Machiavelli, Sportsmanship, and College Football

Rivalry week of college football has just concluded. After seeing a few of these games and hearing about some of the events that historically have given this week of football it’s name, I am questioning sportsmanship’s place in college football today.

Perhaps one of the best-known rivalries in college football.

In our current collegiate sport environment, where athletic departments are under more and more pressure to win, and win often, there is an ongoing discussion asking “at what costs”. Niccolò Machiavelli, in his famous book, The Prince, outlines many components of successful leadership and power. I believe that college football programs have began to embrace a Machiavellian approach. Although this has led to a more competitive program, it has begun to remove the element of sportsmanship from the game.

Reflections on the state of modern sports

Edmund Burke’s reaction to the recent rule changes in sports today.

My news feed was covered in shared articles. It was like Kony 2012, but worse. What could have caused this massive influx of outraged teenagers? It could be none other than the recent NCAA changes to division I collegiate tennis; the fact that half of my facebook friends were tennis players had finally come back to haunt me. There had already been harsh reactions from many about the possibility of abolishing service lets about a year and a half ago, but additional new rules formed to speed up the play of matches have both high school, collegiate, and even professional players wondering what ridiculous rule changes are next. Now, I do not, nor will I ever, consider myself a conservative, but perhaps Burke was right in his reasoning in Reflections on the Revolution in France: change can be dangerous, leaving the institution it was trying to improve mutilated and almost unrecognizable.

The NCAA’s Fleeting Facade of Amateurism

“[Amateurism]’s one of the most fundamental principles of the NCAA and intercollegiate athletics. They have always seen and assumed that intercollegiate athletics is about the notion that these are members of the student body. They’re not hired employees conducting games for entertainment. They’re not a random group of folks that just come together to play sports.”

—National Collegiate Athletic Association President Mark Emmert.

The NCAA is a corrupt institution that operates under the fantastical guise of “amateurism”. In reality, however, amateurism at the NCAA Division 1 level is a sham. The NCAA’s stranglehold on so-called “student-athletes” is outdated and ridiculous.

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Amateurism is an outdated ideal that no longer has a place in significant modern sports. Amateurism is the notion that competitors play their sport solely for the intrinsic value of playing their sport. Furthermore, rules in amateur sports are supposed to benefit those playing the game as opposed to those observing it. However amateurism is an outdated remnant of a past time when television and gate revenues did not exist.

As first noted by Eric Dunning almost 20 years ago, there is a growing schism in modern sports. He suggests that amateur sports are disappearing as sports have become so prized by society that many people seem to have a religious devotion to them. Dunning discusses the fall of amateurism in modern sports by mentioning the British Rugby Football Union (RFU). The RFU has struggled since the late 1800’s to uphold its pure amateur values as the number of spectators and the reliance of clubs on commercial and spectator revenues have grown. Additionally, the increase in spectators, hiring of full-time officials, allegations of players being paid, and the proliferation of leagues and cups have destroyed the once proud amateurism present in the RFU. However, the RFU still lays claim to the amateurism of its athletes, even though these players do most of the heavy lifting in increasing the profit margins of the RFU. This claim of amateurism is merely just that—a claim. The real motive behind the RFU’s insistence on their athletes being recognized as amateurs is greed for the RFU does not want to hand over the athletes’ fair share of the pot to them. The reprehensible actions of the RFU are not too dissimilar from the actions of an organization across the pond—the NCAA.

Why Do You Play The Game?

University of Texas Football Team

Coming off a disappointing defeat at the hands of UCLA, Charlie Strong, head coach of the University of Texas football team, brought in a special guest speaker to practice. That speaker was none other than the charismatic Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey asks the players “why they play the game,” a question that goes far beyond the game of football. Everyone has a unique reason for why they play the game, why they build the house, or why they study a subject; each reason makes the activity into either a game or a job. How can one activity be seen as play for one person but work for another, you may ask? The answer lies in our motivations.

This… is not Michigan

College football. The event that defines so much of the “big school experience” so many students yearn for. In class, we have read various writers’ thoughts on play and sport. They have developed their definition of these terms carefully.

