College football down the drain?

College Football Game / Fabien Martinez / Flickr

College football is a highly popular American sport that brings attention from across the world. It gives young talented athletes a chance to shine and a hope for the future. Die hard fans can’t wait until Saturday, when their team takes the field once again. Many would claim it is a great American tradition. What if it was all gone?

On May 8th this question was debated. Buzz Bissinger and Malcom Gladwell supported the motion of banning college football while Tim Green and Jason Whitlock defended college football.

And yes, college football should be banned. Football is a very dangerous sport and players constantly take hard hits to the head, which has a bad impact on them after they retire. Many players have had cases of dementia at very young ages. Gladwell and Bissinger also argue that it is morally wrong. Football encourages young men to hit each other very hard. A study conducted in 2000 showed, that of 1090 former NFL players, 60 percent had at at least one concussion in their career. The brutality in the NFL is no different than in college.

Bissinger argues that sports are distracting students from their education and are taking away their possible intellectual ideas. He called it, “the distracted university,” in his argument. Not only are players concentrated on football, but so are thousands of college fans.

“A great country changes,” Bissinger said in the debate. College football has had many bad effects on players and colleges in general. It is time for a change. Continuing to play college football with rule changes to prevent injuries is not enough. The injury rate will still be high. Why don’t we just get rid of the whole thing?