alex deherrera

I love sports. I will watch nearly any competition that involves scoring, someone winning, and someone losing. I watched Slamball, the XFL, MLS, and other various leagues that really aren’t that great. I arbitrarily will pick a team or player to support, even if it is just for the afternoon, for no real reason other than I like to have someone to cheer for. If I am watching ESPN Classic, I will root for a team even if the game was played 20 years ago. Competition is just something that I love.

I put that disclaimer in here because this post is about a competition that keeps track of points that college football athletes earn by committing various crimes. It isn’t because I have an agenda against the supposed privileges that are granted to these few people skilled enough to play football at a high level that I find enjoyment in these matters, but because sometimes they are just downright humorous. Obviously the people that are arrested for domestic violence or animal cruelty are scum, but there are gems such as a Purdue player being arrested for stealing condoms.

The Fulmer Cup serves as a watch dog to show you the stuff that these athletes try to get away with that ESPN will never report unless it is a big name player. In some ways it is just as bad as reading The Superficial for the latest celebrity gossip, but I think it is more important than that. Blogs are able to report news that otherwise would never get national attention. Most people have probably never heard of Ellis T. Jones III, a former San Jose State football player, but in the Fulmer Cup he is a legend.

Former San Jose State football player that used Craigslist to lure people into meeting him and getting robbed.

Jones was charged with 13 felony counts including five counts of robbery, four counts of assault for using a taser gun on some of his victims, and one count of kidnapping when he locked a victim in the trunk of a car. He faced up to life in prison with the possibility of parole, but was convicted of only five robberies. He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.

Mr. Jones racked up an unbelievable THIRTY-ONE points by himself in the 2006 Fulmer Cup, which was then awarded to him personally and not San Jose State. It was the least they could do.

This competition is a text book example of schadenfreude. Do I feel bad for the victims of his robberies? Yes. Does that mean I can’t find humor in the situation? That would be just as bad as trying to forget the national tragedy of 7/29. If you cannot find amusement in someone being arrested for stealing beer from a gay bar then my sense of humor must be radically different from yours.

I said earlier that I felt that this was not as bad as reading celebrity gossip and I stand by that statement. I find that the Fulmer Cup is doing a service by making these crimes known. If no one except the local newspapers report these crimes than how our we suppose to find out about them? I’m not going to read the police blotter of newspapers in college towns across America just to know if anyone did something amusing. This is a niche product that not many people would be interested in, but there are enough that there is a Wikipedia dedicated to keeping track of these points in order to help the site be run.

If there is an audience for a product then it deserves to be recognized. You can’t create passion for even a trivial idea, but as long as it exists there are people out there willing to do it for free. The Fulmer Cup is a watch dog in a way, but it exists first and foremost as something for the fans of college athletics. You can take the site anyway you want it but it is around because there are people like me who love anything and everything related to sports–even the criminal aspects.