It’s Literally Wednesday: Are You Ready for Some (SEC) Football?
Dave | September 26, 2012 | 11:48 amRay Glier, a Decatur resident and sportswriter who contributes to the New York Times, USA Today, and many other news and sports publications, has written a book, How the SEC Became Goliath: The Making of College Football’s Most Dominant Conference, published by Simon & Schuster.
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has won the last six national titles in big time football. Not only that, but 5 of the top 11 schools in the current AP rankings are undefeated SEC schools. (Georgia is #5.)
If you’re as cynical as I am about college football, you might have assumed that the SEC achieved this success through a combination of first-rate slime and unrivaled corruption. (Think Lane Kiflin, Cam Newton, etc.)
Ray looks at the phenomenal success of the SEC and makes a convincing argument that they got where they’re at with the biggest players, superior coaching, and lots and lots of money. It’s a fun book; Ray not only knows his stuff but also writes with humor.
If you want to see Ray talk about How the SEC Became Goliath, you’re in luck. Today starts what has officially been declared “The Week of Ray.”
The Week of Ray
Wednesday, September 26th, Manuel’s Tavern, presented by A Cappella Books, 7pm, free.
Thursday, September 27th, Alabama Booksmith (Birmingham), 4pm, free.
Friday, September 28th, Little Shop of Stories, tailgating (with beer, soda, chips, and hot dogs) at 6:30 p.m., presentation at 7pm, free (because “Ray Glier” rhymes with “free beer”).
Tuesday, October 2nd, Eagle Eye Bookshop, 7pm, free.
Also This Week
Cliff Graubart, author of The Curious Vision of Sammy Levitt and Other Stories, An Evening with Pat Conroy and Cliff Graubart with an introduction by Terry Kay, Thursday, September 27th, 7pm, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, presented by A Cappella Books, $28 for individuals, $38 for couples (autographed book included). (Please note: Pat Conroy and Terry Kay will not be signing at the event.)
Eric Litwin, author of Pete the Cat Saves Christmas, (book release party), Friday, September 29th, 6pm, Little Shop of Stories, free (because it’s all good).
Adam Gidwitz, author of In a Glass Grimmly, Wednesday, October 3rd, 7pm, Little Shop of Stories, free.
* The ability to make official declarations is just one of the many perks of being a Decatur Metro contributor.
Not ready for football. In fact I am gd tired of football. From high school to pro, it invades everything in the media and in conversation. Tired tired tired of it.
Blasphemy!
Sadly, I have no stone with which to smite thee!
Probably risk losing what few friends I may have with this vent, but what I can’t understand is this country’s devotion to the NFL??? It’s crazy. It’s like a large part of the last two generations has been brainwashed by the media into believing this is entertainment worth watching, I mean wasting a Sunday on. Every time that I hear Monday talk about some team’s record, or some player’s completions, it’s all I can do to not roll my eyes. Who cares? This game isn’t even that great and the media circus surrounding the teams is ridiculous.
OK – MAYBE a redeeming quality is that there is strategy to the game, but what about the game play? Plays last what? All of 15 seconds and then they break for half a dozen commercials? Most of which try to get you to buy lousy beer or another car you don’t need. Athleticism? hardly. Certainly not compared to professional basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. Mostly overweight thugs who are relying on good genes and youth, IMHO.
Devotion to college football I get. People are connected to their friends through the school, etc. High School football? Fine. A Sport. School Spirit. But the near religious devotion to the NFL is a bizarre.
The best starting point to getting this country back on track to {insert any worthy idealism here} is for us to somehow get rid of (boycott, ban, whatever…) the NFL.
/endrant Go Pats!
<<Athleticism? hardly. Certainly not compared to professional basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. <<Mostly overweight thugs who are relying on good genes and youth, IMHO.
This statement is not remotely accurate.
“Athleticism? hardly. Certainly not compared to professional basketball, hockey, soccer, etc. Mostly overweight thugs who are relying on good genes and youth, IMHO.”
I guess ignorance is bliss. And yes I’m calling your statement and your assertion IGNORANT.
“Overweight thugs.” I’m so tired of coded words. SMH. Grow up.
I’m no crazed football fan, but I had the same reaction to that part of his post. *sigh*
Among professional sports, I think the NFL does the best job putting together an entertaining product. That being said, I am only willing to invest my time watching games if my team (the Falcons) are putting a competitive team on the field. (this year is looking great, BTW!)
What I don’t understand is the implicit argument from many that a city’s residents have an OBLIGATION to spend their money attending a professional team’s games, regardless of whether the team provides an entertaining experience. Otherwise they get branded with the dreaded label of “fair-weather-fan!”
Atlanta has frequently been criticized by National Sports Press as a “lousy sports town” for its weak attendance records. (I personally think this is a perspective that overlooks the draw of College Sports, but I digress.) Excepting those who have a financial interest in a team, why does this criticism bother people?
