CSotD: Monday morning coming down
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No heavy lifting today.
Tank McNamara on the topic of college sports and amateurism. I'm not sure where Bill Hinds is taking this, but it's a worthwhile issue, particularly as we prepare for a round of (yawn) Winter Olympics.
The Olympics once had an elitist, often racist, amateurism requirement that needed to go.
But the combination of letting full-bore professional athletes into competition and of post-LA-Olympics commercial packaging excess has made the Olympics an entertainment rather than a sports event.
And if you like gaudy, over-produced, manipulative entertainment events, that's not a bad thing.
But I miss the days of dubious visuals in blinding snow as Karl Schranz raced down the hill in Grenoble, and I'm at the point where the figure skating is starting to look to me like "Dancing With The Stars On Ice."
I thought Peggy Fleming was pretty cool, but at some point since then, the sequins and faux-nude bodysuits and Vegas make-up and the mandatory weepy backstories about dying relatives and suchlike took the place of the actual skating.
Yes, it requires great athleticism.
So does a Jackie Chan movie, and he's got better writers.
Anyway, here's the deal: College football leapt that shark years ago, and any resemblance to a sporting event is long gone, with the final, crowning blow being the capitulization to Big Sports Entertainment of the BCS system.
Chanting "We're Number One" from the stands only if there was some reason to think your team might actually be Number One was part of the game, while arguing and re-arguing over the purported top team was how you filled the time between seasons.
But sportswriters and the Amalgamated Association of People Who Think This Shit Matters demanded a definitive answer, the validity of which they now argue over, only they do so as if they are being robbed of something they deserve.
Phooey, fiddlesticks and nuts.
Meanwhile, here's the false dichotomy we're fighting over: On the one side are people who believe in some dusty old Avery Brundage definition of "amateurism" that died a couple of decades ago, while on the other is people who want to turn college ball into NFL Jr.
And here in the middle is what I know: When my daughter-in-law was getting her doctorate, Dartmouth was paying her a stipend. It did not enable her to buy a Lexus, but neither did it make her ineligible to participate in conferences.
And she was, indeed, getting an education.
So do something like that.
And Speaking of the AAPWTTSM:
Dave Kellett of Sheldon is a fellow-Domer, which prompts me to link to this Buzzfeed slagging of Notre Dame, which was pointed out to me by another fellow Domer.
At the risk of slipping into full Andy Rooney mode, in our day, Father Hesburgh did a nice job of enjoying football but focusing on academics and suchlike, and was well-known for attending games on Saturday and then getting back to work on matters of significance.
He was particularly famous for, upon his appointment to the presidency, declining to pose for photographers in his priest's cassock, hiking a football.
It was a long time ago in another universe, and, while I wish Dave would get his store back on line, you can still follow the link here and get a poster of this 2009 classic fantasy football takedown if you want one.
And if you've ever had to work in a fantasy-league obsessed office like I have, you want one.
And speaking of buying things …
GoComics blog has pointed out a modest Kickstarter campaign by cartoonist Daniel Shelton to fund publication of a collection of his self-syndicated Ben strip, which I've been reading on the GoComics site, though, as he explains in that 2:30 video, he has never accepted a syndication deal.
Couple of things:
One is that I like Kickstarter more than Indiegogo and some other crowd-sourcing sites because it has a rule that, unless you hit your goal, nobody gives you anything. It's all-or-nothing.
The others are okay for indefinite things like helping someone with medical or legal bills, but for a specific project like this, I think hitting your goal is a good indicator of whether it's worth doing in the first place.
And I've heard people complain about giving to these campaigns and then having the recipient fail to come through with the promised project. That has never been my experience. Maybe they need to be a little more careful who they offer to fund.
As I write this, Shelton is up to $3,045 of his $5,600 goal, which is a good start on a modest amount. And, aside from my good wishes for this particular project, I hope he makes it, because
The other reason I like this project is that I wish more cartoonists would quit waiting for their syndicates to offer a book deal and go this route. Maybe there's some contractual reason they can't, but, if so, those contracts need to be changed or challenged.
Jimmy Johnson (the book appears to have sold out) and John Hambrock have both produced beautiful collections on their own, while Kal Kallaugher, Christopher Baldwin and Matt Bors went the Kickstarter route to fund self-published books.
It's Little Red Hen time, folks: If you want to see it happen, you're gonna have to do it yourself. And it is work, but it's not that hard.
And I'll bet it isn't a whole lot more work without help than it is with help.
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