The NCAA has a blog | Athletes aren't stupid

Somehow I missed this development, but the NCAA has started a blog, one that while a production of the NCAA, seems to be fairly independent in its observations and is almost serving, so far, as an ombudsman of sorts for the college athletics organization.

I am no fan of the NCAA, finding them to be hypocritical at best and criminal at worst, but this seems to be a great move. So far, the Double-A Zone has covered the possibility of a DI-A playoff (citing none other than SportsProf, which has been linked to from this blog since its inception), Division II basketball, and perhaps coolest of all, the site is featuring player blogs, including one from North Carolina-Greensboro communication major (and SoCon basketball POY) Kyle Hines (thanks to Whelliston for that head's up) -- certainly a point of pride for my colleague and UNCG alum Antoine Hardy.

I love athletes who share a love for the game and their own education. Devil Rays minor league outfielder Fernando Perez has a great player journal on the MiLB.com site where he provides terrific insight into baseball, learning, and life -- that's not hyperbole. Perez majored in cultural studies (holla!) and creative writing at Columbia, so I suppose it's not a surprise that he can elucidate about sports in a way we're not accustomed to:

In this way I see baseball as an 'anti-modernity.' It feels as though the men who play and stay in the game indulge in a counter culture, the lifestyle in which all you have to do each day is play. It's rustic. These are reasons why I'm here.

It's no wonder that baseball is the sport that's written about the most. There's something about it that strikes a chord with people who have the patience to understand it. [...] If I had to point to something, I'd say that aesthetes are drawn to the way that it's played with calculated civility. The national pastime might be all about passing time outside. It can't do just to say that it's because of its history. I hate to use the pretentious superlative that it "transcends sport," although I believe it has some merit.

That's just a snippet. Perez' post is really beautiful writing, and I encourage you to click the link above and read it in its entirety -- and his previous entries. I'm sorry to hear that he won't be writing about baseball anymore, but I hope he starts his own non-baseball blog somewhere because he writes beautifully and is a tremendous autoethnographer.