Even students are getting a tad queasy about college football money :)

It is too bad that the term is coming to an end--just when students are brimming with so much opinions that they want to include me in the conversations.  Three of those conversations were all about college sports--football, to be specific.

A couple of days ago, "D" came to my office to talk about this paper. "BTW, Dr. Khé, you went to USC, right?"

"Yes" I replied.

"So, did you watch the USC-Ducks game?"

He was taken aback when I said I did not.

His reaction made me think that he was expecting me to gloat about USC killing UO's national championship aspirations with that upset victory.  I felt compelled to explain, which I did.

"As a graduate student, I used to follow football.  And later too.  But then the more I seriously started thinking about academics and students, all I could see in the football games was coaches earning millions of dollars.  So, I don't watch anymore."

It seemed like it took "D" by surprise.  When he asked me more on this topic, I asked him if he had seen the latest news about Bellotti and his retirement income.  He hadn't.  So, I pulled up my blog post on it, and it was neat to see the jaw-dropped expression on the Duck fan.

"He gets $41,000 a month in retirement?  But he also works for ESPN!"

I wonder if he will think about this when he watches the Ducks play UCLA for the Pac-12 title.  I hope he does.

Earlier today, I got an email from "S":

In case you did not see this (though I suspect you probably did), here is a news story that I had to read a second time to make sure the numbers were, in fact, monthly salaries.

Yes, she was also referring to the same Bellotti dollar figure news.

To cap it all, as I was walking towards the library, a voice yelling "Dr. Khé" forced me out of my thoughts.  It was "T," who is a football player too.  He, also, engaged me in a short conversation about the money in college sports.

I told "T" that I am all for students playing sports.  "It is the money that bugs me " I told him.  He agreed with me--at least, that is what he said :)

I wish I could bug all those three with this latest update:

At a time when college football programs are coming under fire for lionizing their coaches, Ohio State University hired Urban Meyer and agreed to pay him $4 million a year. That makes Meyer one of the highest paid college football coaches in the country.
Meyer will earn three times more than Ohio State President E. Gordan Gee, the nation’s highest paid university president. On most campuses, coaches top the payroll. And despite the economy, budget cuts and increasing tuition, coach salaries continue to climb.

So, the joke is on whom? Students? Faculty? Taxpayers? All of the above?

Oh, btw, this is the same OSU's president Gee who in a brutally frank manner hoped that the football coach would not fire him; remember that?

As my neighbor often comments, there are only two religions in America now: college football and NFL!