The Wake

On Saturday, our pigskin squad will try to best the reviled Hawkeyes in the final game of the 2004 campaign. Although a valiant effort, Minnesota has once again failed to achieve the prospect of a reputable bowl game. After a dismal loss to the Hoosiers –-one of the worst football teams in the country –- the Golden Gophers will attempt to conclude their season with dignity. I will be in attendance on Saturday, along with the usual throng of football enthusiasts, doing my best to cheer our boys to victory. In addition to spirited choruses of the “Rouser,” I will also be doing my best to ignore the pulsating McDonald’s sign and the damned American Eagle brigade that have infested the event.

The corporate presence at Minnesota football games is a strain on the integrity of a once proud football tradition. The absence of money in college athletics is what makes them so great. The players aren’t paid, the tickets are affordable, and students and alumni can watch as their matadors step into the ring to bear the bull. Collegiate sports are about bravery, glory, tenacity and the triumph of the human spirit — not money. Dodge, McDonald’s, Subway and those dandies at American Eagle have nothing to do with Golden Gopher football –- or at least they shouldn’t.

The telephone company SBC has purchased the naming rights to arguably the greatest rivalry in all of college football. For a grand $1,000,060, the annual skirmish between Michigan and Ohio State will be called the “SBC Michigan-Ohio State Classic.” Michigan coach Lloyd Carr had a tepid response, “I don’t want to go too much into it other than to say some of the things we’re doing and the directions we’re taking speak too much to money and things that put more pressure on the players.” When the guru of college football protests the muck of corporate swine, it’s time for a change.

The university ought to do away with this overbearing corporate influence on our football program. It’s a travesty when the corporate beast coerces our pep-band into playing “We Will Rock You” to help some shoddy company sell jeans. Moreover, corporate promotions are distractions from the actual game. Since corporations are such a significant part of the Golden Gopher football community, is anyone surprised the university is having trouble getting support behind an on-campus stadium? The corporations sure as hell don’t care-so long as they keep getting such a chubby cut, the Gophers will continue to play under the gray-shrouded specter of the Metrodome.

There was a time when sports had a beautiful sincerity, stadiums were named after great men and the game had integrity. Now, this purity, this sincerity, has all but disappeared amidst the avarice and slick greenbacks of the well-oiled corporate machine.

Alan Iverson is a University student and welcomes comments at iver0203@umn.edu.