Recycling in Thought, Word, and Deed

Written Especially for Students at Brigham Young University

Above: Have you ever wondered what happens to the cans we don't recycle?

During the last decades, the rhetoric of recycling has become a more and more prominent and accepted part of the American dialogue. As we have considered and recognized the need to be more environmentally responsible, efforts have been made to teach and promote recycling through ad campaigns, inclusion in the school curricula, and so forth. What began as ideas and words concerning the importance of waste reduction has indeed translated into action on the part of the American people. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2009 Americans produced 131.9 million tons of non-recycled waste, less than in any of the twenty previous years, in spite of population growth (“Municipal Solid Waste Generation” 1). Recycling rates in the United States have steadily climbed over the same period. According to the same EPA report, 33.8% of the waste produced this last year in America was recycled (2). Americans have come a long way from the 1960’s when that statistic was virtually 0% (2). A generation of responsible Americans is helping to maintain this trend of waste reduction. These Americans have become recyclers in thought, word, and deed.

Unfortunately, students at BYU are generally a step behind in this regard. In fact, most of us living in off-campus apartment complexes don’t recycle any of our waste at all. We think about how morally responsible recycling is, we talk about how we ought to do it, but most of us simply do not. We are recyclers in thought and in word, but not in deed. And yet, if our apathy towards waste reduction isn’t because we don’t want to or don't understand that we ought to recycle, what keeps us from doing more? Most students identify having no convenient way to recycle in complexes where no recycling services are offered as the biggest challenge. Admittedly, this is an inconvenience, but ultimately the deeper problem lies with the students. We don’t demand recycling services that can reasonably be provided, and we abuse such services when they are. We need to overcome these problems if we are to turn recycling thought and word into recycling deed.

Most student apartment complexes at BYU do not provide a means of collecting recyclable materials. While managers and owners of off-campus apartments don’t claim to be opposed to providing recycling services, the consensus appears to be that since the fledgling recycling services offered by Provo City are unrealistic for large apartment complexes, no recycling services have been provided. But other solutions to this problem exist; there are specialized companies in Utah that provide recycling services for very reasonable rates. A quick search online and a phone call to Allied Waste Services of Utah was all it took for me to learn that for under $165 per month, this company will provide a complex with a large 8 cubic-yard dumpster for recyclable materials and empty it three times a week. Each additional dumpster is cheaper than the last. Surely, it would not be difficult to provide such a dumpster for recycling in a student apartment complex. Unfortunately, this type of service is not provided in the vast majority of off-campus apartment complexes, and students haven’t demand it.

The dynamics of this situation were summed up concisely by one of the secretaries of the off-campus complexes when they told me: “Every so often someone comes in with questions for a recycling paper they are writing, but so long as I have been here, nothing has changed. I keep hoping it will, though.” Another student told me, “I am appalled at the lack of concern for our environment that is evidenced by [off-campus] apartments. It would take very little effort on their part to manage a recycling program and I am shocked nothing has been done to remedy this situation." These individuals and many more like them think and talk about recycling, but the problem persists. This lack of action is a big obstacle that is hindering us from recycling.

Taking time to consider the huge influence we could have if we students were more proactive might help us to overcome this obstacle. Think about how much we waste in resources because we don’t demand recycling services. Have you ever cringed as you have been forced to throw cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, milk cartons, and metal cans in with the rest of the refuse in the communal dumpster? The busy lifestyle that students lead tends to produce a lot of recyclable waste, like food packaging and paper. If none of this waste is recycled, then it all ends up in landfills instead, where it becomes a problem for future generations. We owe it to them to do better. To be environmentally responsible in deed, we ought to work with our apartment owners to find reasonable means of reducing our waste production. If we were to do this, we could drastically reduce our cumulative waste production each year.

