How in-state college football rivalries became a form of class warfare | Hacker News Reader

How in-state college football rivalries became a form of class warfare

slate.com

13 pointsx43b13 comments

I think this college rivalry thing could should be used to benefit science.

I'm from Finland, country of good PISA grades for 15 year old kids. Also a country with lackluster universities according to Shanghai rankings. Our universities are plenty, as it was political decision to have one university in each "county". And then there is the idea "we are small country, we need to direct our resources". As a result there are two big technical universities Aalto and TTY, 200km apart. Which do not compete in anything scientific. If TTY studies steel casting, Aalto studies aluminum casting. Now this divide is getting worse as result of political decisions.

There are student rivalries. The mechanical engineering students compete with electrical engineering students in pranking and drinking alcohol. Aalto students and Helsinki university students sneer at each other. And TTY, Aalto and various other students meet every year in kyykkä sport competition.

While students don't have much to do with actual research, the attitudes probably effect pretty much everything. Currently the most competitive and talented students try to get masters degree as fast as possible and then make career at the private sector.

You could compare this to Oxbridge. Two universities specifically trying to maintain comparable scientific know-how in every field possible. The compete on everything while being only 100km apart.

Affluent liberal media hating on the sports of the common folk...no irony here

Speaking as a Michigan grad, his description of the the UM / OSU rivalry sounds completely foreign to me. It's true I do know a few "how stupid OSU is" jokes, but I've never perceived them as anything but standard ingroup / outgroup jokes. (Think dumb blonde jokes here.)

But I've always seen the game as the best public school in Michigan versus the best public school in Ohio, two great universities with great football traditions. I've no idea why you'd think of OSU as hillbillies; I don't know that I've ever heard that association made.

Now Michigan versus Michigan State fits right into the model he's talking about. But even there it seems a real stretch to describe it as class warfare.

My impression of the Auburn / Alabama rivarly is the same. I think we could just as easily have picked a different anecdote, and make the case that it's AU looking down at AL as lower class: It's a relatively common joke to ask Alabama fans if anyone in their family actually went to college, much less to Alabama. Tommy Tuberville, while AU's coach, said that Alabama seemed to have a lot of "walk-on fans" who never went to college.

I think the author went off the rails trying to tie in class warfare (it is the Slate). Narcissism of minor differences really hits it on the head. The most intense rivalries seem to come where there's more overlap in the constituents, and the differences between them really are petty.

The NY Times wrote up Auburn's philosophy department a few years ago. They did find room for that great thinker Bear Bryant's dismissal of Auburn as "just a cow college."

Rather more interesting, I think, is how college football is a great way to divert people's tribalist instincts into harmless pasttimes.

In college football territory, a rich guy seeking to waste money might donate it to his favorite college football team. In other areas, if he wants to waste money crushing his tribal enemies, he will instead do politics.

I dont know if I would say great way, though you could argue we need some sort of violent outlet.

Considering football is currently in the crosshairs due to the amount of brain injuries in the sport, after game riots, rampant disregard of educational practices and favoritism, etc. I dont know if I would say its a "harmless pasttime"

Compared to the alternative, where people promote actual war to satisfy their violent instincts, football injuries are pretty tame.

I think its a false dichotomy to say our choices are between football and war. Soccer fans seem to get just as crazy without their players getting brain damage.

edit: More crazy.

I think you haven't looked at all into brain injuries from soccer:

https://www.google.com/#q=soccer+brain+damage

Soccer fans get brain damage from mob movement and hooliganism tho.

You can usually dismiss a pseudoscientific/pseudointellectual article by spotting the headline claim "How <controversial claim that is not well established as true> happened", instead of claiming "A case to prove of <controversial fact>"

Bah. I was talking the other weekend to a cousin who was raised in Ann Arbor and went to Michigan State. She could certainly have attended UM, but wanted to get away from home. With various Michigander shirt-tail relatives it seems to be much the same sort of thing.

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