Published: September 03, 2008 09:17 pm         

A perfect weekend

Beginning of another football season generates too much interest

We get plenty of notes, letters, ideas and suggestions around here, but beginning last Sunday and running through the time this piece was created, there was an inordinate amount of e-mail and phone calls talking about the ultimate beginning to the 2008 college football season.

That’s right, college football — not Gustav, not Hanna or Ike or Josephine, not the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention or the start of the Republican National Convention, not declining oil prices — college football.

And many of those contacting us were referring to the “perfect” or “dream” weekend just past. WVU and Marshall win big and Pitt, Virginia Tech (sorry Hokie fans) and Michigan all lose. Yes, Michigan lost to Utah.

We said all along that the folks in Ann Arbor were in for a shock with Rodriguez and Company. Remember he was 3-8 his first year at WVU. We’re not sure how they might stomach a similar campaign up north, but it could happen.

But why is it that there is so much interest in college football, and sports in general for that matter, and so little reaction to other events that are much more important?

There are plenty of opinions and lines of thinking out there — it’s just the way society is these days, a state native turned his back on his alma mater, it’s a release from the everyday stresses of life — yet none explains the rabidity or the fervor generated by college boys playing a game with an oblong pigskin. Many become idolized.

We truly live in a sports-mad society, one in which a select few of the aforementioned college boys become part of an elite group of professional athletes who make millions of dollars annually, multiple times more than leaders of countries and comparable or better than most major private company CEOs.

The creation of such a culture has been our own doing. High interest, the salivating and demand for more and more broadcast coverage, all driven by the billions in advertising revenues and the continued willingness of sports fanatics to pay just about whatever the asking price for tickets.

Too bad we don’t have the same desire to get out and vote or to volunteer for worthy causes, neither of which costs a penny other than maybe getting there.

Our priorities are really skewed. See you in the bleachers.