In
my Vulture column, in today's dead-tree
Tribune, I join the chorus of voices - alongside
the Tribune's editorial board - decrying the rigged roulette wheel that is the Bowl Championship Series that determines the so-called "national champion" in college football.
It is a system organized by the big college conferences - the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, ACC and Big East - to prop up their schools at the expense of smaller conferences without the clout or money to join the good-ol'-boys club. It is a system that slights an undefeated team, like the University of Utah Utes, because it doesn't get the media spotlight from the East Coast sports establishment. And it is a system that props up antiquated bowl games, to line the pockets of old men in blazers.
If our president were selected by the BCS system, the media pundits would have put Hillary Clinton against Mitt Romney in the general election - no matter how many primaries and caucuses Barack Obama or John McCain had won.
Or, for another analogy, Dan Shanoff of
SportingNews.com compares the BCS to the Oscars: "What is the 'Best Picture' in any given year? Like college football, there is a lot of debate -- and it's not like there is a tournament to pit them against each other. ... But we have the Oscars, which is/was the standard. But then the foreign press wanted to have their influence, so they created the Golden Globes. Then the actors wanted a say, so they created the SAGs. And each regional film critics' association created their own."
Meanwhile, The Washington Post's esteemed sportswriter John Feinstein is urging AP sports writers who vote in the post-season poll to engage in a form of civil disobedience: To vote for the Utes for No. 1.
After touting the Utes' undefeated record and the weakness in some of the BCS conferences, Feinstein expresses the main reason to vote for Utah:
The reason to vote for Utah is simple: This is the one and only way you can stand up to the BCS bullies -- the university presidents, commissioners, athletic directors and the TV networks who enable them -- and, to renew a catch phrase, just say no. Say no to this horrible, hypocritical, feed-the-big-boys system. Say no to the idea that fair competition doesn't matter. Say no to all the hype surrounding the power conferences and power teams. To co-opt yet another catch phrase, say yes to change.
Labels: sports, University of Utah
See the parts of Utah I didn't get to see enough of during Sundance: My family.