In order for this to work, however, we need to check our own determination to be responsible recyclers. If services are provided for us and we abuse them, who can we blame but ourselves when these recycling services are taken away? Laziness and ignorance in the student body will curb any progress we hope to make. For example, as part of their research into the availability of recycling, one student reporter for The Daily Universe discovered that at least one off-campus apartment complex has provided recycling facilities in the past, but due to student misuse was forced to remove the service (Clifford, 1). I was recently thrilled to find a box in my apartment complex intended to collect aluminum cans to be sold to a recycling company, with proceeds of these sales intended to be donated to charity. My thrill quickly turned to dismay when I inspected the contents of the box and found all kinds of trash, both recyclable and non-recyclable, and only one or two aluminum cans sprinkled among the rest of the refuse. Perhaps owners of apartment complexes believe that students won’t take the time to correctly dispose of recycling. With sights like the one mentioned above, can they be blamed? We can and must do better. The recycling company I previously mentioned does not require clients to meticulously sort recyclables, just that they don’t put non-recyclable materials in the recycling dumpster. If students can attain unto this level of responsibility, then landlords and managers will know that services they contract will not be abused and will be more willing to work with us.

Given all of this, it seems clear that if change is to take place, students must be the driving force for that change. Provided students start demanding recycling services and use them correctly, apartment complexes have the ability to provide them for what amounts to spare change attached to each resident’s monthly rent. The means by which we may be recyclers in very deed are within our grasp. I intend to work with my roommates and friends to organize and open a dialogue with the owners of my apartment complex about our recycling situation. Handled in a friendly and responsible way, surely we can find a solution that will provide a reasonable and convenient means to recycle. Can you imagine how much would be accomplished if others in other off-campus apartment complexes were to do the same? Consider taking a little time out of your busy day and giving it a try. That bit of effort will make you an environmentally responsible individual in deed.

Fun Control

To the many law abiding gun owners in the United States, fun control is what is heard when lawmakers mention the foreboding words of gun control. That is one of the things that comes to the forefront of my mind as well.

In the world we live in today it easy to understand the fear of guns. As a concerned citizen of this nation I would like to see violent crimes take a downward trend rather than the ever climbing numbers we see in our day to day exposure of the media. Watching the news we are constantly bombarded, or so it seems, by reports of the crimes committed with guns, the most common reaction to these is a ban on guns or make guns laws stricter. I am reminded of when, as a child, I pulled weeds from our little vegetable garden. Often to skip out on doing hard work, I would just pull the tops off the weeds making the garden look nice and clean, but leaving behind the actual problem, the roots. Within a day or two the weeds would be back in full force with the addition of little sprouts. I believe we have a similar situation when we enforce strict gun laws in an attempt to avoid violent crimes. It may look as though we're working hard to solve the problem, and it is hard work to get laws passed. We still miss the root of the problem however.

It's easy to understand the fear of firearms when stories like Sarah Brady's are so prolific. Brady and her husband were wounded and almost killed by a mad gunman during the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. The result of that attack and her efforts was the passage of the Brady Bill which mandated the background check and waiting period for the purchase of handguns. Both of which are reasonable and I would say necessary gun control laws. With all the good that Brady did by pushing for that law, I still do not stand behind her in light of her recent comments. In her recent article from CNN titled, “Sarah Brady to Obama: Lead on gun control” Sarah Brady tags gun owners as “bullies, ignorant, abnormal Americans, and without good conscience” (1). Brady goes on to say that the ideology of one who does not support her is of one who “is fixated with weapons of war that are turned on grandmothers and babies.” (1) Perhaps I am too ignorant to see the reasoning for such allegations against gun owners, but it would seem as if Brady is working very hard at pulling the leaves off of the weed of violent crime. This is the stigma that is attached to gun owners by those who have been or have had someone they know hurt by a gun owner.

According to www.gunpolicy.org, the current ownership of civilian firearms is 88.8 per 100 people. According to Brady, that would mean that about 88% of the population is a bunch of ignorant bullies, without a conscience who should not be allowed to make the rules. I don't believe the American people are inept, and instead believe that they are fully capable of voting intelligently and responsibly. At this point it may be easy to see Brady as an enemy if you are a gun owner, but Brady is not. I believe that Brady has the best intentions at heart - to lower and hopefully end violence in America. Brady had the strength to reap from the violent crime that impacted her life valuable insight on strengthening our gun laws. However we don't ever see calls to ban automobiles when someone is killed in a car accident. That's because the car, just like the gun, are tools that if and when used improperly can and will endanger lives.

