Lou Holtz Beautifully Illustrates Flaw In 'Bring Back Football' Arguments
In the midst of the #WeWantTo Play and then #WeWantToCoach movements that gained traction over the past weekend, former South Carolina head coach Lou Holtz appeared on Fox News to discuss why football should return.
The 83-year-old Gamecock great was critical of the Big Ten conference for postponing its season, saying it showed "no leadership."
He went on to say that players who have asthma, diabetes or other "legitimate" health issues should opt out and the rest of the players should play. What he said next shows the flaw in this whole process.
"We shut everything down for six months. I'm going crazy from being quarantined. I think other people are tired of it," he said. Lets move on with our lives. When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties, there's going to be risks."
Comparing college football to a World War II operation is a bold move and unfortunately there is some truth in that statement; there are risks and there could be casualties.
After SEC leaders met and came to an agreement on the conference-only schedule, the Washington Post obtained audio from one of the meetings in which a conference official made a troubling admission.
"I don't have great concerns about them contracting it during play, I have great concerns about them contracting it hanging out," the official said. "It's not gonna happen so much on the field, it's gonna happen in rooms, it's gonna happen in bars, it's going to happen hanging out with friends. I think that's the greatest risk. We can't be 100 percent. We're never going to be 100 percent. There are going to be some outbreaks. We're going to have some positive cases on every single team in the SEC. That's a given."
This, coupled with the recent reports of heart damage of even the healthiest individuals that contract COVID-19 and you have the perfect storm.
The solutions to these hurdles, which mask themselves as support for the athletes, shows very little concern for the overall wellbeing of said athletes.
First, allowing the players to sign a waiver. While there's no recent studies to support this claim, it feels safe to assert that over 90% of Americans fail to read the terms of agreement updates to any of their devices or apps. So to place the burden of navigating legal jargon on 18-22 year olds not allowed representation and probably without legal counsel, feels like a setup.
Many coaches have cited that the safest place for the players is on campus, including South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp.
This idea seems flawed when we watched a majority of LSU's football team have to quarantine after a night out. And aside from the somewhat insulting notion that players couldn't possibly be safe at home with the people who raised them for 18 years, this points to another issue: there's no proposed bubble.
Part of what's worked well with the NBA and the WNBA and that's not working with the MLB is the presence of a contained environment where food, rapid testing and entertainment are taken care of.
As we saw in case of Louisville soccer players, when you leave college aged players to their own devices they will create their own entertainment, and rightfully so. It is unfair at this point to demand players sacrifice some of their youth in that manner to make money for the powers that be.
Ultimately there a lot of self-serving reasons at play for wanting college football to return, but as a whole every one should take a step back and remember this is a virus with no available vaccine and while Dabo Swinney is absolutely right in that not playing will not make it go away, playing won't help in that regard either.
Above all, make sure to keep the "listen to the players" energy for more than just when they declare they want to play.