Sally Jenkins has a gift. It's an unfortunate gift, but it's a gift
nonetheless: she's forever missing the point. She missed it badly when she
defended the crowd behavior at Maryland last season, missed it again when
she talks about Washington's rent-a-QB Tony Banks.
She goes on to talk about how many people are losing jobs and Lucent layoffs
and so on and so forth. Not surprisingly, she never once mentions
education. As in: why are these young men encouraged to take violent jobs which
typically only last five years, but not encouraged to have an education for
later?
We don't know the first thing about Tony Banks. For all we know, he's
Rhodes Scholar. But we do know, as do you, that a lot of athletes slide by
and get breaks academically and so don't really learn much. But Jason
Williams, if he never plays another basketball game in his life, will be fine.
So will Shane Battier, and Wojo and a lot of guys who actually paid attention in
class.
We notice one major employer she doesn't list: The Washington Post.
Presumably, Jenkins didn't sleep in class, and she seems to feel secure in her
job. So between defending hooligans and feeling sorry for people who have to
pound each other into the ground and break bones to keep a job, maybe she could
mention the importance of athletes educating themselves sometime?