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 Frazzled wrote:

GOD's GAME.
Remember Texas Stadium has an open top so God can watch his team play...

At the risk of starting a religious debate... if your God isn't omnipotent enough to see through a stadium roof, he might not be God...

 sebster wrote:
I find it interesting when people say grid iron is a very sophisticated or complex sport. Don't get me wrong, it is a smart sport, but no more than say rugby union or soccer or aussie rules. The difference, it seems to me, is that those other sports require the players to figure as they go on the field, while grid iron stops the play every few moments to allow the coach to decide the best approach.

Not saying one is better than the other, just saying it likely gives armchair coaches a false impression of how smart grid iron is compared to other similar sports. In fact, the arm chair strategist in me quite likes that part of grid iron, though the armchair player in me gets quite frustrated, as I keep wanting to take up the initiative myself as events unfold on the field.

I think your viewpoints here and in the other thread regarding American football are VERY simplistic. While American football obviously isn't a free-flowing game, the players aren't robots controlled by the coaches either.

Consider offensive line play. Lineman normally have particular assignments, but those can go out the window during a given play if the defense calls a stunt, a blitz, etc. In that instance, the lineman have to adjust on the fly without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block. Hell, if they're running a zone blocking scheme, then the lineman are generally flowing in a particular direction WITHOUT specific blocking assignments, but instead blocking defenders in their area without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block.

American football has had option running offenses for decades. Whether you're talking about old-school triple-option wishbones or today's read-option, you have quarterbacks making decisions about who gets the ball handed or pitched to them within the flow of a given play without being able to stop and tell the others.

You could say the same thing about any given passing play, as quarterbacks go through their progressions and decide which receiver (if any) gets the ball thrown to them without being able to stop and tell everyone. Furthermore, option routes also figure into most modern passing offenses. (This means that the receiver's route depends on the coverage, and both the QB and receiver need to make the same read and adjustment without being able to stop and tell the other.)

And that's just the offensive side of the ball. Defense is probably more reactive and even more reliant upon reading and adjusting within the flow of a given play. I agree that American football isn't a free-flowing game and therefore isn't in the same category as soccer, rugby, etc. in that regard. But you're categorically wrong to suggest that it's a game of coaches telling players what to do. The best coach in the world will still lose a lot of games if handed a team low on football smarts and instincts.

And I don't know how you can claim those other sports are in the same category as American football when it comes to sheer complexity, nor why you'd even want to. I love American football, but its complexity -- with rules and gameplay -- is insane. Even fairly knowledgeable fans don't and can't understand a fraction of what's really going on when watching a given play. The cleanness and greater simplicity of those other sports are some of their best attributes.

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

I can probably count on one hand the number of stupid douchebag football players I've ever met. Most have been really kind, fun loving individuals off the field, and nothing like the truly moronic Hollywood version.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of truly gak-awful hockey players, and the basketball players at my old high school where the biggest morons & donkeycaves of them all.


And American football is simply the watered down version of the sport, because the REAL version is only played in Canada!

 Polonius wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Soccer is a Gentleman's game played by Thugs, Rugby is a Thug's game played by Gentlemen
American football is...?

the classic response is "a thug's game played by thugs," I believe.

That explanation sounds pretty racist.

Or so I've been led to believe.

 Soladrin wrote:
All ball sports are equally boring.

I should go to a kickboxing match again...

You mean, we should resurrect Gladiatorial Arena Combat...eh?

There WILL BE BLOOD!*

*blood for the blood GOD!

 cincydooley wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Soccer is a Gentleman's game played by Thugs, Rugby is a Thug's game played by Gentlemen
American football is...?

the classic response is "a thug's game played by thugs," I believe.

That explanation sounds pretty racist.

Or so I've been led to believe.

Well, lots of words have different meanings in Merrie Olde Englad. You probably wouldn't enjoy a fanny pack over there, for instance.

 gorgon wrote:

 sebster wrote:
I find it interesting when people say grid iron is a very sophisticated or complex sport. Don't get me wrong, it is a smart sport, but no more than say rugby union or soccer or aussie rules. The difference, it seems to me, is that those other sports require the players to figure as they go on the field, while grid iron stops the play every few moments to allow the coach to decide the best approach.

