HUMANITY 101
Football factories forced to teach basic decency
STAR Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, last seen in action trying to expose an unsuspecting woman’s breasts as she watched a St. Patrick’s Day parade, remains a societal menace who doesn’t know right from wrong despite his full scholarship enrollment as a student-athlete at Ohio State.
Ohio State has a habit of recruiting dubious student-athletes. As former OSU quarterback Cardale Jones tweeted in 2012: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come here to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”
That brings to mind Rutgers football coach Chris Ash’s Q&A with The Post’s Steve Serby last August.
Ash: “We have what we call a code of conduct, and it’s something I took from my time at Ohio State with Urban Meyer. It’s how we have to behave away from football; it’s about honesty, treat women with respect, no drugs, no stealing, no weapons.”
Save it, Coach. Meyer ran an arrested-development, pre-penal colony at Florida, and was paid a fortune to do so. And he is doing the same at Ohio State, being paid even more — well over $6 million per year, plus perks — to be allowed to do so.
So let’s review: Between Ohio State and Rutgers, we have two taxpayer and student-funded state university Big 10 football programs — Rutgers, despite its many uniforms, is losing its games while the school is losing its shirt throwing millions at football — that dangle full scholarships to recruit to their campuses players who need to be reminded, or taught for the first time, that criminal conduct should be avoided. Fascinating.
That’s right, while enrolled in state-funded institutions of higher learning — and no matter from which state you’re recruited — there is a need to be told: “Treat women with respect, no drugs, no stealing, no weapons.”
Does that mean recruits should wait until they’ve finished college — perhaps advancing to the NFL — before resuming or beginning such activities?
So where is the published warning to parents and academics-only students that schools such as Florida, Ohio State and Rutgers recruit and enroll players who need to be told — or reminded — that they shouldn’t tote guns, beat women and just say no to committing robberies?
We move, now, to baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, who in March said, “Major League Baseball’s greatest responsibility is to ensure that today’s youth become active participants in our game as players and fans,” adding that MLB has a “commitment to building a stronger connection between young people and the national pastime.”
Small wonder team owners pay him millions. Those paid to make such false public statements logically shouldn’t work on the cheap.
Last week MLB again took the money to allow ESPN to turn NYC days into midnights. Aug. 6’s Dodgers-Mets and Aug. 13’s Red SoxYankees 1:10 p.m. Sunday games have been moved to 8:10 p.m. starts.
Blind greed has turned most Sunday Yankees-Red Sox games into late Sunday night ESPN games, even if those in Yakima and Yuma have a better chance to see them end than those here and in Boston, not to mention half the nation’s population.
Dodgers-Mets? The two largest TV market teams? Done! Bait-so, switch-o! The Mets have a kids’ “Family Sunday” come-on planned. Those kids still awake — or having just awakened — can poke Mr. Met with a stick to wake him so he can escort them on their postgame run around the bases! “Have a swig of my Red Bull, kid.”
So what Manfred said about kids being MLB’s top priority is complete BS — a blown save. The National Pastime has become the National Past Bed Time, and not just for kids.
But what isn’t attached to a con? Throughout the first two rounds of the British Open, NBC commentators continually referenced Olympic golf, as if it were golf ’s newest major.
It’s not, but the Olympics are on NBC, thus from those who know better we were spoken to as if we didn’t know better.