Friday, February 8, 2013
The Ever Exciting Press Conference For an 18 Year Old Putting on A Hat
If this whole day is not the single most DYSfunctional day on the sports calendar, I don't know what is. I mean has anyone bothered to step back and think: "Why do we need to be here covering this event?"
Because everyone else is. Because it's been deemed a "big deal." Because ESPN said so.
The kids get even more inflated egos. Their respective programs pursuing them are incentivized even more to cheat or cut corners. The pressure on these kids to someday hit the NFL jackpot is ratcheted up by the phalanx of parents, aunts, uncles and cousins behind them (for support, of course, they'll never have their hand out to the kid. Nah...)
And in the end, it all means nothing.
The "science" of high school recruiting is so inexact, that it makes people who have a "strategy" of playing the lottery look semi-sane.
But here we are in the year 2013, with kids in front of ESPN's worldwide audience, 5 microphones in front of them, a whole extended family behind them, choosing a hat and saying like LeBron James.... "I'm taking my talents to...."
There may not be anything more pointless in sports.
Could not agree more, Czabe. Even without the politicians and lawyers, this aspect of American culture will eventually eat us from the inside out.
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