Not saying one is better than the other, just saying it likely gives armchair coaches a false impression of how smart grid iron is compared to other similar sports. In fact, the arm chair strategist in me quite likes that part of grid iron, though the armchair player in me gets quite frustrated, as I keep wanting to take up the initiative myself as events unfold on the field.

I think your viewpoints here and in the other thread regarding American football are VERY simplistic. While American football obviously isn't a free-flowing game, the players aren't robots controlled by the coaches either.

Consider offensive line play. Lineman normally have particular assignments, but those can go out the window during a given play if the defense calls a stunt, a blitz, etc. In that instance, the lineman have to adjust on the fly without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block. Hell, if they're running a zone blocking scheme, then the lineman are generally flowing in a particular direction WITHOUT specific blocking assignments, but instead blocking defenders in their area without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block.

American football has had option running offenses for decades. Whether you're talking about old-school triple-option wishbones or today's read-option, you have quarterbacks making decisions about who gets the ball handed or pitched to them within the flow of a given play without being able to stop and tell the others.

You could say the same thing about any given passing play, as quarterbacks go through their progressions and decide which receiver (if any) gets the ball thrown to them without being able to stop and tell everyone. Furthermore, option routes also figure into most modern passing offenses. (This means that the receiver's route depends on the coverage, and both the QB and receiver need to make the same read and adjustment without being able to stop and tell the other.)

And that's just the offensive side of the ball. Defense is probably more reactive and even more reliant upon reading and adjusting within the flow of a given play. I agree that American football isn't a free-flowing game and therefore isn't in the same category as soccer, rugby, etc. in that regard. But you're categorically wrong to suggest that it's a game of coaches telling players what to do. The best coach in the world will still lose a lot of games if handed a team low on football smarts and instincts.

So like soccer?

You have the basic formation, every player has their basic assignment, every player has to make adjustments on the fly about positioning and coverage and every other player has to know every other assignment to move into position to cover any exposed weaknesses when one of them has to move out of position to make a play. Players have to know where every other player are, what direction they are moving and what direction every opponent is moving. They have to decide if they should make a run for it or if they should pass or try to hold to let other players move into position. They have to be able to look at everything around them and decide "do I pass back to #3 and try to bring it up the other flank, do I have time to run, do I pass to #9 or will he be offsides, or can I pull the defenders to the left by passing to #7 and they volley to #10 on the opposite flank while I run past these guys to get to the right side of the penalty box to be ready to get the ball back".

Throw-ins, goal kicks, are all the same as lining up offense and defense in football.

And any soccer set pieces are practiced and drilled just as much as football plays. That freekick that the US took was a set piece that was drilled down to perfection and almost paid off.

The main difference I see between soccer players and football players is that I think soccer players have more stamina and endurance than football players while football players have more physicality than soccer players.

 whembly wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
All ball sports are equally boring.

I should go to a kickboxing match again...

You mean, we should resurrect Gladiatorial Arena Combat...eh?

There WILL BE BLOOD!*

*blood for the blood GOD!

It really never went away...just got toned down dramatically over time into things like modern boxing and MMA sports.

Frazzled wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

You mean like your royals?

Yeah that seems to be the other popular method, of course there's always the fallback method of just saying 'do you not know who I am?' in the most borgeious accent you can muster

cincydooley wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awe. Someone got picked on.

But seriously, nice absurd generalization there.

Yeah, in schools sports I got picked after the fat kid and the gay kid (Schoolyard rules at the time basically meant that as far as sports was concerned, this was possible the worst insult you could give to someone)
EDIT: OK time to explain now, let's just say that, at the time (thinking back, it's about 10 years ago now), the rather vicious schoolyard culture used 'gay' as a term that marked you as a target, so you were 'gay' for actually being gay, but you were also 'gay' if, say, you didn't fit social norms, or, as someone I know once was, deemed 'gay' and beaten up for having the audacitiy to play pokemon (yeah, our school held special classes on how to walk upright and use simple tools). So if you were picked after the 'gay' kid (who was actually gay, and got a lot of flak for that), you were considered pretty low in the pecking order.

