Not feeling it

Next week the NCAA men's basketball tournament -- March Madness -- begins.  I'm just not feeling it.

I think mostly my apathy has to do with the fact that Purdue won't be "dancing."  But I also think some of my ennui has to do with the change that college basketball has undergone over the years.  I'm sure there have always been players who weren't academically qualified to attend college, but someone in admissions bent the rules a little bit so they could get in.  Or maybe a few subtle, but crucial, alterations were made to a high school transcript or entrance exam to boost a sub-par GPA.  It happens.  It's just that now, it seems like it happens all the time, right and left, everywhere you look.

College athletes these days, in the marquee, big moneymaking sports, don't even make much of an attempt to disguise the fact that a year or two at Ole State U is just a speed bump in the road to their professional sports career.  One football player at THE Ohio State University actually tweeted that he didn't understand why anyone expected him to attend class.  Before his Twitter account was shut down, he tweeted that classes were a waste of time, that that wasn't why he was at OSU (where else?), and that wasn't what "they" were paying him to do.  Hello, NCAA Committee on Infractions?  Do you still have some hotels in Columbus on speed dial?  You might want to come back to the Buckeye State and start another investigation of this stellar institution of higher education.

I guess I'm showing my age when I reminisce about the "old days" when players competed for the love of the sport and the honor of their school, when student athletes were actually students, and when college coaches weren't paid a higher salary than the President of the United States and even some coaches in the professional sports arena.

The big dance starts next week, but I think I'm going to sit this one out.