Pyrrhism

I know all the fake arguments in favor of colleges having football teams (building work ethic, learning to function in a team environment, teaching leadership) and the real argument (money), but today I choked on the gear-stripping irrationality of college football in the face of recent discoveries about the price the game exacts from its players. Mounting evidence suggests that Owen Thomas of U Penn committed suicide in large part because he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a kind of brain damage previously thought to result from too many concussions. But Thomas hadn't had many concussions; instead, he had the little brain traumas that are a part of the ordinary play of the game, and aren't addressed by any medical intervention. Now, he's obviously an outlier; most football players don't suffer brain damage that leads them to suicide. But from what his case reveals, it seems equally obvious that most, if not all, football players suffer brain damage, and a lot more severe damage than we admit to ourselves.

Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Is there another human on earth that remembers why colleges exist? I come to work every day, roll up my sleeves and put eight hours of sweat into training students to use their brains in constructive ways. Why on earth is it tolerable for a college to sponsor a brain damage factory? I doubt I could talk an eating disorders clinic into sponsoring the Coney Island 4th of July hot dog eating contest, but the overwhelming majority of institutions of higher education in this country use, as one of their chief marketing tools, a frontal assault on the bricks and mortar of their students' cognitive faculties. Absolutely insane.