A quick reality check

Even the sports pages (well, frankly, OFTEN the sports pages) contain things that make you scratch your head and/or pause in wonderment from time to time. Ignoring, for now, the larger issue of the ridiculous overemphasis placed on professional sports in our society -- pardon me, the running back who plays despite a painful 'turf toe' is not a "brave warrior," the single mother living in North Philadelphia struggling with two jobs and trying to create a better life for her family is -- there's the curious trend toward overspecialization and overanalysis, particularly in football. Let's face it, it's still nothing more than being faster and hitting harder, when you strip away the hype and the supposed intricacies of the West Coast Offense.

So anyway, this item from the Transactions section caught my eye the other morning:

FORDHAM-Named Ed Argast offensive coordinator-offensive line coach, Frank Forcucci defensive coordinator-outside linebackers coach, Bryan Volk recruiting coordinator-quarterbacks coach, Matt Dawson special teams coordinator-inside linebackers coach, Malik Hall defensive line coach, Custavious Patterson wide receivers coach, Kieta Malloy running backs coach, Charlie Pravata tight ends coach and Tim Cary assistant defensive backs coach.

OK, let's think about this for a moment.

Fordham is a good school with a rich athletic tradition, where I suspect sports are not a major source of income and are kept in appropriate priority relative to, say, things like academics. Unless they're making a big push to create a sequel to The Seven Blocks of Granite days, do they (or anyone -- I'm just using this announcement as an example) really need all these football coaches? How about a couple more professors?

And unless you're a football machine like Nebraska (a business associate from Lincoln once told me that you see the players walking down the main street with the sweaters with the big "N" on the front, which stands for "Nowledge"), how many tight ends do you have on a roster? Maybe a Nebraska would have five or six, and it could very well be a full-time job to keep track of who is academically ineligible or arrested for domestic assault from week to week. But would a Fordham have more than two, or maybe even three? Why do they need a tight end coach?

No offense intended, Charlie Pravata. I like small-college football played by academic institutions, and my alma mater went a robust 1-10 this past year against the likes of behemoths such as Stony Brook and, as luck would have it, Fordham. (Though we do sport a graduation rate among the highest in Division I.) But why exactly do we need so many coaches?

Note: any rants about excessive coaching do not apply to baseball, a game given to us directly by God, though (S)He expressly directed that it be played in the daytime and on grass in uncovered stadia. (I believe this was from Deuteronomy.)