Football is war, after all.(college use of voluntary practices may lead to further deaths of football players)(Brief Article)

The history: "The summertime used to be for your guys going home, getting away from campus, making some money, coming back fresh and ready to go. Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno, everybody let players go home. Summertime, there was nothing to do."

I'm talking with Lee Corso, ESPN's college football guru. Once a big-time coach at Louisville and Indiana, Corso 25 years ago gave the summers to his players.

"Then some schools started `offseason' workouts, and when they started winning, everybody went to `offseason' workouts. And somebody else said, `If offseason helps, let's work our guys in the summertime' And everybody said, `Hell, if we're going to beat them, we better do the same thing.'"

The same thing, only better: "Coaches, of course, abused it. Pretty soon, all players were in summer school taking Basketweaving 101 and working 7-on-7 every day. And the NCAA goes, `Wait! We can't do this! It's gotta be voluntary?'"

Corso knows coaches: "Voluntary? Coaches tell the team captains, `This is what I want.' So the `voluntary' practices get to be the same things the official practices used to be--with one difference."

A fatal difference: "The `voluntary' practices are done before the team physicals are given. These young men who passed away this summer at Florida State, Florida and Northwestern took part in `voluntary' practices before the official team physical examinations."

Corso fell silent, then: "You don't see young men dying during official practices, do you? Not with all the coaches there and all the trainers there."