Loss of Values

I’m sure nobody thought my reaction to this atrocity would be any different than it is.

But then again, I’m sure nobody has even heard about what the ESPN family of networks has enslaved the University of Southern Mississippi, an institution of higher learning that is unfortunately under the abusive whip of the aforementioned monopoly, to do next month as a result of the postponement of a game due to Category 5 Hurricane Rita.Well, maybe you do know. Maybe you took the time to go to the college football page of cbssportsline.com. Or maybe you googled “Southern Miss” just for fun to see if they made the news. Or maybe you were looking at the USM schedule and saw that they were scheduled to play on a Sunday.

But I can guarantee one thing: you did not find any press release about this at ESPN.com.

Nope. Nothing.

Southern Miss is forced to make up its game at Houston on Sunday, November 13, only five days after USM is on the road against a fellow able conference foe in Marshall.

The Southern Miss-Marshall game, slated to kick-off on ESPN2 at 7:30pm EST on Tuesday, November 8 (for those who care, Election Day before the polls close in West Virginia), was not moved despite the willingness of both programs to move it because ESPN lacked a time slot for the game the previous Saturday.

Bull.

Yes, bull.

Just last November, for example, ESPN had no trouble filling up its contract with the WAC by forcing San Jose State to host unbeaten and highly ranked Boise State at 9:00 AM PST.

And just in the last year, ESPN Classic, the History Channel of sports, had been stolen away from its roots so that ESPN could show more football games instead of classic games.

Well, there are two solutions.

Right now, ESPN2 has open slots on Saturday morning at 9:00am. That works, right? I mean, you’ve done it before.

And right now, ESPN Classic has one game scheduled, a 3:30 PM EST clash between powerful, winless Army, and a rebuilding Air Force team. No slot for a noon o’clock game? Nope?

Bull.

But because ESPN has Conference USPN, I mean USA, by the scrotum, Southern Mississippi, a program that “Will play anyone, anywhere, anytime” and does as the AP describes it, will be forced to not just put that to the test, but risk severe injury and a chance at a division title because they will be playing two tough road games in barely five days.

How about that as a topic for Outside the Lines? Too important? You already complain on that show that student-athletes are over-exposed by the networks. Does this not prove your point?

A decade and a half ago, Southern Miss was an Akron, a Utah State, a Southwestern Louisiana (Louisiana-Lafayette). Jeff Bower built the program with his own two hands, going to Florida every other year as one of Spurrier’s patsies. And after years of hard work and struggle, Southern Miss has a team that could play in the biggest game in Conference USA’s history on national television this December.

But because ESPN wants to keep the game in a Tuesday night wasteland instead of on valuable Saturday gold, Southern Mississippi will be forced to travel to two hostile cities in five days against two teams that would like none other than to cripple the hopes of a dignified, classy program.

I know you, ESPN/Disney, run a business, but come on. These are student athletes you are abusing and exposing in situations that you know that they should not be in. They should not be playing on a school night anyway, but because you want to make money and own these poor conferences like they are paperweights, you put them on whenever you want. First it was Thursdays. Then it was Fridays. Now it is every day of the week, with the exception of Sundays.

This is not business; it is abuse.

You did it with Colorado State over the summer and I responded. But now you are being even crueler and unusualler than ever.

These students have to go to classes and you know it. And instead of letting them move the game so that they can get their degrees, you force them to suffer.

Three games in twelve days and two in five days. All against tough, quality, conference foes. And the second of those games is the fourth consecutive game on the road.

These students will be overtired from playing so many games and making up so much work. It is not fair and you know it.

But you don’t care.

So screw you ESPN. Screw you and your abusive You-Name-The-School-Night Night games.

This latest atrocity has crossed the line from monopolistic business moves to hypocritical grossness. This is just wrong.

ESPN, you should be ashamed. You have screwed up sports and made them “pop” and now you are telling the education system “Screw you, too.”

Enough is enough.

Show college sports; I love them. But do not abuse the people who make it great.

You don’t make it great; you make it wrong.

So I beg you, I beg all of you at ESPN, please reevaluate your M. O. Somewhere down the line you lost track of what you were created to be: an “Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.”

Entertainment = “The act or field of amusing.” Not the act or field of dominating every aspect of life.

Nothing is amusing about watching kids on Tuesday night. I don’t know who misinformed you.

So please reevaluate what you are. Dig down and find what is, no, what was, ESPN. ESPN was the best network on cable; now it is another piece of pop culture garbage.

The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say.