Jim Rome, perhaps the most annoying sports commentator, in America, which is an accomplishment of its own, managed to touch the third rail of athletics. He managed to say something every jock is thinking. Most don't say it, but they think it.
I was not a band person. Several disqualifications exist for me to be in band. First, I am tone deaf, so I have no idea whether what I am playing sounds right or not. Second, I don't possess the requisite rhthym. So, I don't have anything but admiration for people that can play instruments and make music. I wish that I could.
Now, Mr. Rome's unfortunate comments are not new sentiments. You can hear them on every practice field, and every locker room. I was on practice fields and in locker rooms. I am not saying that the opinion is correct, I am just confirming that he is not in possession of a singular opinion. Acting outraged that the opinion exists, or that it is bullying seems a bit overwrought to me.
I find it stupid on the part of the "athletic" community. Band members are willing to sit, exposed, through the worst weather imaginable, play the silly fight song, that all of them hate, even when the team is behind by hundreds, and look excited when everyone else has gone home already. They travel just as far as the sports team, and practice in parking lots and behind the school, regardless of where the "team" practices, or how good the band is.
But, at the university level, there are many more band members per given season, than there are "team" members that will graduate and ever return to the university. 5 years after they are done performing, Trevianshayquan the fullback will not be coming back and spending $400 on tickets and tailgate spots on multiple weekends, and hundreds of dollars a season on jerseys and jackets and hats. Almost all of the band members will. They are the revenue source of the university, long term. The engine of the dynasty, if you will.
Trevianshayquan will not be convincing his kids to attend his alma mater, raising them to dream to do that. Those band kids will, almost to a member. They will pay for four years of tuition, almost all of it out of their pocket. The university is not fronting that to almost any of them. They are also going to be doing the research work for the professors, working in the labs, the digs, the research rooms.
When they are truly talented musicians, they are not going to jump to Nashville or New York after their sophomore year, for the large part. They pay for chunks of their travel expenses. The road is a bit bumpier for a band student, but they seem to be much more committed to travelling that bumpy road on the whole.
Having said all of that, it does not make it cool. The hysterical comments about Rome's idiotic ramblings, which is his usual level of rambling on all subjects, are a bit over the edge. It is not cool. And that is okay. Chemistry and physics aren't cool either, but we all end up working for someone that studied them. Cool is a fleeting and foolish goal to set for one's self. It is what drives the issues that plague the Michael Vick's and Aaron Hernandez's and the Allen Iverson's (and the current one, Johnny Football's).
Cool will never pay the bills, outside of the highest levels of the fashion design world and the hip hop world, which is probably more exclusive a set of clubs than the NFL or NBA. Maybe that should be the message Rome IS Burning starts proclaiming. No one thinks those dorks with their instruments are cool, and no one with any sense cares.
Those kids are the future boosters, bosses and benefactors. They will continue shoveling money into the machine that pays for the scholarships of the people that deride their presence. It is the fact of the situation. Regardless of what you call them, or think of them, they are a long term, positive presence in the whole community, not just the school. When someone sporadically says what is in their heads, from the "athlete" community, there is a furor. But, those dorks keep coming back.
Dorks end up being sports reporters and commentators as well. Jim Rome is only guilty of speaking out. Those that get too upset about it do not see the big picture, or know the whole story. Stop taking it as gospel, stop worrying. Five years, that is all you have to say in response. See where they are in five years, and ask the chancellor which one they are more worried about. That is not what defines cool, but it is what makes the world go around. All hail band dorks, chemistry clowns and physics nerds, they end up in charge of everything.
I love you all.
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