What Price Dignity?

You know $800,000 will buy a bunch of stuff that a college athletic department needs. It can pay salaries, mowers to cut grass, light bulbs in gyms, paper clips and computer keyboards; but can it assuage the psychological gut shot that a bunch of Vandals absorbed amid Kenan’s lofty (and very wet) pines on Saturday last?

Let’s be clear….. UNC played (and paid) Idaho because Tennessee backed out of a home-home series causing Carolina’s schedule-guy Larry Gallo to go on Craig’s List looking for a substitute and suitable opponent.

Savannah State was already taken as well as all 27 “directional schools” in Michigan.   Is there really a NorthEastMiddle Michigan? Is their mascot a compass?

Is it just me, but is this sacrificial-lambs-for-rent syndrome a new phenomenon?

The first week of a season has always been “bullies beat up on dweebs” week (Tennessee vs N.C. State – ouch!) but here we are in Week Five and schools are still playing “we’re playing WHO” opponents. Is this because of expanded schedules, attempts to pad a school/coaches W-L record, or some sick impulse deep in our psyche to pound the bejeebers out of a helpless whozit? ….. or have the bejeebers pounded out of you by a juggernaut?

I am not opposed to this phenomenon. As noted in an earlier treatise; I much prefer offensive explosions to “pitchers’ duels”.

The key to soccer as a spectator sport is to award twelve points per goal. Then final scores would be 36-12 which seems infinitely more exciting than 3-1…. no? You don’t think American fans would buy that ruse huh? Some American fans attend WNBA games proving why NASA doesn’t hire sports fans to do their rocket science. I digress…..

The Fighting Fedorians coulda hung a hundred on the visiting Vandals if they’d a wanted to. But Larry pulled his 3-deeps at halftime, playing the second-half using The Marching Tar Heels woodwind section and pretty much every UNC student not named Drew Davis. Admit it….. you WERE wondering if Son Of Butch was going to get his uniform dirty.

The difference between “running up the score” and “showing mercy” may depend on whether you are Sitting Bull or General Custer. By pulling his 3-deeps and going with the piccolo players for the final 30 minutes, Larry tried to bring about a competitive balance.   I’m sure Idaho coach Rob Akey (Breaky?) knew Larry was being as charitable as he could without having his 5^th string QB take three knees and punt on every series. ….. and he knew he was getting that check for $800,000 simollians after their post-game handshake.

As they say in Idaho….. $800,000 ain’t small potatoes.

PS: Memo To Georgia Tech’s version of Larry Gallo. Be wary of scheduling “Middle” schools.   The Rambling Wrecks were wrecked by a “middle school” from some backwater crossroads in Tennessee. Somewhere Bobby Dodd weeps.

And have I told you about meeting “The Fabulous Comparato Twins”? Oops, all outta time and space.   J

Want more BobLee? ….. www.bobleesays.com

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