Next is a tale of crime and greed. I am fit to tell it for I am a long time native of the region. For many long years, over eighty if I recall, there has been a great battle every year between Washington State University and the University of Idaho. The campuses are a mere nine miles apart, and it is more like a high school rivalry than college football, for it is the Battle of the Palouse.
This year the epic game was moved over 300 miles away to the Big City, Seattle. An evil place with $25 parking and no where near the heartland which is lentil country, the Palouse. I have no grudge against pro teams moving games or even franchises, for they are paid mercenaries. They play the game for pure profit. Move the Seahawks if one likes, I care not. But this sacred game I speak of is college football. These are student athletes. The emphasis is supposed to lie on STUDENT and not athlete. I can give a rats arse if the gate was over 50,000 in Seattle and only 20,000 in Martin Stadium in sleepy ol' Pullman. Where were the students this time? Why did they have to drive hundreds of miles and pay fee after inflated fee to show their school spirit in Starbuck City rather than at the area schools they chose to attend? Sure, one could watch the game on TV, but this is supposed to be college football for college students. These students had a right to an affordable game that had taken place in their own backyards for eighty-odd years. The sports elite could have easily broadcast the game from Pullman as well as Seattle.
This is nothing but injustice and greed. The old tradition calls for the student officers of the losing team (the UofI Vandals most of the time) to walk nine miles to the winner's campus to wash the feet of the winners. For the teams, the universities, and the placid consent of the student bodies to sell out the game for a few bucks is a crime. If I had my way, I would make both teams and both sets of student representatives walks to the big city of Seattle to wash the feet of the fat cats of college football that allowed this greed fest to take place.
What's next? Is the Apple Cup (the seasonal football game between the University of Washington and Washington State University) also going to be corrupted and only be held in Seattle instead of alternating to Pullman every other year? This insults the very core of amateur athletics. Sportsmanship, fair play, school spirit, and tradition all sold for a few million dollars. The NCAA is a sham and we all know it. They should just stop trying to sell this whole notion of student athletes complete with elegibility, scholarships, majors, and every other trapping of "college athletic life" and just buy and sell these players like they were already in the professional leagues.
OK, end of gripe. Gerakken will return to a more normal mode for now. Normal until high school games are corrupted by big money somehow as well...
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