distracted
I'd like to claim that I've been distracted from posting by work -- it's partially true -- but some of my blogging energy has gone into watching the mayhem that surrounds my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Southern California.
A little background since most of my hits seem to come from outside the US: American football is played professionally through the National Football League, NFL, but instead of lower divisions (as in football / soccer) new players come in from college football. It's a huge business -- USC had over 90,000 fans at each home game, and made something like $60 million from it last year.
But there's an ongoing tension about players' status as student athletes and making sure that there are no improper advantages, under the table payments, etc., as well as keeping violence, pillage, and molestation to a minimum. Players get scholarships and stipends, and the incentive of a shot at professional football as a future career.
USC has been very successful over the last 4 years -- like 48 games won, 4 lost, successful. This is very rare.
Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, all hell has been breaking loose with USC. One of their quarterbacks was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault less than 24 hours after attending a seminar on sexual assault (presumably not a how-to). Three star players, two of whom just got multi-million dollar contracts with NFL teams, have been involved in housing and other corruption scandals which could result in the forfeiture of past games, revocation of the 2004 national championship, and other assorted penalties... and just to remind people of some of the other mayhem in past years (more sexual assaults, drug possession, soliciting prostitutes, fighting) another player just got probation and community service for dropping another student at a party with one punch last autumn...
Pretty unsavory, all in all. And yet, today, the most unappetizing revelation: the star quarterback of the last 3 years, newly going to the NFL, is apparently now dating Paris Hilton.
A little background since most of my hits seem to come from outside the US: American football is played professionally through the National Football League, NFL, but instead of lower divisions (as in football / soccer) new players come in from college football. It's a huge business -- USC had over 90,000 fans at each home game, and made something like $60 million from it last year.
But there's an ongoing tension about players' status as student athletes and making sure that there are no improper advantages, under the table payments, etc., as well as keeping violence, pillage, and molestation to a minimum. Players get scholarships and stipends, and the incentive of a shot at professional football as a future career.
USC has been very successful over the last 4 years -- like 48 games won, 4 lost, successful. This is very rare.
Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, all hell has been breaking loose with USC. One of their quarterbacks was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault less than 24 hours after attending a seminar on sexual assault (presumably not a how-to). Three star players, two of whom just got multi-million dollar contracts with NFL teams, have been involved in housing and other corruption scandals which could result in the forfeiture of past games, revocation of the 2004 national championship, and other assorted penalties... and just to remind people of some of the other mayhem in past years (more sexual assaults, drug possession, soliciting prostitutes, fighting) another player just got probation and community service for dropping another student at a party with one punch last autumn...
Pretty unsavory, all in all. And yet, today, the most unappetizing revelation: the star quarterback of the last 3 years, newly going to the NFL, is apparently now dating Paris Hilton.
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