Need real reasons to still be a fan

“Well, I’m sorry you’re disappointed. But times they changed and so did I.”

Bob Mould, “Disappointed.” 1990

My college football interest started probably some 40 years ago. I was a kid as the family was living in southwest Nebraska. My father who grew up as an Iowa fan, got my attention when Iowa surprisingly beat heavily favored Nebraska early in the 1981 season on the way to a Rose Bowl season. I started to become a fan.

My first college game was a few years later at the University of Colorado in Boulder when we lived in Colorado. My dad took my brother and I to watch CU-Iowa State multiple times. I loved the atmosphere. By now, I was playing Nerf football with school friends on weekends. We played a short walk away from one of the friends’ house. During water or snack breaks we’d catch up with scores and watch a little bit of whoever was on TV that week then back to our elementary school to play some more.

Depending upon the region of the country you lived determined what game you saw. Now, a number of teams can be watched nationally every week. Even after watching Iowa-Michigan in 1985 on TV, I stayed up and listened to the rebroadcast of the entire game late Saturday on WHO Radio. You could tune in that time of year. (thanks, Dad)

What we have now doesn’t feel exactly the same to me.

Last season, acquaintances were unable to attend the Iowa-Colorado State game so they gave my wife and I their tickets. The atmosphere was still there; tailgating; fun, fan fellowship in the stands and a Van Nostrand family tradition of celebrating a win with pizza. (thanks, Mom).

Unfortunately, for me, the business side of college football has cast a long, dark shadow over the atmosphere. Maybe it’s because I’m older and becoming a more cynical, skeptical and settled in my ways. Maybe it’s because I still miss the pageantry and thrill of it all during my youth.

College athletes were finally given permission to be somehow compensated for their use of image or name. Of the hundreds of millions in profits the NCAA has annually, I have wondered how the student-athletes could get more than just a scholarship. But my fear is it will be the wild West with that among players. Some reports show Alabama football getting a collective $3 million. Meanwhile, I fear the best some player, say at the University of Wyoming, will only be sponsored by Bob’s Tire and Muffler shop. We are just seeing the beginning of this. I fear any kind of disparity among college programs will be made bigger and more exposed.

Back in the 80s, Southern Methodist University’s football program was given the “death penalty” for a few years after it was discovered a number of players were paid by boosters and others; a no-no at the time for college sports. Now, about 100 or so players at Alabama will total an amount in one year some blue-collar people will never make in 40 or so working years. What was wrong then, is right now.

The College Football Playoff was quickly and horrendously organized and it is executed even worse each year. The concept needed years of preparation with a balanced number conferences and scheduling strategy. The opposite occurred. I don’t get excited over the national championship game because I think the process and the lack of any substantial consistent criteria are severely flawed.

And now we are playing musical chairs with conferences and member schools. I didn’t like it when Penn St. joined the Big 10 in the early 1990s and I said “no more” after Nebraska joined in 2011. Since then, two more have been added with USC and UCLA expected a few years from now. A coast-to-coast conference will make scheduling even more bizarre. The conference’s TV contract is worth B-illions.

This year Iowa meets Ohio State, two longstanding members of the conference that will play only for the third time since 2013.

Former Iowa coach Hayden Fry had to worry about Ohio State almost every year.

I’m wondering if I should find something else to worry about on Saturdays, or find if that 13-year-old kid is still in me.