To no one’s surprise, the recent decision by the Big Ten Conference to cancel its fall 2020 football season has been harshly criticized by many of the players affected. The passionate, colorful reaction of Benwood “Big Ben” Thistle, a defensive tackle at Ohio State, reflects the deep hurt felt by these young men: “This is bulls**t, man! Total bulls**t! What am I supposed to do all fall — TAKE CLASSES? No way that’s happenin’. They can take away my scholarship if they want to, I don’t care, just as long as they shove all that money up the Big Ten Commissioner’s butthole. F**k this s**t!!!”
Even worse, some players believe they have been misled. When running back Craig Saffron was being recruited to play at the University of Nebraska, “nobody said a damn thing to me about going to college. They never even used the word ‘college’. Not once. All they said was that the Big Ten was a semi-pro league that sent its best players to the NFL. I swear to God, all they told me was that I would be signing a contract to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers for at least two years.”
Davon Twinney, a sophomore who grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and plays free safety for the University of Minnesota, was livid. “I never would have come to this lame-ass piece of permafrost tundra in the Arctic Circle if I had known they were going to yank the season right out from under me. My whole body was nothing but chapped, raw skin all last winter. My mom had to send me a giant bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion every two weeks. People’s idea of a good time here is carving a hole in the ice of a frozen lake and going fishing. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Don’t these dipwads know that grocery stores have seafood counters?”
Of course, not all players are upset that the fall season has been scratched. Rutgers tight end Tyler Hone, a junior, notes that “our team was 2-10 in 2019 and 1-11 in 2018. We suck. We profoundly suck. When Michigan crushed us 52-0 last year, their players didn’t even wears pads or helmets during the game — just street clothes. They didn’t tackle us, they simply punched us in the face until we fell down. It was humiliating. I won’t miss playing this fall.”
Ditto from from Jason Bontine, a fourth-string, walk-on punter at Penn State: “I’m a senior, and I’ve never been in a game, never had to have my uniform washed. The only reason I’m on the team is that I’m the most reliable supplier of high-quality recreational weed at discount prices in central Pennsylvania. The coach says that I’m the MVP of the Nittany Lions. I’m proud of that accomplishment, but it’s time for me to move on and grow my business this fall. Writing about the expansion will be the capstone project for my bachelor’s degree in Finance. I’m excited to start!”
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren says the decision to cancel the fall season was a tough one, but that it comes with an upside: “We’re going to offer a 3-credit online course to all of our student-athletes in the coming term, in which we explore, from a post-modernist perspective, the reasons why a conference called the ‘Big Ten’ actually has 14 schools in it. Our fall season may be over, but student learning is just beginning.”
For once, big-time college athletics is taking the high road.