Billion Dollar Ball - 2/3

   On May 5, Gill Gaul, a two time Pulitzer prize winning author, came to visit Cinnaminson High school. He came in to talk to us about his novel Billion Dollar Ball. The novel is focused on college football and its exponential growth in the past couple decades. The amount of people watching bowl games has doubled, and then doubled again to become a multi billion dollar enterprise. Gill Gaul did journalist work traveling interviewing and data collecting all over the country at college campuses. He had detailed experiences dealing with Oregon University, Texas football culture and the process at which the money flows through college athletic departments. Gaul traveled the campus of Oregon visiting many of the learning centers and sport facilities. He visited the athletic learning center which was a 40 million dollar investment to build. It included tutors who could assist athletes 1700 hours in a single week, studying and tutoring in hopes for them to pass their classes. There are other things though like imported Brazilian Foosball tables, Ferrari leather couches and open heated-controlled fire pits. It is questionable to say that is it a study center or a lounge? Only athletes who participate in varsity sports are allowed to use the facility at there leisure. He even went on to visit the campus's "honor student" facility. The hard working valedictorian's, perfect GPA students who are the best and brightest of students get a dusty, old building to use. It was said to be at least 70 years old and didn't even have a staircase that went to the second floor on the inside of the building; the students had to use a staircase placed outside of the building that led to the second floor. It is a clear comparison that an athletic scholarship compared to a academic contrasts greatly and is unfair. Athletes on their first day even get a mac book, and the honor students just get the opportunity to go to Oregon. These very scenarios Gaul saw all over the country with the football programs just using all of their proceeds to gaunt who has the best football program and to attract boosters. In Texas, Gaul said the rivalry and competition between schools is relentless. With rivalries starting decades in the past and teams just doing anything in their ability to beat the life out of the other teams; losing the fundamentals of football at points. This type of tension between schools is what actually attracts the attention to the programs and what makes people buy seats in the stadiums for entire seasons. The cut throat competition is what people gamble, cry, and wait for all year long. Gaul witnessed this during the 4 years he researched when writing the novel. The college football industry has exploded in a way where college coaches like Nick Saben making 650,000 in 1999 to making 7.1 million to this day. The television, social media and the history behind football is what ignites the flame in every fan to watch and cheer during every game, give seat donations up to 50,000 dollars and to let college football tumble into piles and piles of money. If Gill Gaul did not expose the wealth within college sports everyone could of continued obliviously unknowing of the billions of dollars flowing all around them. Does this arise any questions for you? What are these colleges doing with the millions and million of dollars unaccounted for? The reality is they barely do any interviews and if you to get a chance to ask the president of a college, they do not even know either.

The Oregon Athletic Learning Center.