Carlitude: Slogging through Life

Pay College Athletes: It's the Right Thing to Do.

I love college football. Even though I know it's all about big money and corrupt and filled with phonies and hypocritical, I love college football. So, today has been a big day for me football-wise. Four bowl games plus more to watch tomorrow and Wednesday and next Monday. And in the middle, the Wild Card games this weekend. Enough football to satisfy any fan over between January 2 and January 9.

That said, I also have to complain a little about the good old days when all the bowls were famed after fruit or plants and the best ones occurred in January 1. After that, college football was over, and we turned our focus to college basketball, which by the way I also love. The big money has taken over, and the game is a little worse for wear as a result.

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Joe Nocera proposed reforms for college football and basketball that entails paying players (Let's Start Paying College Athletes). Nocera's proposal contains five elements: 1) what he calls "a modified free market approach to recruiting," 2) a salary cap, 3) a possibility of six years of scholarship funding for student-athletes, 4) lifetime health insurance, and 5) organizing the players under the auspices of a "College Players Association," which would oversee all of this and serve as "an all around counter-weight to the NCAA." All in all, Nocera's proposal makes a lot of sense, and he argues that the  current system is such a mess that a reform such as his is necessary for college sports to survive.

I appreciate Nocera's down-to-earth, hard-shell reasoning, and I hope the suits who run college football and basketball will come to their senses and consider it. However, a moral element needs to be added to Nocera's argument. College players should be paid and otherwise compensated because it's the right thing to do. Nocera's reasoning supports the moral argument, but it's important for the public to understand why this issue is of such importance. It's the right thing to do, and it happens to make sense economically, academically, socially, and competitively. It's the right thing to do, because it's wrong for colleges and universities to make a whole bucketload of money on the backs of young men who are not compensated. It's the right thing to do, because many of these young men have never experienced anything but athletic success, and college can broaden their horizons, educate them, and prepare them for successful economic and civic futures. Of course, it would be great if the high schools and AAU teams these kids play for could provide those opportunities before college, but let's tackle one problem at a time here.

Paying college student-athletes is te right thing to do in spite of all of the practical reasons it should be done anyway. If an unanticipated consequence is that paying them cleans up some of the corruption, rule breaking, and arrogance of those associated with coilleg sports, so be it. Perhaps creating a more honest moral environment will also teach them some lessons about integrity, honor, and virtue. What they experience now is wrong. Let's pay them and put the system on the up and up.

2012, Take 1. Blogging, Take 23.

Over the past few years, I have tried and tried to keep up a blog, but I haven't been able to sustain either my motivation or enough insight and snappy repartee. But once again, I have resolved to try, and we'll see how it goes.

This particular blog, Carlitude, is supposed to be my opportunity to express myself as a person so I have an outlet for the peculiarities, neuroses, and on occasion the dark side. I am borrowing an idea I saw on the web (see shuttercal.com) where you can post a picture everyday to follow your activities through a year. I am going to try to do that with this blog. If nothing else, I'll take a picture and post it with a comment. 

Some of you are probably wondering where Carlitude comes from. In my effort to be a blogger, and inspired by Stephen Colbert, I thought it would be interesting to have an alter-ego I could channel and make just real enough to print some things that might push boundaries and buttons. Hence, Carlitude--a quasi-fictional character who is channeled the critter you see here, who is actually Ferdinand the man-goat, the original sire of my daughter's goat herd. Occasionally you will hear from Ferdinand, who lives somewhere in south-central Texas, having been sold off when the herd needed thinning and his contribution to the goat gene pool had pretty well run its course. Ferdinand is the keeper of the Principles for a Carlitudinous Life, which you will also her about if I do better at blogging this time. Actually, this ought to be a pretty good year for ranting, satire, and general remunations about the state of the world. It's an election year, and if all else fails, we can rely on candidates for office for comic relief.

I have always wanted to be a comedy writer, and Carlitude in the original was intended to be an outlet for that dream. However, I have also found that carlitude gives me the chance to think out loud about matters philosophical. So, you will also be subjected to my evolving perspective on the purpose of life and such. Having finally emerged from adolescence about three years ago, I think it's OK to mix what amounts to the adolescent musings of an aging but still vital American child of the 1950's and 1960's with the thoughts of that same guy who is having to grow up and face mortality.

Let's hope this comes together and is at least mildly entertaining and/or therapeutic. So, here we go.

The Principles for a Carlitudinous Life are provided for your consideration as you face the incongruous, petty, stress-inducing, unfair, and otherwise ridiculous demands of the 21st Century. Principle #1: Rules are social contrivances that are intended to make life more efficient and effective. However, rules are made to be broken unless you are the rulemaker in which case rules are made to be strictly enforced. Decide which one you want to be. Then you will know what to do.

