Has College Football Always Been This Gross?

Thanks to being a son of a Notre Dame graduate, college football has been my favorite sport for as long as I can remember.

My first very vivid memory of watching sports was New Year’s Day 1988, when Texas A&M embarrassed Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl and my Dad was not happy, to say the least. As a five year old, all I could think was, “why is Dad so mad when there’s so much football on?” My mother had even made little hot dogs. It felt like the best day of my life, even if Notre Dame got blown out.

In 1988, we watched Notre Dame beat Miami together. On January 2, 1989 (since New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday) we watched the Irish win the national championship and he lifted me on his shoulders as we paraded around our house. We called my Uncle, another Domer, and celebrated.

As a kid, college football meant so much more to me than pro football, and not just because my family loved the Jets, who were actually decent at that point in time. Al Toon is still my favorite player ever. There was something different about college football that appealed to me. It was about more than million dollar contracts, labor strife, and winning at all costs.

Of course, looking back at those childish thoughts three-plus decades later only makes me shake my head in disgust. We’ve learned since about the seedy underbelly that loomed in college football throughout the same decade that I was falling in love with the sport.