Panhandlin' for a Playoff

He'd Rather Have a Playoff Than a Roof
By Mark Viera/Washington Post Staff Writer

The homeless man walked among U.S. senators. He wore a rumpled pink button-down shirt and dirt-stained khakis and nervously fidgeted with a blue pen, as if he knew he was somewhere he did not belong. In his hands, he held the three-page document that has consumed him for a better part of the year.

"Some call it obsessed," he said. "I call it dedicated."

Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building provided the setting during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee meeting on June 7. The participants included Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) , the lone panel member for most of the session, and four men who testified for or against the use of the Bowl Championship Series to determine a national champion in college football.

Fans, television pundits and even elected officials have debated the BCS since its inception in 1998. The system has been controversial in part because it relies on computers, not a playoff, to determine who plays for the championship and because some believe it marginalizes teams from smaller conferences.

But very few fans have as much desire for change as Brandon Kennedy, 21, of Cheney, Wash. And there are even fewer who have taken such extreme steps to try to make it happen.

He has drafted a paper, "The Kennedy Proposal," that outlines a new system. He sapped nearly all of his $450 bank account to fly from his home in Washington state to Washington, D.C., and has taken up residence underneath bridges and trees in Georgetown, living homeless for the past 13 weeks as he lobbies for change. He has sent, by his estimate, more than 15,000 e-mails and letters to college athletic conference commissioners, athletic directors and NCAA officials over the past year.

"You just look at history and the things that have been accomplished," Kennedy said. "Everyone's had to go to great lengths to accomplish something that's been great. This really just seems like the only way for me to do it."

I'm trying to admire this guy for taking a stand but he's making it really difficult with his shaky ass logic. I really am impressed that he's willing to go sleep under bridges.

When I graduated in '06 I really wanted to move to Canon Beach, Oregon and just be a bum (work odd jobs, drink on the beach, etc.) but I didn't have the fortitude. Now, me getting drunk where they filmed 'The Goonies' is a far cry from this dude almost getting stabbed under bridges in Crack City but I think the metaphor still works. But I can't see how the college bowl system has inflicted any great ill upon society. It probably just entertained the hell out of us.