An Arabic proverb has been following me around recently: "A bird does not sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song." I have always wondered why people do the things they do for a living--besides collecting the materials rewards necessary to live. Why do physicians practice medicine? Why do plumbers plumb? What purposes are professional tennis players pursuing? What do computer repair techs hope to accomplish? Instead of doing what they do, why don't they do research, or pave roads, or play soccer, or fix crankshafts? Do birds sing because they are providing information to the world? Or do they sing because singing is what they are here to do? Do they sing because they need to give their gift of song to the universe?

And finally, this just in from Ferdinand, we have learned that the responsible Republican candidates for President are being held at an undisclosed location under the protective custody of Jimmy Hoffa. They are being kept healthy and safe in anticipation of  Dick Chaney's needing a real heart to replace the 1957 Chevy engine that is currently keeping him alive. Although a real heart is somewhat more fragile, it is considerably less bulky. If it appears that one of the current Republican candidates is in danger of winning the 2012 Presidential election, Cheney has agreed to allow one responsible Republican of his choosing to leave temporarily. Hoffa however is holding out for an apology from Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood for slightly humanizing him in their latest film.

And finally finally, this is the picture of the day--Gilligan, our senior miniature schnauzer and the most sensible sentient being with whom I am acquainted.  Gilligan also keeps her ears tuned to the rhythms of the universe and occasionally shares dog wisdom. She is the most in-the-moment creature around. Would that we were all more like Gilly.

Lightning, Rain, and Corporate College Football

This weekend, a rip in the fabric in the universe became evident when three football games--Michigan - Western Michigan, Notre Dame - South Florida, and West Virginia - Marshall--were first delayed and then over early because of lightning strikes and heavy rain. In addition, the Sprint Cup race at Atlanta was postponed for 36 hours due to downpours of rain. Apparently Tropical Storm Lee is taking the brunt for wreaking havoc with my entertainment needs. And again, we see how sports has revealed its corporate dark roots.

There are a number of things wrong with this picture that point out seismic flaws in the way we think. Ending a football game without its being over is just wrong. How were the fans of the Mountaineers for instance supposed to celebrate a victory for a game that wasn't really over. Even a lightning strike wouldn't have lit up a rain-drenched couch in Morgantown on Sunday night. And while we're at it, ESPN reported--with video footage no less--that a fan whose faculties may have been impaired was struck by lightning during a rain delay. Apparently, this poor soul had overdone it with the beer being sold at Mountaineer Field for the first time, and he was a little slow leaving the stands--being prone and semi-comatose and all. A Sporting News report on Sunday said WVU said ESPN got it wrong--another instance of inventive Mountaineer fans getting over on the city boys who are good looking enough to hold a microphone. No self-respecting WVU journalism grad would have fallen for such a thing; it's just too obvious.

Rain-outs and lightning strikes haven't until recently been an issue for football games. Back in the old days, a football stadium was built of concrete and wooden bleacher seats. Today, stadiums (yeah, I know, the plural is stadia) are steel benches on steel bleachers with stories of luxury boxes, press boxes, and super-score boards--veritable lightning rods. So, it isn't out of the question that some poor beer soaked fan might get zapped by a lightning bolt if a storm happened to act up within a six-mile radius. And player's equipment nowadays is bound to attract a zap too, especially headgear. Back in the days of leather helmets and pads, it was slog it out to the bitter end through the rain and mud, no matter what. This weekend, we had to endure emptying 60,000 ticket-holders into the bowels of the stadium and the Indoor Practice Facility (for football??? Speechless). I wonder if the luxury box occupants had to leave their cushy confines in the sky. Having the dough to watch an outside game inside is what being an insider is all about--that and a wet bar.

So, it's the 21st Century, and football has fallen victim to the weather. At Mountaineer Field (actually Mylan Puskar Stadium, named for a pharmaceutical company owner), the Mountaineer faithful had to evac to the Caperton (named for a former Governor and insurance company heir) Indoor Practice Facility. I am sure fan safety, and not university liability, drove these decisions, just as allowing more fans to buy tickets drove decisions to build stadium super-structures that attract lightning bolts. I mean, how often might a thunderstorm roll through a university town in the Southeast during hurricane season. I guess we won't see many more Mud Bowls, Ice Bowls, or Snow Bowls. But I can't help but lament the passing of a era when mud was mud, lightning was lightning, and young men toughing it out was what we loved to watch on TV.

A Carlitudinous Education Budget Solution

We have been thinking a lot about the current budget crisis in most of the states, and we have come up with what we believe most will call a brilliant solution--quite possibly a Nobel Prize winner. So, get ready. Here it is.

