Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Mid-Night Ramblings of Wayne Bass II


So, we have to wait a little bit until the Bowls start and I am having a hard time getting to sleep so I thought I would give a small shout out to my College Football Program at Brigham Young University in Idaho. You may know that with the announcement of Ricks College becoming a 4-year University there was also an announcement made about our sports program. THAT IT’S BEEN CUT! Now this is old news people have been complaining about this since June of 2000, so why talk about it now. Because it still sucks that we don’t have real sports in Rexburg! Students at the University are currently forced to attend local high school games which are fun don’t get me wrong, but we’ve already done the High School thing! Some say hey you guys have a fine intracollegiate program. Yeah, on paper I am sure to some it might look cool, but to actually be there it's really boring. The only people who really come are those who feel obligated by their friends who are playing. That’s why you’ll see the brethren at the occasional BYU Football or basketball game but to my relocation none of the brethren or even President Clark or Bednar have been spotted in the stadium to see BYU-I face off to rival BYU-I. Here are some quick stats about The Ricks Athletic Program:
Ø 17 national titles
Ø 61 individual national titles
Ø 100 first-team All-Americans
Ø More than 25 alumni who went on to play Pro. just in the sport of Football alone
Not bad for 72 years of playing sports. I just wanted to state for the record that I have enjoyed my stay in Rexburg, I love this University, but I just feel that I have missed out on a small part of the college experience by not having a team to support. I have heard a lot of reasoning as to why we don’t have sports and I have heard a lot of reasons how we can. One and probably the main reason we don’t have sports is because of the money it takes to support an Intercollegiate Sports Team. I have heard that there are better ways to spend the tithe payer’s money then to offer a scholarship to a Linebacker who can’t even spell his name correctly. (That sounds like an overgeneralization to me) Let’s start off by talking about how Football Scholarships can really help people. Take Phillip Banks for example or more commonly known as Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil grew up on a small farm, and his parents didn’t have money to send young Phillip to school. But, thanks to a Football Scholarship he was able to attend Princeton. Once he receive a first rate education he went on to have a successful career as a Lawyer, and now he’s a Judge. Aside from being a respected citizen Phillip has raised a wonderful family and was even able to take in a misguided youth from the mean streets of Philadelphia with a struggling rap career and help turned his life around. Today, that young man saves the world one Motion Picture at a time. Keep in mind sport fans that it all started with a football scholarship! There are other ways to fund sport programs other then tithing. I mean schools do it all over the nation! Let’s just copy what they do! My sister use to work at the alumni center and she says that a large margin say that once we bring back football then they will open their wallets. I use to drive a Fertilizer Truck and it gave me the opportunity to speak with the “townies” and really get to know them. I feel that the general feeling is that they don’t want the College Students here. Which is understandable there’s a little bit of a generation gap thing going on and all. But, during the course of my sociological research when ever I’d bring up football I could almost detect a small glimpse of a smile that would creep in the corner of their mouth and with a twinkle in their eye they would start reminiscing of the good ole days of Marching Bands, Tailgaters, Foam Fingers, gut busting hot dogs, and hard hitting Safeties. I could feel the walls were starting to come down and for a split second there no such thing as student and townie, for a moment there were just Vikings. But then the clouds would darken and as fast as the smile appeared it would vanish with the mention of the name BEDNAR. But, Elder Bednar is not to blame a lot of people made this decision he was just the face of the decision. I am starting to feel kinda tired and basically the main point I was trying to get around to is that Intracollegiate sports suck! Let’s bring back real football!

4 comments:

Jolayne said...

AMEN!

Thome said...

DON'T EFFIN CALL US TOWNIES!!

wayne bass said...

Sorry Thome I meant no disrespect man. Do you perfer the term Locals?

wayne bass said...

Or, would Townie American be more appropriate?