Osler's Razor

I was only watching from afar, but the TCU-Baylor game on Saturday was amazing-- Baylor pulled out a win in the last second, after being 24 points down in the 4th quarter.  I almost turned off the TV with about 11 minutes left, and I'm really glad that I didn't!

Meanwhile, though, it is hard not to worry about the state of college football, and football in general.  I wrote already about the situation in Sayresville, New Jersey, and now things are coming out about the Florida State program that are truly disheartening.  A lengthy New York Times article three days ago titled At Florida State, Football Clouds Justice told the sad story of a school that has lost its way. 

Football success, like any form of power, can be corrupting.  No school should put football first.  It has proven to be a very difficult (but possible) thing to be great at football and retain an identity separate from that, and the schools which have achieved that-- ie, Stanford and Notre Dame-- tend to have tremendous resources at their disposal.  Like wealth and beauty, success in a sport like football carries with it a moral hazard that must be recognized and averted with the great effort that restraint so often requires.