Put it this way, I outdid a good portion of the knuckle-draggers simply by not having a baby and/or a criminal record before I was legally old enough to drive...

(More on point though, I thought that absurd generalisations was the whole point of the internet? )

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

I can probably count on one hand the number of stupid douchebag football players I've ever met. Most have been really kind, fun loving individuals off the field, and nothing like the truly moronic Hollywood version.
On the other hand, I've met plenty of truly gak-awful hockey players, and the basketball players at my old high school where the biggest morons & donkeycaves of them all.


And American football is simply the watered down version of the sport, because the REAL version is only played in Canada!

I admit it's probably a skewed perspective, but I know quite a few people who were dillweeds that carried themselves through school simply because they were good at sport and with our academic results plummeting it was better not to flunk them so at least the school looked good in the sports results...

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

Yeah, in schools sports I got picked after the fat kid and the gay kid (Schoolyard rules at the time basically meant that as far as sports was concerned, this was possible the worst insult you could give to someone)
EDIT: OK time to explain now, let's just say that, at the time (thinking back, it's about 10 years ago now), the rather vicious schoolyard culture used 'gay' as a term that marked you as a target, so you were 'gay' for actually being gay, but you were also 'gay' if, say, you didn't fit social norms, or, as someone I know once was, deemed 'gay' and beaten up for having the audacitiy to play pokemon (yeah, our school held special classes on how to walk upright and use simple tools). So if you were picked after the 'gay' kid (who was actually gay, and got a lot of flak for that), you were considered pretty low in the pecking order.

Put it this way, I outdid a good portion of the knuckle-draggers simply by not having a baby and/or a criminal record before I was legally old enough to drive...

Newsflash:

Being athletic and being intelligent aren't mutually exclusive. There are plenty of football players far more intelligent than you or I.

I won't lie, though. It gets pretty tiresome that lots of people on this site seem to think that because they got picked on once by an athlete, it's a good representation of that population as a whole.

I know there are at least a few of us on here that played football at the university level.

 djones520 wrote:
American Football is something that wishes it was as great as Hockey, as do all of the other mentioned sports.

perfect

 44Ronin wrote:
Soccer is a Gentleman's game played by Thugs, Rugby is a Thug's game played by Gentlemen
American football is...?

a game of chess played by checkers players.

Hockey, however, is a Man's game played by true Men.

 44Ronin wrote:
Soccer is a Gentleman's game played by Thugs, Rugby is a Thug's game played by Gentlemen
American football is...?

Generally speaking it's Soccer is Gentlemanly, played by thugs, Rugby is Thugs played by Gentlemen, Football is a thugs game played by thugs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:


Being athletic and being intelligent aren't mutually exclusive. There are plenty of football players far more intelligent than you or I.

True, but if we look at the intelligence of some football players (and I believe this has been tested) someone like, say for instance, Ray Lewis, or Tony Romo, and compared it to the average joe with a middle income job and it's two wildly different forms of intelligence.

Researchers have found that guys who make their living playing a sport like American Football can become fairly literally "brain dead" to other sorts of smarts.As in, they tested a group of athletes and found that when viewing or being questioned on topics related to their trade (ie, football related, workout/nutrition related, etc) their brain activity and IQ were very high, but when questioned on things about math, history, etc. their brains' activity was significantly lower than the average person.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Researchers have found that guys who make their living playing a sport like American Football can become fairly literally "brain dead" to other sorts of smarts.As in, they tested a group of athletes and found that when viewing or being questioned on topics related to their trade (ie, football related, workout/nutrition related, etc) their brain activity and IQ were very high, but when questioned on things about math, history, etc. their brains' activity was significantly lower than the average person.

I wonder if that's true of other professions.

 Polonius wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Researchers have found that guys who make their living playing a sport like American Football can become fairly literally "brain dead" to other sorts of smarts.As in, they tested a group of athletes and found that when viewing or being questioned on topics related to their trade (ie, football related, workout/nutrition related, etc) their brain activity and IQ were very high, but when questioned on things about math, history, etc. their brains' activity was significantly lower than the average person.

