College Football

[bluetick]

It's personal

Before Donald Trump was a politician or even a reality television star, he was a professional football owner. The league was the star-crossed USFL in the mid-1980s, and the team was the New Jersey Generals.

Then real-estate magnate Trump bought the team in 1984 and helped encourage the USFL, which was then playing its games in the spring, to move to the autumn, where it would go head-to-head with the NFL.

The NFL crushed the fledgling USFL. Mr Trump unsuccessfully tried to sue the larger league for antitrust violations, many teams went bankrupt, and the USFL eventually folded.

Fast forward to 2014, and Mr Trump had another run-in with the NFL, when he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills team. He was outbid by an energy-sector billionaire and - in a move that should now be quite familiar - took to Twitter to vent his anger.

"Even though I refused to pay a ridiculous price for the Buffalo Bills, I would have produced a winner," he tweeted. "Now that won't happen."

He also called NFL games "boring" and "too soft", adding that he was glad the deal didn't go through.

In other words, Mr Trump has a longstanding grudge against the NFL - and if there's one thing we know about the president, it's that he likes to settle old scores.

Hey, maybe it's not all about racism after all.

[bluetick]

It's impulsive

When talking about Donald Trump's actions, it's often tempting to find order where only chaos exists; to ascribe grand schemes when there's an easier, simpler explanation.

The president isn't playing three-dimensional chess and devising plans within plans.

With his NFL outburst, the president could once again be reacting to events, not directing them. On Friday night he gave a long speech filled with everything that was bubbling through his mind at that particular moment.

If the media had focused on his dismissal of the Russia investigation as a hoax or his insistence that winning the popular vote in the presidential election last year would have been easy if he had tried, then that's what the president would have spent the weekend tweeting about.

Instead, here we are, on day four of a furore over players kneeling and flags flying, free speech protections and employee obligations.

If there is no grand strategy, then modern American politics is like a spinning top. There's no way of telling where it's going to go next.

Meh. The least interesting reason...but probably the most accurate.

[aTm]

I'm sure we're all glad you found another thread that you could post 4 or 5 trump articles in a row on...

[Professor Tiger]

Tick, what does all that stuff you posted have to do with Trump colluding with the Russians, and being run out of office by Labor Day? Has that great hope fallen on hard times?

[bluetick]

I'm sure we're all glad you found another thread that you could post 4 or 5 trump articles in a row on...

Sorry. It was 1 article and I broke it up into 3 posts.

I'll not make that mistake again. It's your show and I really appreciate you letting me participate.

[bluetick]

Tick, what does all that stuff you posted have to do with Trump colluding with the Russians, and being run out of office by Labor Day? Has that great hope fallen on hard times?

You claiming that I ever said Trump would be gone by Labor Day is a goddamned lie and you know it. AA was right about you all along.

[Saint]

I could care less about who stands or who sits for the national anthem. Frankly, I wish it wasn't even played before every goddamn ballgame played. It's overkill and devalues what should be a sentimental song.

More importantly, I'm sick of all the fake patriotism every fucking where you look. Who gives a shit if you salute at the flag if that's all you do? Try making your area a better place by being a good neighbor and make your city a better place by being a good citizen. You don't own the right to say what Americans should or should not do and every fucking one of has had some family member in the armed forces.

If you've spent more than 2 minutes talking about this anthem shit, you're a fucking asshole.

[eCat]

I could care less about who stands or who sits for the national anthem. Frankly, I wish it wasn't even played before every goddamn ballgame played. It's overkill and devalues what should be a sentimental song.

More importantly, I'm sick of all the fake patriotism every fucking where you look. Who gives a shit if you salute at the flag if that's all you do? Try making your area a better place by being a good neighbor and make your city a better place by being a good citizen. You don't own the right to say what Americans should or should not do and every fucking one of has had some family member in the armed forces.

If you've spent more than 2 minutes talking about this anthem shit, you're a fucking asshole.

no you don't own the right , but you own the right to react to as you see fit.

I don't care to watch a football game and see players protesting, nor do I want to hear the sportscasters give their opinion on it. I want to watch the game and move on. They wouldn't even show the anthem before a regular game to begin with if some jackass hadn't decided he was going to make it a political statement.

[hedge]

I haven't watched an entire NFL regular season game this century...

[eCat]

Take heed NFL

---------------
When the Mizzou football team vowed to quit all football-related activities in November 2015 until the university system president was removed or resigned, The New York Times cheered the players for "lending heft" to the racial activists' cause. Two years later, the Times had to admit that all the campus hysteria and the administration's decision to cave to it turned out to be exactly what many predicted it would be: an absolute "disaster" for the university. Over the next two years, freshmen enrollment dropped a stunning 35%, forcing the school to shut down seven dorms and lay off over 400 employees. As for the football team, which saw millions in donations disappear overnight, well, it's now a full-fledged dumpster fire.