Earlier we read that those who do not support gun bans are those whose ideology is fixated with weapons of war turned on grandmothers and babies. I find that statement to be extreme and inflammatory. Does gun ownership carry with it an inherent evil which makes one want to commit violent crimes? In his recent article from CNN titled, “Gun control measures don't stop violence” writer Robert A. Levy said, “There are about 500,000 gun-related crimes annually in the United States. Further, Americans own roughly 250 million guns. Assuming a different gun is used in each of the 500,000 crimes, only 0.2% of guns are involved in crime each year. A ban on firearms would be 99.8% over-inclusive” (1). From those statistics we can see that guns don't carry with them an inherent evil to cause one a desire to commit a violent crime. Not only that, punishing 99.8% of gun owners because of the ignorance of a few doesn't seem right. The focus instead should be on those that represent the 0.2% and not on gun owners as a whole. Levy goes on to say:

Recall that Washington banned handguns for 33 years; during some of those years the city was known as the nation's murder capital. Killers not deterred by laws against murder were not deterred by laws against owning guns. Moreover, anti-gun regulations did not address the deep-rooted causes of violent crime -- illegitimacy, drugs, alcohol abuse and dysfunctional schools -- much less mental instability. (1)

We need to stop casting blame on the tools used to kill and rather focus on uprooting killings from where they start.

By turning to the justice system we can learn a little more about what is meant by “dysfunctional schools” (Levy 1). A quick search from google shows us that the education level of those on death row is at or below high school according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In a study done at Berkeley done by Lance Lochner and Enrico Moretti shows a similar trend with prison inmates. In other words, our school system is severely lacking in certain areas. In a world where most jobs require you to have a college diploma just to get an interview, what chance do those with less then a high school education have? What then will those who have no opportunities to make money legally do? With no education and no opportunity to get an education it's not likely that they will earn a living through legal means. They learn that there are other ways to make money if one is willing to “bend” some laws. Once they've learned that skill set it's difficult to unlearn. It would seem that the money spent on lobbyist for gun control and gun bans could be better spent on hiring more teachers, strengthening the education system, and providing college opportunities for those who have no hope on their own.

In one of my favorite songs, a religious hymn, one of the lines goes as follows, “I would be my brothers keeper, Lord I would follow thee.” This line embodies the very thing that I am calling for. We need to stop ignoring those who stand in need and leaving them to hopelessly flounder around in the prison system, we need to care for our brothers and sisters. Naturally this would not solve all the problems that we face, but it would do a great deal in the effort to stop the growing trend of violent crimes. Not only that, it would make the world we live in a better place. The value of improving lives cannot be measured by simple numbers, it has an impact beyond what we can measure with statistics. In fact, the study done by Lochner and Moretti shows what other effects can come from increasing the education level in America.

Another common call on firearms is to ban magazines with capacity's that are greater than ten, or as Brady calls them, “high-capacity-killing magazines” (1). We can look to California (CA) for an answer on this one, where a ban is currently in effect on guns that have magazines over 10. I'll compare CA to Utah (UT) since this is the state where I live and most people who read this live. In 2009 CA racked in a grizzly 1,972 murders 1,360 of those by firearms. Contrast with UT where we have 37 murders with 25 of those as a result of firearms according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now that is not exactly fair to CA, it is quite a bit lager than UT, anyone looking at a map can see that. According to the U.S. Census CA has an estimated population of 36,961,66 in 2009 while UT has about 1/13 of that at 2,784,572. If we take the CA population, murders, and murders by firearms and divide them by 13 we get a population of 2,779,072 with 148 murders and 102 of those caused by firearms. Now there are many things that can influence the murder rate, demographics, poverty, religion, etc. but the lesson taught here is that putting a ban in effect to end all magazine over the capacity of 10 has not stopped violent acts by firearms.

As stated by Levy earlier in the article we saw that a ban on firearms would be 99% over-inclusive, and wouldn't impede those of a criminal mindset. The hateful rhetoric needs to stop between gun supporters and anti-gun supporters. We need to learn from out past mistakes and see that strict gun control laws don't have an impact on those already participating in illegal acts, to stop wasting our time pulling the leaves, stop looking busy, and solve the real problems where they begin, at the roots.

