Tow #13 Why College Football Should be Banned

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304743704577382292376194220

College students don't benefit from college football, in fact, all they get is a
higher tuition. 

May of 2012, Buzz Bissenger wrote an extremely bold yet thought-provoking article about why college football should be banned. His main reason? Well, to start, he says, "In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything to do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics." (Bussinger 1) Buzz Bissenger claims that college football steers away the students from what they are supposed to be doing at college, which is learning. He also makes the argument that the only people who benefit from college football are the alumni and the coaches that make absurd amounts of money. The students don't benefit. Even the players don't benefit because they're being "exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation" (1). Last, Bussinger even begins to trash the concept of the game of football alone, and says that it causes injuries that don't need to happen, including sever head trauma. Although his arguments were legitimate, surprisingly, I did not find his article very effective. This article taught me how NOT to write an argumentative essay. The way he crafted the article was extremely sloppy. He would make one little argument, maybe say a sentence or two about it, and then scurry along to his next argument. This didn't allow his main arguments to stick out in my mind, but instead, it makes the article rather confusing. Something that did help his stance, though, was the example about the university in Baltimore, Maryland. He claims that the school cut 8 varsity sports to create a leaner athletic budget, so that crumbling basketball and football programs would get money, and track and swimming wouldn't. He then went on to explain just how much money the school spent on football, and the numbers blew my mind. A little statistic like that can change the whole meaning of the article, which was fascinating to me. During the timed essays, I'll make sure to use as much background knowledge as I can. The argument was an interesting one, and by the end of the article, I almost agreed with him, but not quite. His statistics helped, but it didn't completely gloss over the fact that the organization was sloppy. Note to self: organization has the same importance as content!