Sorry for the delay, I took the missus down to old Mexico to try and find us some drugs. No luck. Mexico is so commercial and americanized these days…sort of sad. What happened to you Mexico? You used to be cool, filled with a rich history and a loving, well mustachioed people. You used to be home to drug lords who stood for something. Now you’re just a big bunch of Kobe-loving salesmen with dirty drinking water and suspicious looking dogs.
Aww, I can’t stay mad at you. I will love you forever. Thanks for the hookups on sunglasses and gold chains, my freyn.
Anyway, something major happened while we were gone. Something so devastating it makes Hurricane Katrina look like a water fight in Compton. Something so Earth shattering it makes 9/11 look like a New Year’s Eve party.
I feel crushed. My faith in humanity is gone, maybe forever. I feel awful even bringing it up in the hopes that you, dear reader, have somehow managed to avoid word of this travesty.
But it is my duty to report the unreportable.
Here goes: Apparently, two years ago while attending the University of Florida, leading Heisman candidate and Auburn standout, Cam Newton, CHEATED IN SCHOOL!! MORE THAN ONCE!!
Wait, what?
That’s it? That’s the big news? That is the story ESPN is spending every waking moment to cover? That a college athlete cheated their way through school?
Um…is it possible there is not one person at ESPN who actually went to college? Seems like there has to be at least some guy in the control room pulling the news team aside and saying, “Hey, guys? We might not want to make too big a deal out of any of this…I’m just saying, most college athletes aren’t exactly accurately representing the graduation rates that the University touts…”
There are smart and articulate college athletes. I grew with one and lived with him in college. But for every tall skinny white guy with great “basketball IQ” there are a hundred more that score a 6 on the Wunderlic test (which, coincidentally, my five year old just took and scored a 17. She’s five).
Call me what you want but you know the same thing I know. Watch any post game interview after any NBA or NFL game and then tell me that guy really “got his Bachelor’s in English Literature.”
Why do we all act so shocked and dismayed? Why is Outside the Lines doing a report?
We don’t care if Cam Newton cheated, hell, he can cheat off me if it keeps him eligible. There lies the great hypocrisy in the current state of college athletics. Cam’s grades do not mean a darn thing to anyone who buys a ticket to watch him do on a football field what nobody else can do.
His grades don’t matter to the Auburn athletic program when they hoist their national championship.
They don’t mean anything to the NCAA when his electric style of play generates millions of revenue dollars.
And the grades mean less than squat to the NFL team that is about to make him a millionaire.
So can we please, as a nation, resist the urge to crucify somebody who spends 40 hours a week studying game film and forgets to study for World Religions 302? Can we stop worrying about some poor athlete who takes money to help his family in times of need? Can we just give these guys free laptops so they can quit stealing them? (Side note: Why is laptop theft always involved? What is the fascination these players have with laptops?)
You are probably outraged by my stance in this article, but take three deep breaths and read it again. Think it over. Realize that we are all to blame for creating the monster we now despise. We create a society where winning is everything.
Win at all costs, meaning stay eligible at all costs, even if it means putting your name at the top of the test of some fat white chick who buys you stuff and lends you her car.
Don’t hate the player…
