First off, in honor of Veteran’s Day, I would like to thank all the men and women who have served our country; without your service, we as a country would not have the freedoms that we do.

College Basketball Mess

I mentioned this in one of my columns earlier in the year, but in honor of college basketball officially starting this weekend, I thought, being a college basketball fan myself, that I would give my two cents on the issue. I guess that I will start with the corruption scandal that is rocking some of the major programs. For those who do not know what the scandal is exactly about, it is coaches or shoe companies, so far just Adidas, paying thousands of dollars to recruits so that they will sign with a certain school. For many associated with the sport, they knew that things like this have been going on for some time and they are just now are investigating it. That is just plain dumb. For many around the country, the NCAA is seen as a fairly reputable organization that allows college athletes to represent their schools in various sports and many enjoy watching them play. Proof of this is in the astronomical arenas and stadiums that the teams play in, just from a rough personal estimate, most major college basketball teams have roughly 10,000 seats which are filled for almost every game. When you have 10,000 people paying good money to watch nineteen to twenty-two-year-olds play basketball, you expect them to have legitimately decided that they want to play basketball and more importantly continue their education at that respective university. But, now with all that has been uncovered, you cannot be entirely sure whether you are watching kids who just want to play ball or money-grabbing coaches and players that are only playing for financial gain. I think a way to fix this would be to get rid of the one and done rule. If you get rid of this and just let those players who want to go pro directly after high school go pro, or, go the other route and just make players stay for a minimum of two years, that way there would be less incentive to pay players to come to certain schools.

Roy Halladay Dies in Tragic Plane Crash

The baseball world lost a great one this week. Two-time Cy Young Award winner and eight-time All-Star pitcher Roy Halladay died earlier this week after crashing his plane in Florida. Halladay was known for his incredible work ethic and passion or the game. One of the things I love about the MLB is how great of a community it really is; the outpouring of support that all of the players gave in response to his death is just another example of that. I’ll end this week’s column by offering my thoughts and prayers with the Halladay family.