What are the numbers for?

I happened to see a headline in the sports news about Texas A&M University moving its football program from one conference to another. Normally, I'm not a football fan but something intrigued me about this story. Why would a team make this move? Also, I had spent a lot of time on a research vessel run by the Texas A&M Marine Sciences department and the crew on the boat were BIG football fans and talked about the Aggies' football team all the time.

The news story was that Texas A&M was going to be leaving the Big 12 football conference. But when I went to look up that conference, it turned out that they only have 10 teams - and it's soon to be 9. What's going on here? Then, while in the list of conferences, I happened to see that the Big Ten conference (they use the number spelled out) has 12 teams. This is crazy. I know there have been arguments in the past that the football programs have gotten far away from insisting that the football players be students in good standing but this mixing up numbers is really going too far.

But it's not just mathematics that is suffering. Geography has taken a hit, too. There is a conference called the Pacific 12. At least they do have 12 teams. But 4 of them are in states that aren't on the Pacific Ocean. Colorado? Utah? Not even close! Only 8 of them are in states that border the coast.

When will we return to the days of student-athletes? When will these university-sanctioned organizations set a good example for these athletes?