigan team, one of the top ranked teams in the country? It is the same reason other outclassed football teams agree to play teams that will probably humiliate them in front of millions of TV viewers. Money. There is usually a guarantee of 500 thousand dollars for the outclassed team if they will agree to let the stronger team rub their noses in the dirt. The players don’t object because they will appear on national television and forever after be able to talk about the Saturday afternoon they played mighty Michigan; they don’t have to mention the score. Any concussions will probably wear off in time. If they don’t it won’t make a difference to the concussed although it might to his friends.