The "Principle" of Wisdom

The “Principle” of Wisdom

In a culture that so strongly emphasizes the importance of rules and restrictions, there is a dangerous tendency to make assumptions and draw conclusions. Unsure of how to deal with the pressures placed upon us, we often accept these assumptions as fact and adopt them into our very beliefs. The destructive power of assumption sweeps over us like a strangling fog, choking logic and reason from our otherwise powerful arsenal of common sense. Often in the Mormon culture we read too far into certain revelations and make assumptions about what they are telling us. In effect, we put words into the Prophet’s mouth. It is easy to become like the Pharisees who focus so intently on the letter of the law and miss the often more important spirit of the law. As assumed rules and commandments become more and more common they cloud our ability to understand what is actually expected of us. The specificity of incorrectly drawn conclusions makes us look beyond the mark and miss the importance of gospel principles.
There are those who take one specific commandment and draw their own conclusions about its importance and acceptability. Elder Packer likened this idea to a keyboard; “Some members of the Church who should know better pick out a hobby key or two and tap them incessantly, to the irritation of those around them. They can dull their own spiritual sensitivities. They lose track that there is a fullness of the gospel, . . . [which they reject] in preference to a favorite note. This becomes exaggerated and distorted, leading them away into apostasy” (Oaks). When taken to extremes, assumed commandments deaden our spiritual senses. This often leads to a judging attitude that in turn causes us to unrighteously judge and fall into sin.
One such assumption in Latter Day Saint Culture is that of the sin that lies within caffeine consumption. No doctrine delineates caffeine as an offence against the Word of Wisdom. The focus is placed on meaningless details while the importance of the principle behind the Word of Wisdom is often overlooked. As Doctrine and Covenants 89 reads, “hot drinks are not for the belly”. The definition of “hot drinks” can be hard to understand. Luckily, the very basis of our religion, modern and continuing revelation, has given us an insight into the interpretation of this perplexing passage of scripture: Coffee and tea. Let’s disregard the fact that both drinks are usually taken hot; what else do they both have in common? The intoxicating ingredient caffeine. Every Mormon child has heard its name whispered on the playground as if the very mention of the substance brings immediate punishment. Countless judgments have been passed and faces turned red as a result of caffeine consumption. The look of disdain from a relief society president at the sight of an empty Dr. Pepper can in your trash would suggest an offence equal only to alcohol consumption. Ironically, she then goes home and eats eight pounds of chocolate. We are counseled again and again to avoid any substance that may lead to addiction. Caffeine (like virtually any substance in existence when taken to a certain extreme) most definitely fits into this category. The question is, why do church leaders hesitate in specifically condoning or abolishing caffeine consumption? As I witnessed Elder Mask of the Quorum of the Seventy say in a Priesthood Leadership meeting in the Dominican Republic, “Do you see this can of Coca-Cola?” He proceeded to open it and (impressively) drink the entire can. Turning to a bishop he asked “Bishop, will you still sign my recommendation to enter the temple?” The obvious answer was yes; personal worthiness as of yet has nothing to do with whether or not we drink caffeine. If it had been an alcoholic beverage or a cigarette it obviously would have been a different story but according to modern day revelation, caffeine is not yet a sin.
The real issue at hand has nothing to do with caffeine but rather what the Word of Wisdom is actually teaching us. Is it a list of specific substances to avoid or is it a principle that goes much deeper than that? Elder Boyd Packer said; “The Word of Wisdom was ‘given for a principle with promise’ (D&C 89:3). That word principle in the revelation is a very important one. A principle is an enduring truth, a law, a rule you can adopt to guide you in making decisions. Generally principles are not spelled out in detail. That leaves you free to find your way with an enduring truth, a principle, as your anchor” (Packer). We can pull a plethora of knowledge out of such a small section of the Doctrine and Covenants. The Word of Wisdom teaches us that our bodies are temples that God has entrusted us with. He expects us to care for them. Just as we are not to plaster our bodies with tattoos and piercings, we should care for them physiologically as well. Section 89 teaches us to avoid eating too much meat (and only in the season thereof). Interestingly, though nothing containing caffeine is allowed to be sold on BYU campus, no one complains about the exorbitant amounts of meat served daily in every food establishment. As a freshman, I was amazed at the daily choices at the cannon center: bacon, sausage, and often ham for breakfast, hamburger bar, wraps filled with ham, and ribs for lunch, Chinese chicken, beef ribs and pork chops for dinner; the list is endless! Though a heaping plate of red meat will get you a passing “Bon apetite!”, a can of mountain dew with your meal will only score you judging looks of disappointment. The Word of Wisdom as a principle teaches us to take care of our physical bodies however we can. Why then is McDonalds not condemned as sin over the pulpit at general conference? As an athlete, I personally choose not to drink caffeinated beverages except under rare circumstances, but I understand people’s decision to do so because it is not against the commandments.
Again it comes down to principles and not specifics. Too often as members of the church we want a clear and deep line drawn between what is acceptable and what is not. However, the Lord has told us that “it is not meet that I should command in all things” (D&C 58:26). Each of us individually needs to analyze our habits, addictions and assumptions in order to more perfectly obey the laws and principles of the gospel. We need to take into account the whole of each principle to avoid “strain[ing] at a gnat, and swallow[ing] a camel” (Matthew 23:24). Doing so can be especially damaging spiritually if we focus on the mote in our brother’s eye. If we strive to follow the spirit of the law, we will find that the letter is very much the same. As long as we are caught up on the “checklist of what not to do”, however, we will continue to lose the teachings of the underlying principles contained in the commandments. That, in a way, would be as foolish as Esau selling his birthright for a mess of decaffeinated pottage.

