Tuesday, August 19, 2008

It's Just A Game



What do you think Walter Camp would think if he was able to see the monster known as College Football today? You may be asking yourself, who is Walter Camp? He is known as the "Father of American Football". Camp entered Yale in 1876 and served as the Yale Football Team's Captain from 1878-1879. For over 50 years, he served on many different football rules committees. On top developing what would become a multi-billion dollar sport, Camp was also a journalist. At the time of his death in 1925, he had write nearly 30 book and over 250 article -- many of which appeared in Harper's Weekly.

Now that I have introduced you to Mr. Camp, what do you think he would think knowing that lives of journalists and their families are threatened every year because of the game he made such great contributions to build up? Host of The Big Tailgate on
WPTF-AM in Raleigh, N.C., Taylor Zarzour, has received multiple death threats for leaving #7 West Virginia, #10 Auburn and #18 Tennessee off of his voting list for the Associated Press' Preseason Top 25. Although I do believe all three of those teams deserve to be included in the Preseason Top 25, in no way do I believe that Zarzour, his wife or his children deserve to be threatened over a list that ultimately has no significance... Or at least it doesn't have any significance when compared to a human life.

The next time you get angry about a bad call, a bad remark, a bad play or whatever else can possibly happen to upset you over a football game, remember that this money tree known as College Football was once just a bunch of overgrown kids playing for the pure love of the game. It was not about advertising dollars, paths to the NFL or recruiting. It was strictly college students playing to pass their free time

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