at least until next week. I’m with UGa, which came out roaring against Michigan New Year’s Eve to become the challenger for the national title on Jan. 13. It will be a rematch against Alabama. I’m nervous about it. Alabama decimated us in the SEC championship.
College football, at least in the South and Midwest, is a charming, almost medieval remnant of a previous era. It is actually a mythic re-enactment of a nation going to battle against invaders, cheered on by blasting trumpets, exultant drum cadences, and bouncy, bubbly babes. The hours-long pre-game tailgating ritual is the civilians coming out to greet the warriors as they mount their steeds to go into battle. Perhaps the tail-gating is also a ritualization of the supply-line chains, though here the victuals are consumed in advance.
It is us vs. them; our team vs their team; our tribe vs. their tribe. Since it is ritualized, there is no long-lasting enmity between winners and losers. The battle finally ends… until next year.
But who is “us”? In researching for this post, I found a site that lists the entire roster with place of origin. I was shocked to find 133 entries for the Georgia football roster. Apparently this normal, however.
Out of these 133, 82 are from Georgia. This is 62%, higher than I would have predicted.
By coincidence, almost the exact same percentage are Negroes. (About 12% of the lineup does not have a pic, meaning they could be either Negro or Honky as far as we can tell, so I counted them with the same weighting of the ones with pictures. However, since Negroes are more likely to have neglected to submit their photos, the fraction of Negroes is likely higher.) Obviously, more than 62% of the starters are Negroes. From the highlights reel of the Michigan game, it looks like there were 3-4 Honkies on offense, and zero on defense, which would indicate 82% Negro starters (not considering special teams). The State of Georgia is 32% Negro overall, meaning they have at least 2x over-representation on the flagship football team.
All this factual foundation leads to my thesis: whether looked at from an ethnic standpoint or mere residency, the tribal reenactment of college football is barely hanging on by a thread.
In other words, suppose literally none of the Georgia players were actually from Georgia, and they were all Negroes. Or, let’s up the ante to reduce the emotional temperature — suppose all of them were Japanese and Indians, and not from Georgia. Can anyone believe that people would still be saying proudly, “this is our team, we’re very proud.”
What if it were all just a money game, with the richest schools hiring the best players, and the poorer schools suffering the consequences? All we could say is, “our Negroes are faster than your Negroes, at least this year.”
So there is a contradiction between reality and the underlying premise of the tailgates, parades, roaring brass, thundering drums, and bouncing babes.
I think steps could be taken to remedy this serious problem, or at least stanch the bleeding. The NCAA should divide up the country into territories surrounding each university, such that the population densities are accounted for. Then, there should be a rule that 80% of the active players must have gone to high school in that university’s designated territory.
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