I wonder if that's true of other professions.

It's been awhile since I read that article, but IIRC, us "regular folk" don't have as extreme a reaction within the brain when being asked about our profession vs. things outside the profession. I believe the non-athlete "control group" had such a wide array of professions, it'd be impossible for the researchers to say that, accountants brains function at a much higher level under math/number questions than sports questions, etc.

 d-usa wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 sebster wrote:
I find it interesting when people say grid iron is a very sophisticated or complex sport. Don't get me wrong, it is a smart sport, but no more than say rugby union or soccer or aussie rules. The difference, it seems to me, is that those other sports require the players to figure as they go on the field, while grid iron stops the play every few moments to allow the coach to decide the best approach.

Not saying one is better than the other, just saying it likely gives armchair coaches a false impression of how smart grid iron is compared to other similar sports. In fact, the arm chair strategist in me quite likes that part of grid iron, though the armchair player in me gets quite frustrated, as I keep wanting to take up the initiative myself as events unfold on the field.

I think your viewpoints here and in the other thread regarding American football are VERY simplistic. While American football obviously isn't a free-flowing game, the players aren't robots controlled by the coaches either.

Consider offensive line play. Lineman normally have particular assignments, but those can go out the window during a given play if the defense calls a stunt, a blitz, etc. In that instance, the lineman have to adjust on the fly without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block. Hell, if they're running a zone blocking scheme, then the lineman are generally flowing in a particular direction WITHOUT specific blocking assignments, but instead blocking defenders in their area without being able to stop and tell the others exactly whom they're going to block.

American football has had option running offenses for decades. Whether you're talking about old-school triple-option wishbones or today's read-option, you have quarterbacks making decisions about who gets the ball handed or pitched to them within the flow of a given play without being able to stop and tell the others.

You could say the same thing about any given passing play, as quarterbacks go through their progressions and decide which receiver (if any) gets the ball thrown to them without being able to stop and tell everyone. Furthermore, option routes also figure into most modern passing offenses. (This means that the receiver's route depends on the coverage, and both the QB and receiver need to make the same read and adjustment without being able to stop and tell the other.)

And that's just the offensive side of the ball. Defense is probably more reactive and even more reliant upon reading and adjusting within the flow of a given play. I agree that American football isn't a free-flowing game and therefore isn't in the same category as soccer, rugby, etc. in that regard. But you're categorically wrong to suggest that it's a game of coaches telling players what to do. The best coach in the world will still lose a lot of games if handed a team low on football smarts and instincts.

So like soccer?

You have the basic formation, every player has their basic assignment, every player has to make adjustments on the fly about positioning and coverage and every other player has to know every other assignment to move into position to cover any exposed weaknesses when one of them has to move out of position to make a play. Players have to know where every other player are, what direction they are moving and what direction every opponent is moving. They have to decide if they should make a run for it or if they should pass or try to hold to let other players move into position. They have to be able to look at everything around them and decide "do I pass back to #3 and try to bring it up the other flank, do I have time to run, do I pass to #9 or will he be offsides, or can I pull the defenders to the left by passing to #7 and they volley to #10 on the opposite flank while I run past these guys to get to the right side of the penalty box to be ready to get the ball back".

Throw-ins, goal kicks, are all the same as lining up offense and defense in football.

And any soccer set pieces are practiced and drilled just as much as football plays. That freekick that the US took was a set piece that was drilled down to perfection and almost paid off.

Nowhere did I claim that more free-flowing sports (throw basketball and hockey onto that pile while you're at it) don't have plays or playbooks. They do...just as football requires some instincts and decision-making as I outlined.

But you would be WRONG to act as though those sports have playbooks in any way comparable to an NFL playbook. They just don't.

The main difference I see between soccer players and football players is that I think soccer players have more stamina and endurance than football players while football players have more physicality than soccer players.

Obviously they're different kinds of athletes for different sports. Saying that basketball players tend to be taller is a similar insight.

 gorgon wrote:

The main difference I see between soccer players and football players is that I think soccer players have more stamina and endurance than football players while football players have more physicality than soccer players.

