How do you keep players ‘in the bubble’?
Right, so keeping players in the bubble’s going to be tough.
It’s pretty obvious that the kids who are going back to school think that just because they passed a COVID test between March and now that they aren’t ever gonna get the plague, so they are gonna hang out, drink and do dumb stuff, because they are students.
Football players aren’t different, particularly with all the distractions. And no, we ain’t talking about studies, since a lot of college football players wouldn’t be in college if it wasn’t for football. Hell, it’s a miracle most of them got through high school. A great friend of mine was pursuing the sort of lifestyle that would have made Hunter S Thompson proud when he was at Alabama, and he ‘attended’ classes with some of the football players. “It was like being around people with middle school comprehension,” he said. “All they know is football.”
That’s not entirely true, Hunter. Football players also are 18-24 year-olds. They know about being treated like the Lord God Almighty. They know about getting everything they ask for. They know about getting their asses kissed from Los Angeles to Miami to Columbus, and their visits to campus are the type of events that a Vegas mobster would be proud of.
So what are you gonna do? Tell these players: “Thanks for coming. Now keep away from the booze and the ladies and play some football!”
So we came up with an alternative sources of ways to keep players in the bubble:
- Install video games: Football players like playing video games. Cool. Couple up with the local electronics retailer and install state-of-the-art gaming facilities. I mean, the players have been playing Call Of Duty for the last five months anyway, so what changes? Ask for daily scores and updates for each players, to make sure that people are competing non-stop like hamsters on the wheel.
- Free weed dispensary: Dang it, every school in the SEC has had a player or two busted for weed, and there are definitely alums who fit the bill, too. Call them, get the number of their dealers and get your own bubble hot-boxed. Of course that might need legislation to make sure that this will work, but you’re in SEC country. You make the laws. If players need stronger stuff, Mr Manziel from Kerrville, Texas would be pleased to supply.
- Free food: And we don’t mean your normal shitty college food, we meet Michelen-starred restaurants every damned night.
- Free booze on a Saturday! And we’re not talking Milwaukee Best crap either, we’re talking top shelf liquor as well as good beer. After drinking this stuff, why in the hell would they want to go to a frat party?
- Bring in the strip show: Give your players the taste of the future NFL life by bringing in ladies from your local club de strip-tease on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. If any of those strippers happen to want to earn some money for something more ‘personal’, then that’s OK. Hell, everyone wants to play football here. And they are probably better dancers than Lizzie from the Phi Gamma Delta sorority house, anyway.
Otherwise, this whole “Hey kids. Please don’t go to those parties with the pretty sorority girls. We know that you were promised play in all ways, but sorry. Not this year. Sorry. We can’t” stuff simply ain’t going work.
And we ain’t gonna have football.
P.S. Nick Saban was actually looking to make a real bubble facility for the players, and put armed security guards and dogs around the facility to stop players going out, but we had to draw a line.