In a related video, President Uchtdorf shares his thoughts on what matters most...

The Lost Boys

Robert is in love. The sky is bluer, food tastes better, and music sounds sweeter. He rests firmly in the grasp of that almost nauseating infatuation that is so apparent in new love. To him, Laurel is the perfect girl, she is funny, intelligent, beautiful, spiritual, she would make a great mother and an incredible partner for the rest of all time. As Dallin H. Oaks would say, “it’s marriage time.” Nothing could go wrong. But maybe it already did.

Let’s rewind over a thousand days ago when it was time for Robert to make every Latter Day Saint young man’s decision, whether or not to serve a full time mission. Clearly going on a mission would benefit him personally in spiritual and temporal ways he could scarcely imagine. He would mature and learn. The mission in some ways is a rite of passage, like a Bar Mitzvah: the boy becomes a man. Going on a mission, when possible, is the right choice, there is no doubt about it. However Robert did not take the step and now finds himself facing even cultural consequences, like his possible relationship with Laurel. Like this, our quest of spurring these boys to the best they can be turns into a double edged sword, stigmatizing young men who did not go on missions and pushing them into perpetual consequences. Suddenly the boys we wanted to help so much have “sealed their own fate” and become Lost Boys.

This is a cause to raise alarm. It introduces a perpetual cycle. The parents teach the children, the children grow and look for those attributes in a spouse, they marry, have their own children, the antelope eats the grass, the lion eats the antelope, the lion dies and becomes nutrient for the grass. Often the Smiths are a family with a history of missionary service. It is not impossible to rise against all odds and conquer one’s situation, but let’s watch The Pursuit of Happyness (sic.) with Will Smith. It is not easy. A self feeding cycle like this can very easily lead to behavioral differences and in the quest to protect impressionable individuals from bad influences, kids that need help are withheld from vital friendships. The “more spiritual” and the “less spiritual” don’t mix, class distinctions arise among the people, and most importantly and most frightening, the problem only gets deeper. The poor feel poor and act poorly.

School teacher Jane Elliot decided the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to teach her school children the evils of racism. She divided the class between blue eyed children and brown eyed children and treated the blue eyed kids as superiors to the latter. At first the children thought it was funny but after some time the brown eyed children fought against the absurdity of being treated inferior just because of their eye color. When the teacher responded with false scientific reasoning to explain why their eye color made them inferior, eventually their protests came to a halt and (here is the terrifying outcome of the experiment) the brown eyed children’s behavior and performance started going downhill, and quickly. Their self-perception was altered and suddenly they became exactly what they were not: inferior. If we put aside the ethics involved in such an experiment and just analyze the outcomes, we can learn that people are susceptible to becoming what they are treated to be. In the case of our spirituality gap, this element to human nature can be very, very dangerous. The “guy who didn’t serve” becomes the “guy that is not as spiritual” who becomes the “guy who is less active” who can turn into the “guy who doesn’t even care anyway.” Resentment, embarrassment, anger, and an active choice to disbelieve are not difficult to embrace when people expect it. It is not just a slippery slope, it is a plausible and common chain of events.