Obviously they're different kinds of athletes for different sports. Saying that basketball players tend to be taller is a similar insight.

Or that hockey player have less teeth?

 d-usa wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

The main difference I see between soccer players and football players is that I think soccer players have more stamina and endurance than football players while football players have more physicality than soccer players.

Obviously they're different kinds of athletes for different sports. Saying that basketball players tend to be taller is a similar insight.

Or that hockey player have less teeth?

Female beach volleyball players have nice asses.

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

Yeah, in schools sports I got picked after the fat kid and the gay kid (Schoolyard rules at the time basically meant that as far as sports was concerned, this was possible the worst insult you could give to someone)
EDIT: OK time to explain now, let's just say that, at the time (thinking back, it's about 10 years ago now), the rather vicious schoolyard culture used 'gay' as a term that marked you as a target, so you were 'gay' for actually being gay, but you were also 'gay' if, say, you didn't fit social norms, or, as someone I know once was, deemed 'gay' and beaten up for having the audacitiy to play pokemon (yeah, our school held special classes on how to walk upright and use simple tools). So if you were picked after the 'gay' kid (who was actually gay, and got a lot of flak for that), you were considered pretty low in the pecking order.

Put it this way, I outdid a good portion of the knuckle-draggers simply by not having a baby and/or a criminal record before I was legally old enough to drive...

Newsflash:

Being athletic and being intelligent aren't mutually exclusive. There are plenty of football players far more intelligent than you or I.

I won't lie, though. It gets pretty tiresome that lots of people on this site seem to think that because they got picked on once by an athlete, it's a good representation of that population as a whole.

I know there are at least a few of us on here that played football at the university level.

I'm guessing you don't see to many post match interviews? Post match interviews are hilarious. In all ball sports I have watched I'd say the less contact in a sport the more chance of a player being able to make an intelligent comment. Therefore I shall make this hypothesis in the intelligence stakes as based from post match interviews
Football (soccer) > Aussie rules > rugby union > NFL > rugby league.
I love Rugby League but the post match inteviews are truly inspiring.

Bullockist wrote:


I'm guessing you don't see to many post match interviews? Post match interviews are hilarious. In all ball sports I have watched I'd say the less contact in a sport the more chance of a player being able to make an intelligent comment. Therefore I shall make this hypothesis in the intelligence stakes as based from post match interviews
Football (soccer) > Aussie rules > rugby union > NFL > rugby league.
I love Rugby League but the post match inteviews are truly inspiring.

Have you ever seen an NFL (American football) post game interview? Or how about NBA. Whats funny is, the both sound extremely similar in intelligence levels, but one is, theoretically a "non-contact" sport... Often times, I'll listen to a boxer or MMA fighter, and think "damn, they sound like geniuses compared to NFL or NBA players"

 gorgon wrote:
I think your viewpoints here and in the other thread regarding American football are VERY simplistic. While American football obviously isn't a free-flowing game, the players aren't robots controlled by the coaches either.

Well, yeah, it was simplistic. This is a forum, and mine was a couple of posts on a minor point in the thread. I could have added another paragraph or two explaining that these weren't absolutes, that American football still has scope for player decision making as the play unfolds, and other sports have coaches who can still instruct from the sidelines or send messages to players via runners, but I was already verging on tldr territory.

And I don't know how you can claim those other sports are in the same category as American football when it comes to sheer complexity, nor why you'd even want to. I love American football, but its complexity -- with rules and gameplay -- is insane. Even fairly knowledgeable fans don't and can't understand a fraction of what's really going on when watching a given play. The cleanness and greater simplicity of those other sports are some of their best attributes.

Because they are just as complex. I'll give you an example from the game I know best - in AFL breaking out of any clearance players are presented with the even greater complexity than grid iron - there will be a series of runners breaking left and right if he wants to run the ball, and a series of longer marking options, and a variety of decoy runs to upset the defence, in addition to other players attempting to shepherd opponents either to give the ball carrier more time or open a field for him to run through.

The difference is the player makes that decision in real time, with no ability to set up and prepare before hand, and once he's made his option and delivered the ball then that plays out in real time as well, and so on and so on.