The gameday experience that draws so many to the University of Michigan

Following this analysis, they thoroughly develop the purpose of play and sport. After recent events pertaining to University of Michigan football, we must begin to question just how closely our beloved Saturday football games still fits these definitions of play, and if the gameday experience is still reaching our expectations.

The Collapse of Michigan Football

Happy and dedicated U of M football fans

Being students at the University of Michigan, we all realize how important out football team is to the overall school, and how much money the school makes by having a successful program. In order to achieve this goal of a successful football program, our athletic department often pays schools, such as Appalachian State, with football programs in the lower-teir FCS conference (as apposed to the higher-teir FBS that Michigan and other Big 10 teams are in) up to one million dollars just to play our team. Our athletics program does this in the sole hope that the game against these types of teams will serve as an opportunity to boost fan morale and player confidence. Additionally, a blowout win (no matter who we are playing) will make boosters (people that add funds to the football program) extremely happy, and they in turn will give the athletics program at Michigan even more money!

We pay teams so that we can blow them out, and they make more money by doing so!

SALARY FOR COLLEGE ATHLETES?

Johnny wants Money!

Should student-athletes be paid to play in college? If so, would the NCAA set a salary cap? Should athletes of all sports be paid or just specific ones? These are a few of the questions the NCAA must consider when deciding to compensate student-athletes for their performance on the field/court/rink.

This is Not a Hoke

The University of Michigan is home to some of the greatest athletic teams in the history of America, and in the entire world. This is because the University of Michigan attracts students from countries at each end of the globe, and actively tries to bring them together in ways that involve school spirit to unite them on a common front. It is through events such as football games in the Big House, (which accommodates over 109,000 people), that the athletic culture proves to be so prevalent.

Despite the fact that Michigan football is so well revered around the world drawing hundreds upon hundreds of alumni to bars across the world to watch the game, our record over the past few years has been far from impressive. In fact, we totally suck! The last time we won a National Championship was in 1997, and the last time we even won our own conference championship is going on eleven years ago. We went from a season of eleven wins and two losses in 2006 under Lloyd Carr, to last year, in 2013, a season of seven wins and six losses under Brady Hoke.

Breaking the ‘Magic Circle’

We’ve all been in that position where were watching a sporting event, or a TV show, or some other interesting thing and then out of nowhere our phone rings. As I’m sure most of you have realized by this point in your lives, when this happens you always miss something important. Whether it was that crazy 80-yard TD pass or who the killer really was in Law & Order, you missed it and now, you’re mad.

How could you do this to me?

So, what is it that makes people angry in these situations? Well it’s simple, whoever called you, they broke your magic circle. What is a magic circle you might ask? Well, that is a bit more complicated.

The magic circle was a term created by one Johan Huizinga in his book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. It was termed to mean the environment in which a game/event takes place. While one is within the magic circle, the outside world is supposed to be dimmed to a dim light that you know is there but just isn’t important in the moment. For example, when you are at a sporting event you have entered a magic circle or when you begin playing a videogame, you have entered a magic circle.

The reason breaking the magic circle is such a disastrous thing is because people use the magic circle as an escape. Due to it’s property that people who enter feel less attached to the real world, it is a great way for people to avoid the stress, problems, and annoyances that they have to face in their daily lives.

This is why when you receive a call while watching that sporting event, you want to tell your boss, spouse, parents, kids or friends to hang the f*** up and leave you alone. This is also why when playing a video game and your best friends texts you asking “are you free to hang” instead of answering you just ignore them like a complete ass.

Missed the TD cause she wanted a pic :/

But not only does breaking into someone’s magic circle take them out of the paradise that they hadtried to create for themselves, it actually creates more stress in their lives. This is because, as the magic circle is broken not only are people forced to remember their problems but now they have a new issue, that they’re missing the game or that their character in Call of Duty was killed.

So through this slightly interesting blog post I would like to beg to all of you magic circle breakers of the world. LEAVE THESE POOR PEOPLE ALONE!