East Tennessean

Issue date: 2/5/07 Section: ViewPoint

Media Credit: Travis Brown/East Tennessean A lone car breezes past an empty ETSU parking lot during the weekend.

On the weekends, after five long days of classes, homework, Main Meal and numerous thousand-mile treks, this campus becomes a ghost town. From the Culp Center to the English department, the eerie sounds of the clock tower can be heard echoing throughout the campus. This is the inspiration for our label: the suitcase college.
So, my first question: why the hell are students complaining about the lack of football? Pardon me, administration of the East Tennessee State University, how dare you forget to mention in your promotional materials that this campus is transformed into a quiet, relaxing paradise on the weekends for those of us who actually participate in classes and want to learn. Then again, that aspect of the school might have been advertised more prominently if it hadn't been replaced by a football ad. And so there it is - what everyone is talking about: football.
That's right, I said it: football. For the past three issues this is all we, those avid readers of the East Tennessean, have been reading. Apparently, just like the rest of the staff, the obligation for a football-related column has finally gotten the best of me. So here it is, folks.
One of the main attractions of this school, to me, was the fact that it did not have a football team. No longer would I suffer in an educational system corrupted by "America's favorite sport." Not another penny of my money would be spent on jockstraps and pigskin. Finally, for once in my life, I would be a part of something above athletic rule and no longer in a world filled with columns of As printed on undeserving grade cards serving as gifts to stupidity as so many schools have been accused of doing - great game!
Yet, here I am, one semester under my belt, and already the rumors of football are becoming unbearable. Bring it back, you say. It'll give us spirit, enthusiasm and stop those horrible questions: where, oh, where did the football go? Straight to hell in a hand basket, I hope.
For those who support football's return to ETSU - don't give up on me yet. We have moved past high school into a new era and it does not include mind-numbing sports. For the most part, hardly any of us every see a penny of our tuition money and for those of us who do - I doubt we want it spent on your pastime. Instead, charge us more for arts programs, because at least they enrich the minds of the participants. Please, please, please do not take my money so that you can bulk up muscles or purchase eye candy for the game: "Go, fight, win!"

Continued...

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