And to repeat my point - this doesn't make this better or worse, but just different. In grid iron the ability to set up and prepare allows for more organised team work, and also more precision, while in other sports you get more pressured decision making, rewarding instinctive decision making.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

Spoiler:

My uncle just sent me this link. It's what he takes his under 12s through in order to learn how to create space for a leading forward.

http://www.aflcommunityclub.com.au/fileadmin/user_upload/Coach_AFL/Drills__Skills_and_Tactics/Skills___Drills/General/Drills/Forward_Line_-_Creating_Space.pdf

You'll note its a training drill rather than a fixed play you run in the game. This is because set plays are only marginally useful in a game where you don't get time to set everything up perfectly and tell everyone what play you're going to run. Instead you get principle based strategies - in this case the idea is that forwards lead away from the centre of the ground, up at the ball carrier and to the flanks, dragging their opponents with them, leaving space in the centre for one forward to lead in to. Ideally one forward actually leads directly towards the key forward, running just behind him and blocking his opponent, leaving one forward free to run in to the space without a direct opponent.

Note this is one of about a dozen different approaches to putting the ball in to your attacking 50. And which one you will choose will depend on the kinds of forwards you have (strong contested marks will mean you want a simpler get in fast approach), the kind of defenders they have, and the defensive structures they use. In the above example, if they played a loose man marking space then the strategy wouldn't work, or if they used the spare man to double team one key forward then you'd have to adapt and use your key forward as one of the decoy runners. But then that changes again based on how their midfield responds - if they come back in to defence then you want to look for rapid entry, either short kicks or kicks to the flanks where you can still get one on one, but if they sit high and look for rebound then you want to kick long to give your small forwards a chance to crumb, and to prevent them transitioning to attack rapidly.

And I can go on, and on, and on, if you want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Have you ever seen an NFL (American football) post game interview? Or how about NBA. Whats funny is, the both sound extremely similar in intelligence levels, but one is, theoretically a "non-contact" sport... Often times, I'll listen to a boxer or MMA fighter, and think "damn, they sound like geniuses compared to NFL or NBA players"

Yeah, I'm not sure there's any relationship between smarts, really. To me sporting people seem to have pretty much a broad spread of intelligence no different to the rest of the population,

Well, Rugby Union has a relationship with smarts in the UK, because a lot of their players still come through the uni system. But Union players elsewhere in the world seem to be just as likely to be smart and just as likely to be dumb as anywhere else.

I think one of the major differences that is clearly visible between American Football, and it's better counterpart Rugby Union is in that the majority of decision making, in regards to set plays happens much more often on the fly, while the play is developing, rather than before the play even starts.

This is what separates guys like Peyton Manning well apart from most other starting Quarterbacks. He's spent so much time preparing for the team he's facing, he probably knows their defense as well as they do.... This means that when he sees something, he can decide to check to another play that will place his "pawns" in a better position to create a positive outcome for his team.

This is similar to some of the great backs in rugby, often times having to know whether to keep the ball, and go into contact, or chip in behind the defense with a chaser to get the ball in a split second, and having a split second more to act on that information.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

Unfortunately its kinda true.

Lots of athletes are given special considerations, or flat out hand waives, of their grades by their schools.

Given some NFL post match interviews I have seen, I refuse to believe it's true

 Soladrin wrote:
All ball sports are equally boring.

I should go to a kickboxing match again...

Really!?

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

Nope, Masters in computer science here,

just in my mid-20s with the cynicism of a pensioner

 Grey Templar wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

Unfortunately its kinda true.

Lots of athletes are given special considerations, or flat out hand waives, of their grades by their schools.

I was actually objecting to the douchebags and morons thing.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

I got a higher education, a damned good one at that, and I agree with Leigen_Zero.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
I always assumed that american football was a means by which morons and douchebags could get into prestige universities by bypassing the usual selection process...

Awwww... Somebody missed out on a higher education.

I got a higher education, a damned good one at that, and I agree with Leigen_Zero.

While not all the jocks I met were aholes, some of them seriously had no business at a university and it was blatantly obvious the only reason they were there was to play a sport for four years and then be relegated to minimum wage labor for the rest of their lives.