Following a brutal 2016 season, the Mizzou Tigers have started off 2017 by getting torched by three of their four opponents. Mizzou's only win so far is over the miserable Missouri State Bears (which is also currently 1-3). Against the three Power Five conference teams they've played so far, the Tigers have been outscored by a total of 81 points. They lost 31-13 to middling South Carolina, were hammered 35-3 by mediocre Purdue, and were annihilated 51-14 by an offensively-challenged Auburn.

In the 2016, the year after letting the racial protests eclipse football, Mizzou had an abysmal season. They didn't even come close to getting a bowl berth, going just 4 and 8 and winning a grand total of two SEC games. Their only other two wins came against Delaware State and Eastern Michigan.

As the once cheerleading Times was forced to acknowledge in July, the university that really got the campus racial protest movement going is now a lesson in what happens when an administration allows social justice activists to lay siege to an institution.

In the fall of 2015, a grassy quadrangle at the center of the University of Missouri became known nationwide as the command center of an escalating protest.

Students complaining of official inaction in the face of racial bigotry joined forces with a graduate student on a hunger strike. Within weeks, with the aid of the football team, they had forced the university system president and the campus chancellor to resign.

It was a moment of triumph for the protesting students. But it has been a disaster for the university.

While the Tigers' failing football team might be one of the more glaring of the consequences, the real story is the 180-degree reversal of the university's once upward trend. The 35% decrease in freshmen enrollment over the last two years is even more devastating in light of the growth the university was experiencing before the protests. And the administration itself has been forced to admit that the fallout from the campus hysteria is what's driving their decline.

"The university administration acknowledges that the main reason [for the sharp decline in enrollment] is a backlash from the events of 2015, as the campus has been shunned by students and families put off by, depending on their viewpoint, a culture of racism or one where protesters run amok," the Times reports.

"The general consensus was that it was because of the aftermath of what happened in November 2015," admitted the new system president Mun Choi. “There were students from both in state and out of state that just did not apply, or those who did apply but decided not to attend.”
-----------------

que Cletus to come one and tell us no one should care about Mizzou University

[crashcourse]

Better solution - stop playing the anthem. It's a sporting event not a fucking call to arms. It's a completely ridiculous tradition and now is the perfect time to end it.

wrong

dead wrong

go watch the indy 500 or the Kentucky derby or any myriad of sporting events that the crowd shows up to participate and watch the pre sporting festivities
watch every superbowl and half wont remember the winner of the superbow but they remember whitney Houston singing the national antehem

go to any Friday night highschool and watch some hs kid nail the rendition as only a highschooler can do

sporting events are the only time most here the national anthem--I believe people have a right to protest if they want but they also have the right to be booed and ther livelihood threatened if they choose not to participate. as a member of the military my livelihood would have been devalued if I chose to kneel

but most importantly we don't take the rights away of the thousands who show up to watch that flag unfurled to watch that honor guard take the flag out with those in uniform often doing the honors--to watch the eagle fly around the stadium--to hear some VIP local or national usually nail it and even to watch the failures as it is a hard song to sing. You wanna piss the nfl paying public off go ahead and take it away so you can have your little protest about injustice and please the left about how rotten everybody is when it comes to race but don't expect me to give a dime to your product ever again

[hedge]

" They lost 31-13 to middling South Carolina, were hammered 35-3 by mediocre Purdue, and were annihilated 51-14 by an offensively-challenged Auburn."

That reminded me of Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Hit by Jefferson... crushed by Jefferson... maimed by Jefferson...

[BigRedMan]

I want to watch ESPN, NFL, NHL, MLB, and NBA to see someone playing a sport. I don't care about their political values or views. I want to see the best athletes in the world at their peak playing a child's game. I don't want to be reminded about politics or what is going on. This is our escape and to come together as people to back a team. Just look at the Cubs winning the world series last year. Watch the videos of the crowds together. There was no race relations. No one taking a knee. It was all about watching their team finally win it all and then celebrating together. The whites didn't go off by themselves and celebrate. The LGBT didn't just hug each other. It was unity and that is what sports is suppose to do.

[hedge]

Why is anything related to the national anthem (or any other ostensibly patriotic icon or meme) always referred back to the military? Why is it disrespecting "the military" by taking a knee any more than it's disrespecting teachers or coal miners or any other citizen with any job or no job? It's always "they died defending our freedoms", well, watching this Vietnam documentary, they weren't defending anybody's freedom there, and before anybody lashes out, it's like Stu said, we all have had somebody in our fambly serve, I had an uncle who died in Vietnam (never knew him of course), but whether you did or didn't, you can still rationally discuss whether anybody, since the war of 1812, really, has died defending our freedom. Most of the wars are concocted for some bullshit political reason by old men whose own children aren't being sent, it's not b/c we were attacked or are in any danger, imminent or otherwise.

But irregardless of all that, the national anthem belongs to everyone, but for some reason it's only the military that is being disrespected. It's just another way to cow people into compliance, b/c nobody wants to be seen as against the military. I just resent being manipulated by the bullshit lie that it's disrespecting the military whenever anybody does anything "unpatriotic", just like when they tried to say Vietnam protesters were being unpatriotic and didn't care about the military, I'm sure some didn't, but to me those people who were trying to get the boys out of a stupid ass war were being more patriotic and cared more about the actual people in the military than some mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging beer gut redneck who sat around bellowing about how patriotic he was and b/c he supported the war then he therefor supported the troops...

