Barack Obama watches sports. Barack Obama watches college football. Barack Obama thinks there should be a playoff in the college football postseason instead of the current and particularly controversial Bowl Championship Series computer rankings.
While our president’s interest in “normal” things like sports is appreciable, the fact that government representatives concern themselves with silly issues in sports is pathetic and shameful given the current worldly environment. Equally as shameful is the media coverage a politician receives for making a comment about the various conflicts and scandals different sporting leagues encounter.
Thankfully, Obama has yet to call for any federal government intervention in any realm of the sporting world. Congress hasn’t followed the president’s lead. According to an opinion piece written by The Tennesseean’s David Climer, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is currently hoisting a flag of battle in Washington over the fact that the BCS is a method of discrimination against smaller conferences because they are generally denied the opportunity to compete for a championship.
Though his argument may hold water in some kind of NCAA court of justice, it wouldn’t be out of the question to consider this kind of political meandering an act of negligence and a simple distraction from more pressing issues. Hatch is either using this as a chance to win votes and popularity in his own state (Utah was denied a BCS Championship bid despite a perfect record) or a complete idiot for thinking this kind of issue is something that needs to be brought up as an issue the federal government must address. College football is important to millions across the country, but let’s get real. There are other issues that need the Senate’s attention more than the wildly unpopular BCS.
Such government interest in sports doesn’t begin with college football. In the past few years, those in Washington have also concerned themselves with various performance-enhancing drug issues that permeate many different professional leagues, namely baseball. There have been outrages regarding everything from the league as a whole in terms of the Mitchell Report (basically a list of MLB players who have supposedly used steroids) to individual players guilty of steroid use like Alex Rodriguez. There have been calls to force the big name stars to testify in front of elected officials in Washington over their mistakes and to get to the bottom of the steroid issue.
Seriously? Our economy is as unstable as it’s been in years; we’re fighting a war on multiple fronts in the Middle East; Kim Jong-il is giddy over launching rockets; mass genocide is the norm in Africa; our borders are flooding with illegal aliens, and natural resources are diminishing. There are citizens in this country who don’t have jobs, homes or health care, and the people elected to solve these problems are worried about sports. They’re worried about making sure the teams in the Mountain West Conference have a chance at playing in the big game. They’re worried that the integrity of baseball is going down the toilet over skinny players getting huge. Instead, perhaps our government officials could dedicate some time to the real issues that face this nation and get something accomplished that actually matters. It’s fair to say most citizens would rather be safe from terror or economic meltdown rather than see their beloved Utah Utes play for a national championship.
Those in Washington need to mind their own business. The NCAA is constantly discussing the BCS issue and working toward developing newer solutions in the future. They don’t need federal intervention to solve the problem and certainly don’t care to be forced into how they run their organization. The MLB, as well as the NFL and the International Olympic Committee, have publicly cracked down on steroid use in their respective leagues, taking action to restore the integrity of competition. That’s their job — to monitor the system that they oversee.
Congress has a system much larger and much more doomed than any of these other organizations. Instead of trying to run someone else’s organization, they need to focus on their own: the United States, its protection and its well being.
And to Hatch — maybe if your Utes had played a schedule better than 56th in the country while Florida and Oklahoma played the fourth and seventh toughest respectively, they might have had a shot at playing in the National Championship. While the Utah athletic department gets serious about their scheduling, maybe you should get serious about your priorities.
— Oliver Casey is a junior in enterprise management. He can be reached at [email protected].
