Delaware State... Football Whore

The news of this Monday is actually a story from the tail end of last week, as Delaware State announced it will forfeit a game against North Carolina A&T in order to accommodate a game against Michigan. Basically, the gist of the story is Michigan and Delaware State had come to an agreement for DSU to come to Ann Arbor and take their whipping on October 17. The only problem was that that day's game was already assigned to conference foe North Carolina A&T.

It's an interesting case study of the sheer reality of college football. You have a team in Delaware State who is forfeiting a winnable conference game in exchange for a game they will most certainly lose. The payday is expected to be around $500,000 but the actual number isn't public knowledge and most guesses are simply speculation. The almighty dollar, proving once again that it is the end all for administrators.

Delaware State will start the season 0-1 and 0-1 in conference play, but will have a cool half mil burning a hole in their pocket. A cool half mil to offset athletic operating expenses, fund other sports, and perhaps bring the DSU Hornets to new levels of athletic fiduciary responsibility. Certainly, the dollars and cents make sense, but it just leaves me with a queasy feeling about the whole thing.

The defenders of athletics would say that participation in sport teaches young men and women about overcoming challenges. It teaches about life. It teaches about competitiveness, sportsmanship, and leadership. When defending athletics' place in the academe, it was always said that you really can't look at the profits or near across the board losses, because you simply cannot put a dollar amount on competition. Well, Delaware State certainly has. And it's going for about 500k.