9/13/08 - Save the Date

I have a friend - a nice guy. Let's call him "Sam". Sam's family is filthy rich. I grew up with him - we went to grade school together. Sam took the easy classes. He got decent grades. Then he got into a great college (his dad's alma mater). He barely made it through four years. He had a lot of fun. Sam graduated. And ever since that day, he has hop-scotched from company to company, job to job (where his parents have contacts) without making any progress in the real world.

How does someone get through the day like that? Sam walks through life with a safety net, only to lose, over and over again, when it really counts.

I have another friend who is a die-hard Ohio State Buckeye fan. After getting whipped by an SEC team for the second straight year in the BCS Championship game last January, he turned to me and said, "Well, it's better to get there an lose than not to get there at all."

And that got me thinking...

OSU is no different from a trust fund kid [see: Sam]. The OSU boosters are rich with cash. The recruits are rich with talent. Their schedule includes teams like Youngstown State, Ohio, Troy and Northwestern. They routinely cruise to a 9-0 record before they play Michigan in what is touted every year as the "greatest rivalry in college football". And then, somehow, they use their connections to sneak into the BCS Championship game only to get waxed by whichever SEC team they happen to play.

This is why I'm so excited for Saturday, September 13 when OSU travels to Southern Cal. The Buckeyes will get a taste of the real world BEFORE they graduate this year - a Fall internship. And I'll bet they won't get a chance to do so much as grab Pete Carroll's coffee before they drop out of school all together.