I'm not saying that the US is a racist country. But I am saying that the highest paid government employee in most states is a college sports coach🤡, and that college sports is a racist system that exploits poor Black kids in a way that would be wildly illegal in most countries.
🤔OK, I am saying that.
@mekkaokereke ok. My enquiring mind needs to know why pa has an asterisk?
I know JoPa was the highest paid state employee when I worked there as someone FOId my salary/pension payments to check.
@mekkaokereke
I wish CTE could be diagnosed while someone is still alive, these kids playing college football are risking permanent brain damage for no pay.
The good news is that they aren't "risking" CTE. Good in a monkey's paw sense. There is not a risk that playing college football causes CTE. Because it is a guarantee.🤷🏿♂️
99% of NFL player brains studied post mortem, showed signs of CTE. Because CTE does not come from concussions. It comes from repeated sub-concussive events.
https://www.bu.edu/bostonia/2017/cte-former-nfl-players/
If I lift weights, there's a risk that I *might* strain a muscle. But there is almost a certainty that I will grip a bar. If I grip a bar enough without gloves, I will almost certainly develop callouses. I would guess 99% of powerlifters that train without gloves, develop callouses.
CTE is callouses on your brain.
Playing college football damages your brain. There is no escaping that. The only question is to what extent.
After I die, a surgeon that slices my brain will be able to tell whether I played high school football and stopped, played some college football and stopped 🙋🏿♂️, or played professional football. Because of other poor life choices that I made (boxing, MMA, working as a bouncer in college for fun, to see if my boxing and MMA work in real life), they may think my brain is more NFL than college.
And NFL players are not stronger than, or hit harder than, college football players. NFL players are *better at football* than college football players. I'm an old man now, and I'm still about twice as strong as the average NFL player.
John Heck never played in the NFL. He played college and is now a powerlifter. I never played in the NFL. I played college and am now a powerlifter. He played OT/OG, I played DT/DE/LB. My go to move was a bull rush. If my Pomona College team had played his UNC team, we would have lost, badly. But every play that game, the individual collision between my helmet and John's helmet would have greatly exceeded what NFL players produce.
John Heck, strict pressing 245 lbs.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Q0E3l_k5t6g
Me, strict pressing 315 lbs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VpVCSuT-_A0
Given the rules of football, there would be no way to avoid us giving each other microdoses of brain damage all game.
What a silly sport!
Top 4:
1. U of Iowa Football
2. U of Iowa Men’s basketball
3. Iowa State Football
4. Iowa State Men’s basketball
(From 2024)
Top earner Ferentz also recruited his own kid to be on the team (and the kid lived in subsidized student housing). Later, hired the kid to be offensive coordinator.
@mekkaokereke looking at this from Europe, which has its own racism problem, this is absolutely wild. I don’t think there’s a single country on the continent where a sports coach would be the highest paid government employee.
@mekkaokereke Good thing you are, someone needs to!
@mekkaokereke I have said this for YEARS MAN! So nice to hear it from someone else. Yes... it's all one huge racket, not to mention all the CTE.
@mekkaokereke @StillIRise1963 Shocking/not shocking. Do you know where the data came from? I have no doubt it’s true. If you don’t know, I’ll look around to see if I can find it.
@mekkaokereke I don't want to argue, I'm genuinely curious.
What race(s) are coaches more frequently? All the mental images I have are white.
We have that in soccer — European teams full of African men, or children of immigrants, particularly French former colonies. I don't recall a single coach that isn't white.
Overwhelmingly white.🤷🏿♂️
Head coach is more about opportunity than ability.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RRS-v2G7vo8&t=556s
And under the old exploitive system, the coaches that could get away with cheating the most, were the most successful. Under the new system, a lot of white coaches are very successful! That's fine!
But the white coaches that are successful today, are the ones that are better at connecting with and treating their athletes well, rather than the ones who have permission to cheat in a corrupt system.
In the new system, this is what a successful white coach looks like. Elijah Sarratt is a Black player, and is the best wide receiver in college football. His job on the field, is to get "open" so that the quarterback can throw him the ball, and then to catch the ball. If he is not open, and the Quarterback throws him the ball anyway, there's a 50/50 chance that he will catch it, or the defender will catch it or knock it down so no one catches it. Elijah Sarratt wins more 50/50 balls than any other receiver.
He can switch to any team he wants. He can make money to cover his own tuition, so he doesn't really need a "scholarship." He's not from a broken home. He has a loving dad, and a stable family. So he gets to choose his own coach. He chose Indiana, a school not known for football. Indiana just won the national championship.
Watch this profile of Elijah Sarratt, and see if you can understand why he, and so many other top players this year, chose this particular coach.
So the rules have changed, for the better.
The University of Minnesota was recently required to finally start paying student athletes.
Instead of slightly cutting the salaries of the basketball and football coaches to do that; the University management decided to charge all students extra fees.
It is deeply messed up.
