Under the Trojan nickname, USC has won over one hundred
and thirty championships and over four hundred USC students
have competed in the Olympic Games. The name Trojan
represents not only USC athletics - but also the University
as a whole. The name "Trojan" symbolizes what it means to
fight on despite the circumstances. It is not just a mascot.
It is an ideal embodied in every student. That was the message
that I got whilst working at USC and living in Los Angeles.

Its well known that in the US, if you're a top Gridiron player you will get a collage scholarship to one of the finest institutions in the land, providing you can run a 100 years in 10 seconds whilst dressed up like the mighty Hulk! Intelligence has nothing to do with it, all these guys come out as "brain surgeons" after their football days are finished.

p/s; just don't let them operate on you.

A friend of my cousin in Syracuse had a son who was a star football player and a good student in a Catholic high school. The boy was offered a football scholarship to Notre Dame, a US Catholic university. The boy wanted to study pre-med, a prerequisite for medical school. He was told that the pre-med course was so intensive that it would interfere with football practice and learning the team's system. If he took the football scholarship he would not be allowed to study pre-med. So he did not take the scholarship. Many recipients of football scholarships do not even graduate. They hope their college experience will give them an entry into professional football, what Australians call gridiron. Universities become farm teams for the pros. To my mind nobody should be enrolled in a university who is not there to learn something other than engaging in sport.

Hi David,

That's yards not years. Good to hear, with footy talent like that the boy should be President!

GREAT American presidents who played football;

Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and of course the might Donald Trump, although he cheats at golf! Now there's a brains trust for ya. Me thinks they all ran into the goal posts once too often without their helmets on.

nobody should be enrolled in a university who is not there to learn something other than engaging in sport.
david f,
yes and, no University should offer sport in the first place ! I'm sure there are Universities where learning is paramount but sadly too many institutions calling themselves University are just tax deductions for multinational cornflake companies.

I suspect that those of The Lyceum had a different view than David F.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/The-Lyceum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(Germany)

http://www.circeinstitute.org/blog/socrates-wrestling