It's not often in the world of college sport blogging that a commentator gets the chance to develop subjects of mass social significance. After all, it's just a game, right?
I wanted to take a moment this afternoon to go on record in support of a thoughtful piece written last week by ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski: "South Carolina continues to suffer." Wojcieshowski documents the economic consequences of South Carolina's insistence on flying the Confederate flag on statehouse grounds.
While most proponents of the flag really do see it as a benign symbol of a proud regional heritage, whatever nostalgia might come from the ol' stars and bars, it is dramatically outweighed by the puncture wounds of institutionalized slavery and Jim Crow. The stains of this sad past are irrecoverably interwoven into the fabric of the flag.
Friends of state's rights, and the Tenth Amendment are valuable citizens and protectors of our great Constitutional Republic. They should stand resolutely behind their ancestry, and their convictions.
But when it comes to linking the past and present, they should pick a new symbol.
Drop the flag, not the history.