College football fans are sometimes the worst. We all have heard earlier in the week that a Category 4 Hurricane was going to make landfall impacting college football games this weekend. As the week progressed and the impact of the Hurricane became more clear, the fans came out and criticized decisions to cancel the games.
These people drive me insane!
Who are they to say anything about how an individual school decides to handle canceling games. The argument that I hear the most is “well why don’t we just flip home games. We will play at our stadium this year and theirs next year.” That is a lame argument, the amount of logistics that is required to fill concession stands, sell tickets, ensure that there are enough security personnel from law enforcement (over-time and special duty pay which what these guys are making, isn’t cheap), plus having first responders on site takes more then a few days. No one wants to hear this part, but there is a financial impact on schools. What do you do about the financial impact of these games on the communities. That’s just the beginning, how about travel for the teams. How are these schools going to get travel in 2-3 days? These teams aren’t flying commercial, they are on charter flights. And getting these flights are not easy.
That is just in general, let’s get to the specifics of this weekend here in the Triangle. I saw a bunch of people on Twitter complaining that NC State, UNC, and ECU were too quick to cancel the games, that the impact of the storm was unknown at the time of the canceling. I saw conspiracy theories that NC State was trying to ruin Will Grier’s Heisman Trophy campaign, because NC State knew it was going to lose. I saw the tone deaf statement that Whitt Babcock released criticizing ECU for refusing to travel to Blacksburg for their game. To be fair to Mr. Babcock he came back and acknowledged that his statement was not appropriate.
While the impact of the storm locally is unknown, it is not going to be as bad as thought earlier in the week, the Triangle is still going to see 7-10 inches of rain and Tropical Wind gusts. With all of these issues going on wouldn’t the paramedics that are required at each game, be better used? How about the law enforcement officials that are required at each game? Couldn’t they be better used patrolling the neighborhoods and helping people rather then breaking up drunken fights between college bros who have tailgated to hard? All the bottles of water that are sold at games, don’t you think that those bottles could be used at the storm shelters that have popped up here in the Triangle? The hotel rooms that teams use could be better used by those who are evacuating the coast.
People who complain about teams canceling games because of weather are some of the most tone deaf people out there. All they care about is the game and not about the impact on other communities or how players might have their minds on other things. The games are not that important when it comes to these disasters and no one should be criticizing any decisions schools make regarding games. Remember, they understand better then the fan what is going on and how it is going to impact their areas.
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