The Bucaneers of Charleston Southern University play football in the 1-AA Big South conference against the likes of Gardner-Webb and Liberty. Their out-of-conference games includes D-3 powerhouse Wesley College. A perennial also-ran, the Bucs finished their normal 4-8 (2-5) last year.
The small Baptist school loves Jesus and football, but mostly it loves money, and lots of it. So the student athletes of the CSU football team started their season at Central Florida and Florida State, absorbing losses by a combined 124-10 score. CSU didn't complete a pass or gain a first down against FSU's regulars in the first half.
They came home with a trophy, though, besides the punishment they endured at the hands of bigger, stronger, faster athletes, besides the welt and the bruises and the breaks, tears and strains. They returned with a big fat check for half the gate proceeds, or whatever deal they worked out. Well, they didn't, of course; the school, not the players, gets the half-million dollar paydays.
The CSU coach told the media afterward how proud he was that his players continued to compete no matter the score and how they will take their lessons learned into their Big South schedule. But there is no education in having your head kicked in repeatedly by someone who outweighs you by 60 pounds. The only lesson for the players comes off the field: you're a pawn in the never-ending effort to turn pigskin into a revenue stream.
Charleston Southern is a small-time school without championship dreams, yet even it uses its gridiron program as a profit center. It beggars credibility to say that Division 1 college football is an amateur endeavor involving student athletes, which is why the NCAA and its Byzantine rules also beggar credibility. Someone tell me why the poor cannon fodder of the Charleston Southern football team shouldn't get a few quid for all the blood they spill.
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