[hedge]

Before anybody has a heart attack, yes, I believe we were on the side of right and good in WWII, plus we were attacked at Pearl Harbor (of course reasonable people can discuss why were even got to claim an group of islands 1000 miles off our coast as "ours" in the first place, but that's a different discussion), so OK, throw that one in there too...

[eCat]

Why is anything related to the national anthem (or any other ostensibly patriotic icon or meme) always referred back to the military? Why is it disrespecting "the military" by taking a knee any more than it's disrespecting teachers or coal miners or any other citizen with any job or no job? It's always "they died defending our freedoms", well, watching this Vietnam documentary, they weren't defending anybody's freedom there, and before anybody lashes out, it's like Stu said, we all have had somebody in our fambly serve, I had an uncle who died in Vietnam (never knew him of course), but whether you did or didn't, you can still rationally discuss whether anybody, since the war of 1812, really, has died defending our freedom. Most of the wars are concocted for some bullshit political reason by old men whose own children aren't being sent, it's not b/c we were attacked or are in any danger, imminent or otherwise.

But irregardless of all that, the national anthem belongs to everyone, but for some reason it's only the military that is being disrespected. It's just another way to cow people into compliance, b/c nobody wants to be seen as against the military. I just resent being manipulated by the bullshit lie that it's disrespecting the military whenever anybody does anything "unpatriotic", just like when they tried to say Vietnam protesters were being unpatriotic and didn't care about the military, I'm sure some didn't, but to me those people who were trying to get the boys out of a stupid ass war were being more patriotic and cared more about the actual people in the military than some mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging beer gut redneck who sat around bellowing about how patriotic he was and b/c he supported the war then he therefor supported the troops...

its not just the military. Its about the freedoms we have. Do I think a soldier fighting in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq or Aghanistan are protecting our freedoms here at home - no, not one bit - but that doesn't change that Americans - many drafted into the military - went off wearing the flag on their chest and put their life on the line to protect our way of life. To continue to make America the strongest nation on this planet so that we don't have to worry about invasion or attack. We stand in reverence to honor those people and this concept to the anthem - and sporting events, for whatever reason - have come to be the event where we choose to do this - probably because its the only event where communities come together on a regular basis without religion or politics driving them.

When Kaepernick kneels in protest saying that flag and what has been done in sacrifice for it does not represent him - well fuck Kaepernick and the NFL in general if they want to take on a us against the world mentality to be overpaid prima dona's. Drive a forklift for a living.

[eCat]

That said, I get what Trump is doing.

Manipulating the public , especially on not standing for the national anthem is low hanging fruit. Its easy to gin people up, make overpaid athletes , especially black ones who have in some cases chose a lie as their cause (see Hands up , Don't Shoot), a focal point and a distraction at the same time.

But that doesn't change that I disagree with the NFL players stance. Our country has plenty of problems, disrespecting the people that sacrificed to give all of us an opportunity to be out there enjoying a game on Sunday, isn't one problem we need to have.

[hedge]

"When Kaepernick kneels in protest saying that flag and what has been done in sacrifice for it does not represent him - well fuck Kaepernick and the NFL in general if they want to take on a us against the world mentality to be overpaid prima dona's. Drive a forklift for a living."

I'm sure many said the same thing about Muhammed Ali when he refused to go to Vietnam and said stuff like "Ain't no Viet Cong ever called me nigger." Of course, he did have to pay the price for that, but he was right and everybody who disparaged him was wrong...

[Cletus]

NFL players are overpaid? The league generates $15B+ in revenue and the players get less than half of that. They are the product. Granted, they have their union to blame for the shitty deal they've got but I can't see any argument that they deserve less than they are getting.

[hedge]

I get respect for the military up to a point, I just don't like being manipulated. I always thank vets for their service if they're wearing a hat or have a sticker on their car, esp. older ones who probably served in WWII (maybe that's just b/c of extra respect of the elderly) and have paid the tab for guys in uniform at restaurants (OK, it was Appleby's, but still). Next door neighbor at the beach was a colonel, I always thank him for his service and I can tell he appreciates it. But at the same time, anybody who goes into the military these days knows what they're doing, nobody is being forced. They made a business decision that was right for them. Even so, I still believe they deserve our respect and appreciation, but I just don't buy the "they died for our freedoms" line, not when it's being directed at people who are exercising that very freedom. If you're not allowed to exercise it, it's not really freedom, at all.

And I don't think that any of these players taking a knee or whatever are doing it as a sign of disrespect to the military or the flag or whatever else they're peddling on Fox News. I don't believe they hate the country or anything remotely like that, they're just making a statement about an issue that's important to them and that's important period. Whether it's effective or not, I don't know, but trying to say that you are disrespectful and hate our country and don't appreciate our freedoms, and that the only way you can display that respect and love and freedom and appreciation is to act in only one certain way, to me that is more disrespectful of our freedoms than taking a knee...