Yes or no to this statement, ban college football and jaws drop all over.

Yes, we are talking about that time-honored sport football in the place where it first

mattered, college, and we are talking about banning it.

Welcome to Intelligent Squared U.S. I'm John Donovan.

We have four superbly qualified debaters, two against two, and for a taste of the kind

of poetry and passion and pain that comes to bear when we discuss the meaning of football.

I just want to give you a taste, a sample of what one NFL player wrote back in 2001 about

playing through pain.

He said, to this day, I will encourage people to feel the knob below my neck where the

collarbone was sprung free from my sternum in the middle of a game against the 49ers.

That was pain and he loved it.

So are we talking about madness or are we talking about courage when we debate the question

of banning college football?

Let's meet our debaters.

On the side arguing for the motion to ban college football, Buzz Bissinger, a Pulitzer prize

winning writer and author of the book, Friday Night Lights.

And Buzz, in 1990, you wrote a book called Friday Night Lights.

It is considered a classic of sports journalism about a small town, Odessa, Texas, and the

trials of a high school team.

It is considered by sports illustrator, the fourth greatest sports book of all time.

While critical of what you saw that you have said that you love the sport and that violence

is why we like it.

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