In order to close the huge budget gap that exists in American education, we propose that states eliminate ninth grade. It's all really quite simple. Of all the grades, which one is most troublesome? By eliminating ninth grade, states, and therefore school districts, could probably save a bunch from their school budgets. And eliminating ninth grade would also take care of a lot of the bad press that schools get, because ninth grade scores are often abysmal and thus schools do not do very well on standard indicators.

In most school districts, ninth grade is one of the biggest, if not the biggest grade? Kids get to ninth grade and get stuck. Which grade has the worst test scores, the highest drop-out rate, the lowest attendance rate? Which grade has more discipline problems? Which grade drives teachers craziest?  If there were no ninth grade, there would be no ninth grade test scores, no ninth grade drop-outs, no ninth grade absentees, and no ninth grade suspensions. High schools at least would show a huge improvement, and they would pull the rest of the district along with them.

NInth grade students need more special programs, more special services, smaller classes. Many of these could be cut if the ninth graders weren't around. So we would be able to dis-employ a minimum of 7.7% of teachers (13 grades, eliminate one equals 7.7%) plus a few administrators, counselors, special ed teachers, remedial specialists, and a few more for good measure. There would be less tests to buy, less copy paper, fewer textbooks, fewer books for the library, and less of that school stuff in general. Also, we would be able to cut JayVee sports, because there wouldn't be any ninth graders to play, and that could probably apply to extra-curriculars in general. Our crack school finance team estimates that school budgets could be reduced by a minimum of 10%. (Fairness disclosure: We cannot provide documentation for our calculations, because we ran out of adding machine tape during the run-up to writing this column.)

The first criticism we are sure to get is "what happens to the students whose grade is eliminated?" Well, first, we won't call it the elimination of a grade. Let's call it a sabbatical. When students get to ninth grade, they get a sabbatical. They have already been in school eight or nine years--some maybe ten or eleven. The next three years are going to be tough, getting ready for life in the real world. Kids need a break; they need a sabbatical. The ninth grade year is their sabbatical year.

"What will ninth grade kids on sabbatical do for a whole year?" First, not our problem. When kids are not in school, they are the parents' problem, the community's problem. They do something during the summer or on snow days. They'll figure it out. Solutions always come for unexpected problems--right. Second, ninth grade kids are old enough to take care of themselves, pretty much. Leave it to their ingenuity. They'll come up with something. Finally, with all the opportunities for learning out there in the world from TV and the Internets, they'll probably have the chance to learn a lot of things we never would have planned for anyway. Plus they will learn to appreciate school more, so when they come back, they will be much more ready to latch on to the stuff on the tests.

Our last argument--who teaches ninth graders in the current system? New teachers who don't have a lot of time in the system. So, eliminating ninth grade would affect the jobs of younger, less experienced teachers. We won't have the problems cutting them loose that we'd have with the older, well-established teachers who know the union rules and can figure out how to hold on to their jobs. Plus, younger teachers are more resilient anyway. They'll land on their feet. Another year or two at Wal-Mart will be good life experience.

So, that's our solution. Take out ninth grade. Better test scores. Fewer problems. Fewer squawking teachers. Better motivated students when they return. Most of you can remember ninth grade. It wasn't all that great anyway.

Chronicling the Electronic Life

The view from whence I will be doing most of today's work, inconveniencing electrons in the service of teaching and learning. Stay tuned for updates from my adventures in cyber-professor land--Carlitude and the Life Electronic.

Toddlers on the Loose

Dear Parents:

Letting your toddler run loose in a restaurant does indeed spare you the cost of child care while you are out for dinner, but did you ever think that the rest of us may not think your little darling is either as charming, cute, or precocious as you and Grandma and Grandpa do? Please stifle the little goober. Some think that children should be seen and not heard. I would extend that further. Children should only be seen or heard when under the care of a responsible adult. Obviously, you need not apply.

Curmudgeoningly yours,

Uncle Carlitude

New fave election candidate

Saw this campaign sign in Palm Coast, FL and was taken by the name.

Live from ISTE 2010

Well, ISTE 2010 is about to start, and I am hobbled a bit by tech problems here at the biggest ed tech conference in the world. Sash, the costs of being over the high tech edge. But we will persevere and provide updates over the next few days.

Denver is beautiful. The no humidity weather is striking. And living in the middle of high rectitude is an experience all by itself.

More later this pm.

Coach sued for requesting Facebook logins

Coach sued for requesting Facebook logins

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Sanford and Palin

This just in, Sarah Palin's rushed resignation became clearer today when a reporter for The State, South Carolina's major newspaper, reviewed her motes from a Mark Sanford interview. "Who knew? Argentina and Alaska both start and end in A and they both have long coast lines for cruise ships. It was an understandable mistake," said the unnamed, embarassed newswoman. Neither Governor Palin nor Governor Sanford could be reached for comment.