Option Football

You quit or we don’t play. That is essentially what dozens of players on the University of Missouri football team told the president of the university. They had lost four straight games, five of their last six, including a 31-13 home loss to Mississippi State on Saturday night. But they won this one, with the New York Times reporting that

Amid a wave of student and faculty protests, primarily over racial tensions, that all but paralyzed its flagship campus  … the president of the University of Missouri system resigned Monday, urging everyone involved to “use my resignation to heal and start talking again.” 

Racial tensions at the university had been escalating for weeks and

The president, Timothy M. Wolfe, had grown increasingly isolated, with opposition to his leadership reaching a crescendo in the last few days: The faculty council issued a statement of concern about him … the university’s student government on Monday demanded his ouster; and much of the faculty canceled classes for two days, in favor of a teach-in focused on race relations.

The threat made by the football players may or may not have been decisive but it is worth noting that if they had not played this Saturday, the University would have been on the hook for a million dollars to Brigham Young after forfeiting the game.  

Big time college football is a powerful economic engine, and one suspects that this is a precedent and one that troubles the sleep of coaches, athletic directors, university presidents and boosters across the land.

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