As of this morning, October 1, 2013 the government
has shut down. Neither side was able to compromise and it is now affecting the
lives of Americans including student athletes at the Service Academies. An
email was sent out to fans and athletes stating: “As a result of the government
shutdown, the Department of Defense has suspended all athletic competitions at
the Service Academies.” Dozens of sporting events for the Academies were
cancelled for this week in all sports ranging from football to soccer to volleyball
which may include two major football games between Navy-Air Force and
Army-Boston College. More than forty thousand fans were expected to attend the
Navy-Air Force rivalry game and now there is a strong chance that they will not
be watching the game unless a settlement is made about the government shutdown.
Both the House and the Senate kept battling back and forth all weekend. The
Republican-controlled House wished to avoid the shutdown by proposing a bill
that would delay Obamacare by at least a year but the Democratic-controlled Senate
immediately rejected it. The two majority parties kept fighting against each
other and could not reach an agreement which led to the shutdown. Why couldn’t
the two parties make an agreement that wouldn’t have affected thousands of government
employees and the thousands of students at the Service Academies?
I completely agree that it is ridiculous that since the House and the Senate insist on not being able to compromise about Obamacare the student athletes and teams at the service academies will suffer by not being able to play and prove themselves. College athletes have a short amount of time to prove that they are good enough to play at the pro level especially at the service academies since they barely have athletes drafted because they must fulfill 2 years of active duty before asking to be released to play which teams see as a risk. It is also ridiculous for them to cancel all these games because they are hurting their own schools because these games bring in millions of dollars for the schools that will now be nonexistent. Lastly, it also hurts the teams standing in their conference, which hurts their chance at a bowl game. This potential bowl game would also bring in millions of dollars for the school but because of games being potentially cancelled this bowl money is now up in the air.
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