One Team, One Heartbeat

After watching another wild day of college football Saturday, I asked myself, "Why do college football players need to have their names on the back of their jerseys? And especially their home jerseys!" To me this is just tacky. Names on the back of the jerseys just detracts away from the whole "one team, one goal" concept. It is not about the individual player, but about the team as one unit coming together and winning. Skip Holtz, head coach of East Carolina University, backed up his reason for removing players names from the jerseys: "One of the players came to me and said that we have had the names on the back of the jerseys for awhile...I said that we have the important one (East Carolina) on the front, so I don't care about the one on the back." The university itself is more important than the popularity of the individual player, who, at most, will only contribute four years to a university's historic endeavors.

For the average fan, many do not know all 40-plus players on the football team, let alone the benchwarmers. But there is no need to know every player's name. That's why we pay the announcers the big bucks to tell us the name of every player that catches the ball or makes a game-saving tackle. Either at the game or on TV, the announcer will comment on the previous play, "Jahvid Best down to the 30 yard-line, Eddie Shoe with the tackle." Both the offensive and defensive player who made the biggest impact on the play are mentioned.