Spring Break
Column: Lawmakers waste time on athletics
Toby Hopp
Issue date: 12/9/05 Section: OpEd Page
The idiocy of our elected officials in Congress reared its ugly head once again last week. Following in the less-than-hallowed footsteps of Sen. John McCain's "war on steroids" and Sen. Arlen Specter's threatened inquiry into the Terrell Owens situation, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton led a subcommittee inquiry regarding the competency of college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS). Barton's exercise, quite frankly, is a waste of taxpayer money and yet another demonstration of how inept and out-of-touch congressional representation has become.
Barton is right to note that college football's "current system of determining who's No. 1 appears deeply flawed." He's also correct in his observation that college football is, in fact, "a billion-dollar business." Most NCAA fans recognize that the BCS, at best, is an unfair and inefficient mechanism to determine the top collegiate football team in America. But is now, in the midst of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a rapidly burgeoning budget deficit, and dramatic socio-political rifts, really an appropriate time for the House to address this issue?
In a world brimming with serious issues that need to be addressed by a government with serious deficiencies, the examination of the BCS's integrity seems beyond trivial. The same logic applies to the pet projects of Senators McCain and Specter. At last check, Specter had a potentially monumental Supreme Court nomination to preside over and McCain is one of the few creditable faces left in his recently scandal-prone party. All three men, figuratively speaking, have bigger fish to fry.
Even Barton's logic for using the Committee on Energy and Commerce is suspect. The fairness of college football's championship mechanism doesn't appear to have any, inferential or otherwise, applicability to its explicitly stated duties.
The problems with the BCS, baseball's affinity towards performance enhancing drugs, and bombastic football players need to be addressed at an institutional, rather than governmental, level. Ultimately, college football won't have a consistently legitimate apparatus for crowning a "true" national champion until NCAA President Myles Brand develops the professional courage to fracture the relationship between major universities and multi-million dollar payouts from big business.
Logically speaking, the playoff-type systems that have proven effective in all other levels of football should be implemented. But this issue shouldn't be of concern to the U.S. Congress, especially not in an administrational era where over 40 million Americans are without healthcare.
Today's world is full of dynamic and challenging problems that affect Americans on a daily basis. Congress' outlandish interjection into the sporting world's institutional problems is as irrational as it is irresponsible. Congressmen Barton, McCain and Specter should be ashamed of themselves for their masturbatory and egomaniacal waste of both tax dollars and sensibility.
Barton is right to note that college football's "current system of determining who's No. 1 appears deeply flawed." He's also correct in his observation that college football is, in fact, "a billion-dollar business." Most NCAA fans recognize that the BCS, at best, is an unfair and inefficient mechanism to determine the top collegiate football team in America. But is now, in the midst of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a rapidly burgeoning budget deficit, and dramatic socio-political rifts, really an appropriate time for the House to address this issue?
In a world brimming with serious issues that need to be addressed by a government with serious deficiencies, the examination of the BCS's integrity seems beyond trivial. The same logic applies to the pet projects of Senators McCain and Specter. At last check, Specter had a potentially monumental Supreme Court nomination to preside over and McCain is one of the few creditable faces left in his recently scandal-prone party. All three men, figuratively speaking, have bigger fish to fry.
Even Barton's logic for using the Committee on Energy and Commerce is suspect. The fairness of college football's championship mechanism doesn't appear to have any, inferential or otherwise, applicability to its explicitly stated duties.
The problems with the BCS, baseball's affinity towards performance enhancing drugs, and bombastic football players need to be addressed at an institutional, rather than governmental, level. Ultimately, college football won't have a consistently legitimate apparatus for crowning a "true" national champion until NCAA President Myles Brand develops the professional courage to fracture the relationship between major universities and multi-million dollar payouts from big business.
Logically speaking, the playoff-type systems that have proven effective in all other levels of football should be implemented. But this issue shouldn't be of concern to the U.S. Congress, especially not in an administrational era where over 40 million Americans are without healthcare.
Today's world is full of dynamic and challenging problems that affect Americans on a daily basis. Congress' outlandish interjection into the sporting world's institutional problems is as irrational as it is irresponsible. Congressmen Barton, McCain and Specter should be ashamed of themselves for their masturbatory and egomaniacal waste of both tax dollars and sensibility.
