The Smart People, they see what's coming. They are not distracted by wishful thinking, or magical thinking, or whatever off-brand thinking animates Our Only Available Impeached President, his Secretary of Edukashun and colleges and universities hooked on that football crack pipe.
The Smart People took a peek instead at where we're headed, and said "Yeaaah, don't think so." And so the Ivy League has pulled the plug on its fall sports -- including, of course, football.
It remains to be seen if the Ivies are as visionary as they were back in March, when they became the first to cancel their basketball tournament. Everyone said they were reactionary wusses, but then everyone wound up doing the same thing.
This time?
Hard to say. Basketball is money but football is the big money, and so the Power 5s will move heaven and earth to get their unpaid labor/apparel billboards on the field. Commerce has always come before workplace safety in America, after all. And so all the pretty words about Keeping Our Student-Athletes Safe is just PR smoke, behind which hides the real message: We've Gotta Keep Our Student-Athletes On The Field.
Here's what I think: I think the Bastard Plague's going to win this one going away.
That delusion has set in as we creep closer to fall is manifest, taking its cue from a White House that's decided people are just going to have to get sick and die now, and that's all there is to it. And so the dim bulb in charge of Edukashun has all but threatened to cut off funding if schools don't open the doors and let everyone back in next month. And international students are going to have their visas yanked if colleges and universities decide to continue with online classes only.
Never mind asking how officials are supposed to maintain social distancing and other Plague precautions in schools that are overcrowded. And never mind that international students who haven't hurt and aren't hurting anyone are being used as chess pieces by the bully in the White House to strong-arm institutions of higher learning.
The bully has an election to win, after all. People are just going to have to get sick. And those international students are just foreigners who don't belong here anyway.
Nonetheless, the Plague's going to win this.
Already you can see college football unraveling. No sooner did players across the country report for preseason camps than players started showing red. Within a week after it came to campus, Kansas State's football team went from zero positives to 14. Clemson had 37. LSU reportedly had as many as 30 players in quarantine not long ago. School after school has either paused or postponed workouts.
By game time -- after the students come back to campus, because, you know, everything's all good now as long as everyone observes the rules, hyuk-hyuk -- half your football team could be in quarantine. How do you play, if that's the case? And if you do, do you play in front of fans?
Because there's no point in playing college football in empty stadiums. None.
But if you let fans in ...
Well. Best intentions aside, fans are gonna be fans. They're gonna tailgate. They're gonna congregate in large groups because it will be impossible to keep them from doing so. And even if you limit seating to half in some of these vast football Colosseums, you're still talking 40, 50, 60 thousand humans in one place.
Good luck with policing the social distancing and mask-wearing if that's the case.
No, sir. Looks from here like the Ivies are on the leading edge again.
Looks from here like a silent fall, and maybe football in the spring. Or maybe just hit pause for this season and take it up again in 2021.
No one wants that, mind you. But if you're gonna do college football in particular, better it be college football than what-kind-of-joke-is-this college football.
Stay tuned.
Amen
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