TheSkiffView
BABY BLUES
New athletics’ gimmick goes too far
The Romans forced gladiators to fight to the death in the Coliseum. Americans forced slaves to box one another before the Civil War.

Now TCU is forcing unknowing, innocent babies to race each other in the first official Baby Crawl during halftime at the men’s basketball game Saturday.

Sure, comparing slavery to a funny halftime show may be just a bit extreme. But in a society with competition-based reality shows like “Survivor,” is it really necessary to force such contests on small children?

Their biggest goals are trying to properly pronounce “ma-ma” and “da-da” and figuring out how to walk five feet without falling on their butts.

Some of these babies will probably just break into tears at midcourt because they are scared of the thousands of people cheering them on. Others may hurt their knees crawling on the hard stadium floor. A diaper could fall off a baby, leaving him/her exposed in front of everyone. Imagine the emotional scarring. Oh the humanity!

Isn’t there a better way to draw attendance than promoting the game through a pointless halftime sideshow?

Sure the men’s basketball team has a subpar record, but if we need to pay students to cheer loudly and hold silly baby races to draw attendance, then there may be a problem at hand.

Admittedly, the babies will be cute and the race will probably be entertaining, but the babies themselves should have a say in the matter.

So here’s a compromise: When babies learn to speak coherently and think for themselves, then they can be allowed to enter whatever contests they want.