I can appreciate that a professional sports team can provide a richer sense of community through a shared experience following a team (Braves worst-to-first season is a great example!).
I just don’t understand why die-hard fans of a team are the ideal, and those of us who are more mercenary are derided. An engaged crowd certainly makes a game more fun to attend. But the responsibility to build that engagement rests with the team, not the populous. These teams are businesses, and if they are not providing an entertaining product at a good value, I do not understand why I should feel obligated to invest my time or money watching the games.
I’m tired of sports in general. I grew up playing team sports and watching them religiously on tv. The latter became a habit that continued into adulthood, and I still keep up with the major sports out of habit. But with each passing year, my interest declines. I blame that partly on the fact that the big business of sports alienates me, but more on the fact that are so many more worthwhile ways to spend my time and money.
+1 Some boat here. It’s really makes me sad. I wish I could feel good about sports again, but it gets harder every day. Steroids in baseball was the wake-up call for me.
That said, Ray Glier is a Decatur treasure. Buy his book. I’m sure it’s great.
+1 And having 2 kids makes it less and less important.
That and the National Enquirer type media coverage athletics receives (pro, collegiate & even high school) takes away from it’s true purpose of sports for me at this stage of life, an escape from the daily grind. I could care less about the morale turpitude of professional athletes (barring felony convictions against their fellow man). Tackle, run, dribble, pitch, kick, compete. Let me enjoy the results of literally thousands of hours of practice and training as athletes put it on display for me to enjoy. That’s all I want.
I also don’t care about football. The only reason I watch it is for an excuse to enjoy some unhealthy yet tasty snacks and libations while ensconsed in a wool blanket on the sofa. The occurance of which, in order to maintain weight and health goals, is limited to about twice a year.
The Eric Litwin event is on Saturday… though overlapping with the tailgating might have been a fun option too.
If you’re tired of sports now, just wait until October 15ish when DaveFM becomes Atlanta’s third sports talk radio station. (We’ll miss you, Mara, though I’m guessing not for long.)
Here’s another depressing change coming to Atlanta radio: Rush Limbaugh is taking over Clark Howard’s time slot at WSB.
http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2012/09/26/rush-limbaugh-headed-to-wsb-wgst-rumored-to-flips-formats?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freshloaf+%28Fresh+Loaf%29
Not happy. Clark Howard is my hero. Rush Limbaugh is not.
Greeeat. Something else to bring the collective IQ in Georgia radioland down about 50 points.
It doesn’t get any better than college football, imo. I love the NFL too, but college is the best. It helps if you went to a school with a great team/tradition or if you grew up in an area where it’s more popular, but I just love everything about it.
There are obviously some issues with corruption(interesting how Cam Newton was used when the NCAA cleared him off all accusations), but for all the bad parts that go into it, there are so many good parts. So many of these kids that play college football would probably not have had an opportunity to go to college otherwise. And before you go down the “they get it easy” path, I won’t argue with that. Some of them do take the easy route. There’s no question about that. Some of them skate by on athleticism. The thing is, it’s not any different than some trust fund kid who has it easy and gets into some great school because of their family and skates through. However more often than not, they take advantage of their situation and get an education which will help them improve their lives post-college.
The vast majority aren’t going to go to the NFL, and most of them realize that and they take advantage of the education that’s being presented to them. Some don’t and that’s unfortunate, and you do tend to hear more about those that don’t than those that do. That’s the media for you though. You’re going to hear about the corruption and the kids that get in trouble rather than the ones that bust their tail and graduate in 3 years and then go on to get their masters after that, which happens time after time, or the ones that balance football, school and volunteering, etc. We tend to get bombarded with the negative and start to believe that all football players are “overweight thugs” when the opposite is the truth more often than not.
Very well said. I also attended a big-time football school for my MBA. My interest has waned like that of other posters here, but the opportunity it provides for so many kids who would not have the chance to attend college is huge. You aptly described the reality the media does not focus on.
My favorite student-athlete story of the last ten years – Florida State safety Myron Rolle earning a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford.
Sorry, I do not see how football serves higher education. I don’t see student athletes as “overweight thugs” as much as fodder in a messed up machine that often eats them alive. The fact that UGA is cutting academic budgets (again, particularly targeting CAES and UGA is a Land Grant institution) while the Athletic Association has reserves of over $68 million is troubling since UGA is supposed to be an institution of higher education: http://onlineathens.com/uga/2012-09-17/uga-eliminate-jobs-meet-budget-cut-directive And the misuse of student athletes is well documented over the years, though NC is the most recently publicized: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/07/09/3369407/at-unc-no-show-classes-mostly.html.
I cannot help but think that this professor’s experience is the norm, rather than the exception: http://www.austinpost.org/opinion/learning-hate-longhorn-football
Yes, some student athletes manage to do well, but how do you calculate the damage to those who do not make it, and to the institutions and other students and programs?
I also think it’s telling that the southeast is at the bottom educationally, but probably produces a disproportionate share of the best athletes in the country (which, I believe, is the simple explanation for the dominance of SEC football.)
