People forget @whlinder that late stage capitalism came for row boat before football.
Once upon a time a Washington Varsity Men's Crew, was mostly guys from Washington and no one was on scholarship. This system served the sport well for 100+ years and everyone was happy. The boys in the boat were happy to do the sport for the glory of mighty Washington.
Then in the mid 90s Cal hires Steve @Gladstone the greatest mercenary corch in the history of the sport. He proceeds to connect with The Dreyer's Ice Cream Barron (
https://calbears.com/honors/california-athletics-hall-of-fame/rick-cronk/302
) to get full ride men's row boat scholarships. Gladstone begins to recruit international all star rowers from Europe and Canada and proceeds to win 4 natties in a row from 1999- 03. The sport was never the same.
The last crew to win IRA's with a boat of all Americans was Washington in 1997.
In the good ‘ol days we all joked about getting recruits cups of cash from shady boosters, getting players ‘roided up, and then bitching about the sports writers and coaches biases when the final rankings came out. “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” and so forth.
I can’t believe with the benefit of hindsight that era would be somehow more “pure” then what we’re seeing now.
But the toothpaste is out of the tube now. There’s no going back. Unfortunately my starry eyed romanticism is gone and the only way the sport is going to survive is for this runaway freight train of greed to run its course.
It is too bad that many of these smaller programs are getting fucked, but just as every university doesn’t need luxury dorms and a million different academic programs, not every school should have a football program. It’s simply unsustainable for everyone to try to keep up with the big boys.
WSU and OSU do not support their football programs enough. Sure they are smaller but they completely will not own that they need to do a lot more than just having some Cougar watch parties at their Cougar Business Collective bottle shops.
Some of the biggest couwuougs I know don't even fucking go to games. They in general seem more fair weather, like nothing ever came close to the overall cougness of 2018 when they had Leach's best team and GameDay. If you won't even do that, then why are you crying that you can no longer be propped up as an "equal" member in a conference?
Similar situation with the beavs although I kind of get how shitty it is when your rival 40 minutes south has a pro sports owner and you have a fucking potato salad company.
No one should feel sorry for programs whose whole identity is hating another program. With that said, weird shit like that is what long term has made college sports great. It's not going to work long term as a minor league. I don't have kids but I certainly would think their generation would wonder why the fuck they should care.
Fucking duh. Shit needs to be normalized. One conference has 18 teams and plays 9 conference gaymes, one has 14 teams and plays 8, another has 12 and plays 9, another has 12 and plays 8, another won't play FCS teams, another plays two a year. This is the minor leagues, get it the fuck over with.
Comments
People forget @whlinder that late stage capitalism came for row boat before football.
Once upon a time a Washington Varsity Men's Crew, was mostly guys from Washington and no one was on scholarship. This system served the sport well for 100+ years and everyone was happy. The boys in the boat were happy to do the sport for the glory of mighty Washington.
Then in the mid 90s Cal hires Steve @Gladstone the greatest mercenary corch in the history of the sport. He proceeds to connect with The Dreyer's Ice Cream Barron ( https://calbears.com/honors/california-athletics-hall-of-fame/rick-cronk/302 ) to get full ride men's row boat scholarships. Gladstone begins to recruit international all star rowers from Europe and Canada and proceeds to win 4 natties in a row from 1999- 03. The sport was never the same.
The last crew to win IRA's with a boat of all Americans was Washington in 1997.
In the good ‘ol days we all joked about getting recruits cups of cash from shady boosters, getting players ‘roided up, and then bitching about the sports writers and coaches biases when the final rankings came out. “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” and so forth.
I can’t believe with the benefit of hindsight that era would be somehow more “pure” then what we’re seeing now.
But the toothpaste is out of the tube now. There’s no going back. Unfortunately my starry eyed romanticism is gone and the only way the sport is going to survive is for this runaway freight train of greed to run its course.
It is too bad that many of these smaller programs are getting fucked, but just as every university doesn’t need luxury dorms and a million different academic programs, not every school should have a football program. It’s simply unsustainable for everyone to try to keep up with the big boys.
WSU and OSU do not support their football programs enough. Sure they are smaller but they completely will not own that they need to do a lot more than just having some Cougar watch parties at their Cougar Business Collective bottle shops.
Some of the biggest couwuougs I know don't even fucking go to games. They in general seem more fair weather, like nothing ever came close to the overall cougness of 2018 when they had Leach's best team and GameDay. If you won't even do that, then why are you crying that you can no longer be propped up as an "equal" member in a conference?
Similar situation with the beavs although I kind of get how shitty it is when your rival 40 minutes south has a pro sports owner and you have a fucking potato salad company.
If Wazzu and Oregon St get fucked over … I'm here for all of that
Fuck them
No one should feel sorry for programs whose whole identity is hating another program. With that said, weird shit like that is what long term has made college sports great. It's not going to work long term as a minor league. I don't have kids but I certainly would think their generation would wonder why the fuck they should care.
Sportswriters 5 years ago… “Pay the kids!”
Sportswriters now… “Money is ruining college athletics!”
Fucking duh. Shit needs to be normalized. One conference has 18 teams and plays 9 conference gaymes, one has 14 teams and plays 8, another has 12 and plays 9, another has 12 and plays 8, another won't play FCS teams, another plays two a year. This is the minor leagues, get it the fuck over with.
The little guys are 120 years old still sucking on the teat. This is America. Ameritocracy.