It is important for us to evaluate how easily we are prey to these stereotypes, and even more importantly, where the judgments come from in the first place. It is a tenuous assumption to say that the general population means to do harm. We all act according to the dictates of our own conscience, indicating that in most cases it is not a problem of purposeful condemnation, but rather a misunderstanding. It could be one degree of misunderstanding that leads us away from our planned destination. We also have the right and responsibility to do and seek out what is the best for our own self-interest. This is only natural, especially when it comes to the selection of our friends, the people who often influence us the most and prospects for a spouse. It is normal to seek important qualities like maturity, understanding, patience and wisdom. It is also appropriate to seek out specific qualities in a person, after all we are allowed and we should have personal preferences in what we find admirable in another individual. On the road to find people that help us uphold our values it is tempting to look for patterns that typically produce a certain outcome. The “RM” status is one of these patterns.

It is important to recognize that an “RM” does not necessarily equate to those attributes listed above. Any man who has served a mission will know of missionaries that outline the antithesis of such desired characteristics. A mission is not the magic fix-all tool many believe it to be. Missionaries are human beings, with their own emotions and weaknesses, engaged in a very noble cause. Unfortunately, many returned missionaries lose the path after arriving safely home, in fact one of the reasons the General Authorities of the church made Preach My Gospel was to remedy this problem. I wish with all my heart that it were possible to argue that all returned missionaries were strong, faithful, and wise human beings, but I can’t.

When we allow ourselves to slash out entire sections of a population in our social scene, we participate in “social shortcutting” or quick methods of discovering the events or attributes of an individual without getting to know their actual personality. Normal questions that should be friendly become cloak and dagger techniques to analyze potential candidates. These questions are not incorrect or inappropriate when used with correct intentions. It is only when we start dehumanizing another person based on an unforgiving analysis of their track record do we run into problems.

So where is the line? Not all returned missionaries are perfect, and not all the “Lost Boys” are rotten. The solution is simple. It is essential to spend time to get to know other human beings and not throw our trust on to their past achievements or official statuses. It is impossible to erase the consequences of actions and we are not the ones to decide said consequences. It is hypocritical to label young men who did not serve missions with an unescapable mantle of shame while we preach love and forgiveness on Sunday. When we discover that a man did not serve a mission, an inevitable and dangerous question comes to mind: why didn’t he go? It is our own response to this question that determines the quality of our character. Is our question accusing, or is it posed with real understanding and a heart full of charity? If the first answer rings clear, it is a sign to evaluate again our understanding of the principles we strive to live by. In the Bible it says “the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” and “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.” If we claim to be on our way to be more like him we also claim to adopt His ways. It is not right to become obstacles on the pathway to a positive change for these young men.

I am a returned missionary and my cry is simple: don’t be lazy when it comes to relationships. Please be careful not to treat that precious and beautiful experience like something to put in an irreverent personal ad. Don’t use sifters to weed out the weak and the strong. Instead, we can find so much more satisfaction and joy in getting to know individuals personally and from these relationships that we form, our understanding will increase, we will help those who stand in need and the difficult process of finding a spouse will be so much simpler. Why? We will have learned to forgive and love. We will become that partner we have always wanted, full of wisdom, maturity, deep understanding and love.

NCAA Football Playoff System

And the Fans Go Wild

By: Lane Alo

One of my fondest memories growing up was filling out March Madness brackets for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. I remember spending countless hours trying to figure out which low seeded cinderella teams would upset the NCAA giants and shock the nation. Having been raised in the middle of ACC country, which is a predominant conference among Division I college basketball, I recall the rivalry and playful banter between all the students at my high school and even many of the teachers whose alma maters made it to the tournament those years. Having said all of that, how great would it be to have a NCAA football tournament instead of the BCS bowl system, similar to the kind NCAA men’s basketball currently has? This is one of the biggest arguments in all of collegiate sports right now, whether or not college football should go to a playoff system or continue with its current Bowl Champion Series. Countless experts and fans have voiced their opinions concerning the matter and while both sides have argued very valid points, the fact is, a playoff system would be much more exciting to its fans and truly determine a national champion.

