The Beauty of College Sports
about the author
Allan Joseph is a sophomore Economics and Pre-medical student at the University of Notre Dame. He covers healthcare, the economy, and occasionally, college sports for NextGen Journal.
America is a nation obsessed with its professional sports. The National Football League (NFL) is by far the most profitable and popular sports league in the country, and the NBA, MLB, and NHL also enjoy near-dominant status on wide swaths of television screens across North America. In some respects, it’s understandable for this to be the case – professionals are, after all, the most highly skilled athletes in their field. What I’m here to argue, however, is that collegiate athletics are the best representation of everything good about sports. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be occupying this space with my ruminations on a variety of sporting topics, but I think you, as my reader, ought to know why I will probably focus on college athletics. Generally I’ll try to keep it light and humorous, but this piece will be an exception to the rule.
I’m a sports fan, yes. I watch ESPN like it’s my job (and now that I’m a sports columnist, I can say it is), and I have at least some idea of what’s going on in most sports around the world, from football to international soccer to cricket. I follow the Browns (and hey, maybe that’s why I don’t like the NFL that much), Cavaliers, Yankees, and Blue Jackets. But I will always take more joy from watching Notre Dame play Stanford or watching Ohio State play Michigan than I will from any of those professional teams. Why? College sports are never me-first. Professional sports are driven by the player, for better or for worse. The history and traditions of the team, the philosophy of the coach, and the notion of representing something greater than oneself are all secondary to the player’s contract and accomplishments in professional sports. Whether it’s Chad Ochocinco blathering about how great he is (or about how he changed his name to Ochocinco for more individual attention) or the relentless attention on Barry Bonds’ pursuit of the all-time home run record, the individual comes first. Don’t believe me? Then tell me where the Giants finished the year Bonds hit his 756th home run. (The answer: 71-91, 19 games back of the first-place Diamondbacks, and last in the NL West).
In college, however, the school comes first, the program second, the team third, and the player fourth – and that doesn’t count the fans or the coaches. Yes, there will be attention-grabbing stars earning individual accolades. Terrelle Pryor comes to mind – but at most, he will be the face of the Buckeyes for four years. The traditions of Ohio Stadium and Ohio State have been around far longer than Pryor has and will outlast him many times over. The collegiate athlete represents something far bigger than himself. He becomes a part of a long and proud tradition – Michael Jordan is arguably the biggest superstar of all time, but during his time at North Carolina, he was a Tar Heel first. Fans came to cheer for the Carolina blue first and foremost, unlike in Chicago, where Jordan was the prime attraction – his teammates were often nothing more than a sideshow. “His Airness” certainly left his mark on the Carolina tradition, but he never became bigger than the program in college. Once he turned professional, however, he became – in my opinion – bigger than the league itself.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the accomplishments of a star player, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with relying on a star to win. The beauty of college sports, however, is that they are timeless. A Notre Dame football game in 2000 was the same as the one in 2010 – no new stadium, no cheap gimmicks, no new team superstar identity. Rather, the leprechaun, band, cheerleaders, fight song, alma mater, and other traditions are exactly the same. The players come and go, but they do not define the program; the school leaves its mark on them. There’s something very beautiful about the primacy of the school in collegiate athletics. Athletes come and go every four years, but the traditions and reasons for being a fan of a school stay the same. In the end, college athletes are playing for something larger than themselves – they’re playing for the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back.