The UGA Athletic Association is a separate non-profit corporation, and its revenue comes from donations, ticket sales and TV. The $68 million reserve doesn’t come from public funds.
And, the athletic money that football brings in allows the non-revenue generating sports to exist. There are lots of kids who are on athletic scholarships who have no intention (or opportunity) to go pro. Not that this has anything to do with the subject of Literally Wednesday.
Okay, but that prompts this question: Why should someone get a scholarship to an academic institution because they can play golf? Are we perhaps offering incentives for the wrong endeavors?
Because alumni don’t contribute millions of dollars a year for academic scholarships. Or, because there is no TV money for chemistry experiments. Money for academic scholarships isn’t being diverted to athletes. In fact, the opposite is true. Athletic scholarships afford many people an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise have.
“Because alumni don’t contribute millions of dollars a year for academic scholarships.” — too true. Why is that?
It’s obviously more than just a collegiate issue, but a question of societal priorities. I think it’s legimate to question if the emphasis on sports is a net negative for education, especially in this part of the country.
The following schools have BCS series football programs: Stanford (currently ranked in the top 10), Rice, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Duke, UVA, UNC, and I can go on. Are academics suffering at these schools by virtue of football, golf, baseball, water polo, etc? And of course the entire Ivy League has played football pretty much forever. Their games are even on national TV now, along with the Patriot League (Lehigh, Bucknell, and similar schools).
Thus, football can fit very comfortably within a university setting without compromising academics. You can question whether some schools are over-emphasizing the sport and compromising their academic standards by admitting players who have no business taking a seat in a colle classroom, and maybe that’s right at a number of schools. But it’s not a legitimate indictiment of college football in general.
Have you read Tom Wolfe’s ” I Am Charlotte Simmons: A Novel”?!! It would suggest that Duke, I mean “Dupont” University, isn’t so clean either!
Isn’t that fiction? Besides, you wouldn’t have to look hard to find examples of wrongdoing or questionable behavior at any college or university in this country. But, that doesn’t mean that Duke, for ex., isn’t a respected academic instiution.
Don’t need fiction to show that Duke ain’t so squeaky clean…
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/64146/lance-thomas-scandal-remains-opaque
UGAAA also manages all the licensing for merchandise and rents the facilities for $1/year. Yes, they contribute to funding other programs, but that’s still a pretty sweet deal.
Are you referring to the facilities that the athletic association paid for? Plus, the merchandising rights would be worth much, much less if not for athletics. Why shouldn’t the athletic association reap the benefits from the value it created? The Georgia “G” was the result of a former football coach stealing it from another team (I think Green Bay) and sticking it on the helmet.
also of interest
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/
Great read! Thanks for the link.
Way to go Ray! Congrats on your book’s debut! I will try to stop by to buy one…
There are some schools don’t even operate in the black. And using university money to fund it is at some point questionable. However, there are some schools (LSU and FL) with a precedent for using their earnings to offset Univ. budget deficits. So, just because UGA hasn’t doesn’t mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water. And let’s not forget the exposure and marketing national television provides, you know, where they get to show their commercials to potential non-athlete students all over the country? And I agree…these programs are like Big Brother/Big Sister type services at the college level. Some of these kids have had rough lives and if a coach can help them start over and believe in themselves, then who would say that isn’t worthwhile?
Oh yeah…Roll Tide!
It figures athletics meet scornful disapproval from the double wide stroller crowd.
Just how does that figure, exactly?
Clearly a transplant from non-SEC country to make that kind of statement…
In other literary news with a local connection, Adam Roberts, who writes The Amateur Gourmet blog, just finished a new book, Secrets of the Best Chefs. Adam started his blog while in law school at Emory (but has since been living in New York and LA).
He’s kicking off his book tour back in Atlanta at the Barnes & Noble at Tech as part of Taste of Atlanta (10/6) and at the Emory bookstore (10/8). And there’s a dinner with Hugh Acheson, who is featured as one of the “Best Chefs” in the book.
The book: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/cookbook
The book tour: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/book-tour
If you delve through his mid-2000s archives, Decatur (mostly Watershed) pops up a few times.
As far as I know, Adam neither plays nor watches football.
Some of my musings on why it’s so expensive to fund an athletics program. Some schools have no business operating at the FBS or 1-A level.
1) Ineffective/ Underutilized alumni base.
2) They have no busy with certain conference affiliations from a geographic perspective. The hidden costs of travel across the country for their other 16-18 sports programs, excluding football, can become quite a drain. Especially for a school like Boston College or Miami who play at the far ends of the ACC.
3) Some also don’t have the luxury of being able to fill their sports team w/in in-state students, so the scholarships they have to fund are based on out-of-state tuition rates. That adds up QUICKLY.
4) Too few schools have endowed scholarships for their non-revenue sports.
Side Note – Clemson has one of the best booster programs in the country, IPTAY. It’s the model.