USC, UCLA to join the Big Ten

Damn. What a working day yesterday. Before yesterday, I would have mentioned that UCLA and USC becoming a member of the B1G was possibly the final conference realignment on earth that could happen. Oh, how a several hrs and some superior Tv money can change anything.

With the realignment madness, it’s challenging to predict how extended the latest conference structure will last, as all of the faculties with any affect in the NCAA head toward the SEC and the Massive 10 (is Clemson future? Or is Dabo way too prideful to place his group in front of that level of competition? Anyhow, that is beside the issue). Soccer arrives 1st, together with the income that inevitably follows it. That’s the way it is generally been, and considering that the sport tends to make exponentially additional revenue than almost any other higher education athletic software at the majority of Electricity 5 educational institutions, it helps make perception to observe soccer.

Is it what’s ideal for the activity? Arguably not. There’s a ton of lamenting in the CFB Twitter universe heading on, and understandably so. Conferences rest at the coronary heart of the sport, and with ongoing debates around an expanded playoff with computerized convention title bids, the future of the countrywide championship is also thrown into darkness with this unprecedented move. But as a lot as I love soccer, and as a great deal as there is to be reported about it (and that I will, at some place, say about it), I do want to speak about all the other sports activities for just a moment. The sporting activities with out the football price range, without football’s agenda, without the advantages that, in most scenarios, accompany being on the football workforce that may not automatically use to other scholar-athletes.

Soccer groups enjoy once a week for twelve weeks a 12 months. To place the USC and UCLA volleyball, basketball, softball, lacrosse, baseball, and numerous other teams into a circumstance in which they will now have to fly cross-nation each individual other time they want to perform a conference sport (which will make up the greater part of their schedules) is enormously disrespectful to people university student athletes and, pretty frankly, legitimizes the argument that NCAA sporting activities must be professionalized. That kind of journey is only demanded from professional athletes, not little ones trying to get a diploma they’ll will need after college or university while they perform the activity they enjoy.

The “student” facet of “student-athlete” will be shunted apart as they acquire 4- or five-hour flights each individual 7 days through their respective seasons. They’ll frequently be lacking class, they’ll very likely be exhausted from this sort of extreme journey to the midwest and east coastline, and it will consider a toll on anyone concerned. For Huge 10 faculties, it may perhaps be a little bit less complicated, as they can simply just routine again-to-back again games from both California schools on a single vacation out west, but that is even now really a vacation, and will be a scheduling feat if they’re ready to pull it off.

There are considerably far more article content to be composed, significantly more implications to look at, considerably a lot more matters to be brought up. But for now, I request – won’t anybody assume of the UCLA volleyball group?