Grim Reality of Cancelled Football Season Hits Home for Colorado Players

Grim Reality of Cancelled Football Season Hits Home for Colorado Players

BOULDER, Colo.—Now that the Pac-12 conference has cancelled their entire fall season, a number of University of Colorado Buffalo football players are wondering what they are supposed to do. 

“I mean, we did go to some classes last season, but they are now saying we have to go to all of them,” said Tom Anderson, senior starting guard for the Buffs.  “There are parts of the campus I’ve never even been to, so it’s going to be a new experience.  Getting lost will be a reality.  This may be the new normal, but it sucks.” 

In addition, players will now have to pick up their own free textbooks and supplies at the campus bookstore.  Until recently, football assistants would deliver the required books to football player’s dorm rooms or off-campus apartments.    

“Now what do we do?  We actually have to go to the bookstore and pick up bags of books, with our names on them, like the football players did in the old days?” said Jarvis White, a junior Buffalo wide receiver, who is majoring in History of Jazz in America.  “Yeah, I know we don’t have to stand in a line, but walking there is a hassle.” 

Anderson said the academic rigor is not only unexpected, but unfair.  “We know we should be paid for what we do—and now they are making us go to class?  That’s communism and maybe racist,” said Anderson, who is white.  “It’s bad enough having to take a class with people who you don’t even know, but also having to write papers, take tests and interact with other students, who aren’t hot girls, is the worst.”

Not everyone is displeased with the player’s new regimen.  New Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell said at least his players go to some sort of class.  “Hell, when I coached in the [Southeastern Conference], you didn’t even have to go to class, yet most of the players graduated summa cum laude,” he said.  “At least some of them here will have the opportunity to attend online classes, to relieve the stress of attending an in-person class.”

Dorrell bristled when asked whether the students will actually turn on their laptop cameras to show the professor they are attending the online class, which some say may lead to others taking the classes for them. 

“Hey, they login to Zoom, so they are there.  No one said they have to show their faces,” he said.