The Bowl Champion Series, more commonly known as the BCS, is a selection system that was created in 1998. In theory, the BCS is used to choose 10 of the top ranked teams among NCAA Division I schools in the nation, and give those schools the opportunity to play one other school selected to determine the winner of the bowl game. It “works” by calculating a series of mathematical equations that draw from the Harris Interactive Poll, the Coaches Poll, and an average of six different computers which calculate a series of statistics. Many argue that this type of system creates more excitement throughout the entire football season, making the outcome of every regular season game more detrimental to their postseason, and while it does, the pros do not outweigh the cons. The process currently used is complex and leaves a lot of room for error such as completely hypothetical rankings that do not give anyone the satisfaction of knowing who the best college football team really is in the nation. It would be like deciding who's going to win a game of tic-tac-toe between two people by evaluating your IQ, problems solving ability, and your past experience, without actually letting you play. That in essence is what is happening in NCAA Division I football right now and it is an injustice to the fans and the universities involved.

This past season, 2010-2011, is a perfect example of how the BCS can be unmerited and not select the best teams to be in a BCS bowl game because of faulty computer calculations. For example the University of Connecticut finished their regular season with a record of 8 wins and 4 loses, which by no means constitutes as a bad season, but their win/loss record also does not deserve an appearance in a BCS game while teams from smaller conferences, have amazing seasons and never have the opportunity to play in a large bowl game. The fact of the matter is, UConn did not even finish in the top 25 in the nation. The result of the BSC system allowed an unranked team who had a mediocre season to play in a BCS game while dozens of other schools never had a chance. One contributing factor in the system that allowed UConn to play in one of this past year’s BCS games was because of the conference they belong to, the Big East. The BCS has decided that six of eleven total conferences are “automatic qualifiers” which means that the conference champion of one of those six BCS conferences will automatically play in one of the BCS bowls. While that might seem like a fair proposition, when one of those conferences has an off year like this past season in the Big East, many teams in the “non BCS” conferences, like The University of Nevada and Boise State University, get the shaft after amazing seasons and big wins against very good BCS teams.

Another prime example of how the BCS system is problematic was the outcome of the 2004 season. The National Championship game was played between Louisiana State University and Oklahoma University despite the fact that the University of Southern California at the time was ranked number one in both the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and the USA Today Poll. While Oklahoma was defeated by LSU, the season ended in controversy because USC still finished number one in the polls even though they did not play in the National Championship game. So essentially, a team that did not even play won the game. During that same year, five other teams finished the regular season undefeated, yet only two were able to play for the National Championship game, leaving a lot of “what if” scenarios out on the table.

Besides the fact that the BCS is ineffective in determining the best team in college football, it also is less entertaining to the spectators than a playoff system. While there are obviously many other motives to take into consideration like making money and drawing potential students to a university, the number one priority should always be to please the fans and the current system does not do that. At the end of the season, if your team is lucky enough to make it to a bowl game, all you know in the end is that they are able to beat that one team they faced. How thrilling would it be, to know that your team is the undisputed champion? That is what a playoff system would accomplish, hand the championship title to the university that really deserves it.

While tradition is an important aspect of sports, so is entertainment and unveiling the true champion. College football is definitely no exception to that rule. Just recently the president of Nascar, Mike Helton, said during a press conference, “But everybody, including NASCAR, in every form of entertainment, every form of sports, has to keep working on elements to stay relevant and to grow and to maintain, I guess, its opportunity against a changing marketplace or a changing environment or a changing generation”. (NASCAR) For years we have seen all the defects of the BCS system yet nothing has been done to change it. Everyone, from the humblest fan to the greatest college football coaches has demanded modifications, yet we do not see them. If NCAA football is to stay relevant, changes must be made and a playoff system would not only fix the current problems within college football, but also make the post-season a lot more exhilarating to watch for everybody.

Works Cited

Helton, Mike. “NASCAR 2011 Media Tour Competition Announcement.” Daytona Beach, Florida. 26 Jan. 2011. Press Conference.