[lbo-talk] Katha Pollitt on college football

MICHAEL YATES mikedjyates at msn.com
Thu Nov 24 07:09:11 PST 2011


This is a good article. College sports should be abolished. I was asked once to teach a course on the Pittsburgh campus of the University of Pittsburgh (I taught at a regional campus). There were three athletes in the course. One was an Olympic medalist. He never came to class, but he sent his wife one evening to take notes for him. Unfortunately it was a test day. I asked his wife if she was going to take the test. Last I heard from either of them. A second athlete was a star basketball player. He cheated on that exam. The third was a football player. He never came to class but phoned me after the last class asking if there was any way he could pass the course. He had, he said, been tied up in Texas on an assault charge after a game. I knew an athlete who guarded the dorm door while two friends raped a student. Nothing happened. And this could go on and on. Dave Zirin just wrote a column about how the presidents of Penn State and UC Davis were both on a task force on security set up by the FBI. Colleges are deeply embedded with the national security state, which is the embodiment of murder, torture, rape. It is good to see that some students are revolting. There is a lot to be revolted about.



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