An open letter to football broadcasters...

Dear Sports Broadcasters at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, ESPN, ESPN2, The Ocho, ETC.....

Why don't you show marching bands performing at halftime during your football broadcast?

Let me break it down for you: According to the NCAA Division 1 Wiki page, there are about 85 team members on an average college football team. In contrast, in some colleges and universities there are 4 times that many marching band members. I'm not good at math but that's a lot of potential eyes.

You folks show play after play when the ball is on the field. You show the play, you show the replay, you show the replay from the 35 different camera angles you have. But at halftime, you don't show the marching band. Why??

My girl. I bought the pic.

As a parent of a member of the Pride of West Virginia Mountaineer Marching Band I'm really quite annoyed at you. You see, last Sunday, my daughter along with the other 300+ members of the Pride traveled to Pittsburgh to perform their pregame and halftime show for the Steelers home opener against the San Francisco 49ers. The Steelers game was not televised in my area (only the Redskins game was televised, every other sports channel had water polo or some other 'sport'). I was struggling to find the Steelers game online and finally came across a shady and suspicious site that was live streaming the game, and I'm sure my computer is now infected with about 5 dozen viruses. And for what? You didn't even bother to MENTION that the band was performing. For those kids, it was the chance of a lifetime performing at Heinz Field. But for you, it meant nothing.

My daughter's old high school band director has some souped up Sunday NFL package where he gets to see every second of every Sunday football game and he, too, was watching the Steelers game, looking for the WVU band. But alas, they showed no band. Oh wait, I'm lying. He DID tell me that they showed the band for about 3 seconds but there was no sound. Only the endless droning of the football commentators rehashing what we may have missed in the first half.

Look, if I'm watching a football game, I'M WATCHING IT WITH MY EYES OPEN. You DO NOT have to tell me what happened in the first half. I was sitting right there watching it. I saw it, I'm not an idiot. Sometimes I'm even drinking and I STILL remember what I saw. It's crazy but I really don't want to watch highlights of plays I JUST SAW. I WANT TO SEE THE BAND.

Let me get back to those numbers I mentioned at the beginning of this rant letter. Imagine, for a moment, how high your ratings would be if you just showed the marching band's halftime performance! 300 band kids out there, with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, associates, band directors, and we ALL WANT TO SEE OUR KIDS ON THE FIELD. That's literally tens of thousands of eyes on your broadcast, waiting patiently to watch our kids.

I promise you, I am not taking anything away from the football players. I love football players, I wrote about one here. But the band members work their asses off every single day to perfect their music, their show, they bring so much joy and entertainment to so many people. It's just a shame that this entertainment isn't ever shown on your broadcast. I'm not just talking about pro football, I'm talking about ALL football broadcasts. Let's show some respect to the band programs out there and get some cameras on these young men and women!

Yours truly,
Snarkfest

Sayreville High School football hazing.........

I heard about this story yesterday on the Today Show, then I read a Sports Illustrated article about this case and I'm just torn. Allegations against members of the Sayreville High School football team have caused the investigators and the school superintendent to cancel the remainder of their season. 5 games will go unplayed. No senior night. No Homecoming game.

The allegations aren't just about big guys sticking little guys in a locker or giving them atomic wedgies. The allegations are 'lewd'. I had to read this next sentence twice before I physically winced.

"Investigators are looking into whether upperclassmen on the Sayreville football team digitally penetrated underclassmen on the team."

Today, digitally means electronically. But before the iPhones, video games and Google, digital mean 'finger'. Gross. If the allegations are true, this is horrific.

Here's a quote from a female freshman: "Things have been blown out of proportion. We know the players, and hazing, to them, they didn't mean it in that way. It was more like being friends."

Sorry, female freshman who isn't on the football team, but I've got LOTS of friends, and not a single one of them has ever 'digitally penetrated' me. No, this is just wrong on so many levels.

BUT.....

As a band parent, this also leaves me torn. 5 games remaining in the season. Just like our football team. Our team has a better record than they've had in years, which naturally draws a bigger crowd to Friday night football games. Our concession stand is our main source of funding for a band of 172 kids. If our last few games were cancelled, we'd lose a tremendous amount of revenue for the band.

Why are they not just punishing those responsible for this awful issue? I understand that the investigation is ongoing, but in the meantime, everyone suffers.

What are YOUR thoughts on this subject? Are they being fair by cancelling the season because of the actions of a few? Or is it an appropriate action because they don't yet have all the facts? I would love to hear what you think. Because I'm still torn.