Matt Leinart Wins Heisman Trophy

The University of Southern California’s starting quarterback Matt Leinart won the Heisman Trophy, recognizing him as the single finest player in college football. The voting wasn’t even close. Last year’s winner, Jason White, cast the ballot to which he is entitled as a previous winner not for himself but rather for Mr. Leinart. As a junior, Mr. Leinart could comeback next year and play again for the Trojans of Watts. He should take whatever money the NFL offers him and leave as soon as possible.

The lengths to which US colleges go to pretend that their top football and basketball jocks are student-athletes rather than minor leaguers are extreme and silly. The policies the NCAA has created to preserve the charade has even resulted in one student athlete, Colorado Jeremy Bloom, having to drop World Cup skiing sponsors to accept a football scholarship, which the NCAA then revoked anyway. The farce exists on every campus in the nation.

Mr. Leinart isn’t a great scholar, but he isn’t a stupid kid either. Despite the athletic demands on his time, he has maintained a 2.75 grade point average (a B- or thereabouts), majoring in sociology. While America often resembles a project undertaken by a B- sociologist, there is no real compelling reason for Mr. Leinart to finish his degree next year, if ever.

If he is picked in the first round of the NFL, a dead cert as they say on at the horse track, he will get several million dollars. If he returns to USC, he will not. But in either case, he risks a crippling injury with career-ending after effects. Marc Buoniconti, son of Miami Dolphins great Nick Buoniconti, never got to the NFL because of just such an injury in 1985. He is in a wheelchair and is aided in his breathing by a respirator still.

Mr. Leinart will get to play for the National Championship in the Orange Bowl against Mr. White’s Oklahoma. Then, he should admit to himself that the opportunity ahead of him to play NFL football is one that may not be there for very long. He may have a long and fruitful career or not. If he wants to finish college for the sake of finishing (and that too is laudable), there is summer school. And one suspects that USC will still be there 20 years from now if he chooses to finish then.

© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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