College Football

So, I'm reading this article in the New York Times Magazine (about the damage that big time college football can cause to a university) and ranting, as usual, that I could see that happening to my alma mater, Rutgers University, which began playing Big East (way, way out of its league) sports around 1980 or so. Because it steals money from other programs, hurts the nonatheletes and doesn't help the athletes, and unless it's a major school, it can only lose money - and even many of them at best break even.

And there in the article is a mention of that very fact, and of a student/alumni group called the Rutgers 1000 that was trying to eliminate or at least downgrade our league affiliation. Which I have just joined.

I'm proud of Rutgers. It's a "public ivy", a state university with programs and faculty and students that could rank with elite privates. Or it was. Now the average SAT of the students is *below* that of Trenton State College, which is a fine school, but it's not *Rutgers*. A selective state university is one of the things that drives good state public education - if students must be on a certain level to get in, the public schools must ensure there are such students.

I hate seeing this, I really do.