Why Colleges And Universities Truly Need Football

• AP Photos
• Yes, the coaches are overpaid and the athletes are exploited—but college football offers campuses something real.

Universities get no love. Perhaps they earn none. To outsiders they’re a fen of infantilized students who can’t wait to leave and intriguing faculty too insecure to, places where everyone is less concerned with spreading knowledge and maturity than with writing rules to make sure no one’s feelings ever get hurt. (See trigger warnings; see commencement speakers disinvited.)

That’s when it hit me: everyone is wrong about football.