Go Florida’s flagship universities, whose college presidents FINALLY sound willing to pull back the curtain on academic competition, to “out” as humbug our ever-popular weighted numerical rankings of human achievement that move so predictably from lies, to damn lies, to statistics.
Or to cast this as a standardized test analogy problem, we might say school is to sports what the SAT is to the BCS — pseudo-scientific misinformation and education fraud.
Or maybe, what Gerald Bracey is to Gene Wojciechowski? 🙂
Article published Nov 26, 2006
School presidents talk playoffs
By JOHN PATTON
Sun sports writer
TALLAHASSEE – The Gators and Seminoles have found a common foe and now, they are going to work together to try to defeat it.
At halftime of Saturday’s game, Florida State President T.K. Wetherell said he and Florida President Bernie Machen are working on a proposal to eliminate the Bowl Championship Series and start a Division I college football playoff.
Wetherell said he and Machen are both putting versions of a playoff system together and will combine their ideas before officially proposing the plan to the NCAA. . .
Wetherell said arguments that a playoff would take athletes out of class for too long are bunk.
“It doesn’t make one bit of difference,” said Wetherell, a member of the FSU football team from 1963-67 and holder of the record for longest kick return in school history. “The athletes would miss the same amount of time they do now under the current system.”
Wetherell pointed out
college baseball spans three semesters (winter ball and the season goes through spring and into the summer) and said more classes are missed for the NCAA basketball tournament than would be for a football playoff.
He said the addition of a BCS Championship Game this year is a positive step but not enough.
“I do not want to see Ohio State-Michigan again,” said Wetherell, who added he is in the minority among ACC presidents regarding a playoff. “To me, the possibility of those two playing again is another reason to have a playoff.
“That happened with (FSU) and Florida a couple of times in the past and each time, the second game wasn’t as good as the first.”
Wetherell said he believes a playoff system is “inevitable” because of the revenue it would bring, but added it likely will take two or three years to phase in.
“Unless (Florida) gets screwed (out of the BCS title game) … then it may be sooner rather than later,” Wetherell said.
Cocking A Snook! 
[…] To be sure, there is nothing wrong with having a high standing in some kind of international comparison. No doubt there are things to be learned from effective schools in countries like Finland or Singapore. And yet, the more I have thought about it, the more I have become convinced that the goal of topping the international comparisons is a foolish one, and the rush to raise one’s rank a fool’s errand. In the process of pursuing a higher rank, educational leaders are ignoring deeper and more important purposes of education. […]
[…] For example, take the BCS–PLEASE! […]
[…] unschoolers oblivious to this cultural reference — like Nance — see previous rantings here and here.) Gene Wojciechowski Nov 6, 2008: My good buddy, Ivan Maisel, who recently authored a […]