The only unfortunate thing about the beginning of football season is it means class is back in session…

For our Castleton sports teams, the wear and tear of summer training is already paying off. On the soccer pitch, both the men and women got off to quiet starts, but the conference play has yet to commence for either side.Field Hockey’s summer training came into play at the end of the game when Rachel Preusser scored her fifth goal of the night with no time left on the clock to lead her team to victory.

Our gridiron gang started off the year with a nice win over Plymouth State and will be looking to double their win total in the home opener on Sept. 14.

It was also a very busy summer in professional sports; besides baseball being the only sport actually in season.  Of course, the NFL dominated the headlines with stories from whether RGIII would start opening night, (surprise, surprise) he did, to Riley Cooper using a racial slur at a country concert, which went viral.  Trying to avoid all this crap was hard to do, but I wanted to focus most of my attention on even more crap: Johnny Manziel. 

Being college students, we can, on some levels, relate to him, as two of our own football stars just made headlines for all the wrong reasons.  But on other levels, we have no clue what he is thinking or going through.  He was the first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy. What came after, for him, has been a disaster.  Now, the season has started so some of the controversy has subdued, but over the summer, he dominated sports talk shows around the country. 

A quick summary: “Johnny Football” was accused of getting paid for signing autographs last January, which is a violation of NCAA rules.  He then had a couple of rough nights out on the town, including getting tossed out of a party while wearing a Tim Tebow jersey in Austin, his school’s rival city.  Then, an article came out on ESPN stating his parents were scared for his life and thought every phone call was the police saying he was in jail, or worse.

After getting an ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS suspension of just one half against a team they put up 52 on, he received a taunting penalty and was benched by his coach.  His character flaws, unfortunately, continue to reign supreme over his natural talent and ability, and will remain with him throughout his career, unless he can straighten out and understand how the world works. 

Nobody is going to feel badly for the grandson of a multi-million dollar oil baron who takes private jets from Miami Heat games to the ESPY’s.  Nobody is going to feel badly for the freshman winner of the Heisman who doesn’t understand how to deal with it.  In the world we live in today, there is so much helpful information out there, can he actually have an excuse for everything he has done to himself?

No.  The only person he can blame is himself.