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ANALYZING VIRGINIA TECH'S FINE SYSTEM

DIRTY DORM KILLED MY PA IN THE GREAT WAR, SIR.

By Peter Berkes
Michael Shroyer-USA TODAY Sports

So by now you've probably heard about Virginia Tech's ill-conceived fine system. It's something they totally can't do according to their own AD, but Frank Beamer and Bud Foster frankly don't give a good God damn about your rules, society.

They're here to coach up young men and mold them into productive members of society, and if they can't look like weird miserly dads yanking back some of their kids' allowance, then what's even the point? But just by looking at the fine amounts above, it's clear that we need to parse through these and talk it out.

MISSED CLASSES

Assuming players are getting monthly checks out of these COA funds, they can afford to miss roughly 12 Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes a month, 7 Tuesday/Thursday, or three weekly classes. If you are or were a dedicated class skipper like myself, you just budget for some of these and go about your life. Honestly, compared to the other fines on this list, I figured they'd be higher.

MISSED STUDY HALL

The fines here are tiny, but just go and play games on your phone or something. Or do homework, if you're feeling frisky. The world is your oyster, and you're the pearl being incrementally fined despite its dubious legality.

MISSING BOOKS/COMPUTER

Hang on, you get fined $15 if you don't have your laptop charger? What if you have a laptop that can go like 7-8 hours on battery? What if it's a pain in the ass to crawl underneath your desk to unplug the charger because you're, say, a gigantic ass human being that plays major college football? Of all the fines on this list, this one irks me the most. WHAT IF THEY HAVE A NEW MACBOOK, YOU CRETINS!

DIRTY DORM/DIRTY LOCKER

What qualifies as "dirty"? Who's creating the standards for this? This seems like a real easy way to bang a kid out of $50 instead of a GA being like, "Hey, look, straighten up your locker real quick, I won't tell anyone, just come to meetings tomorrow with a tin of Skoal Wintergreen for Coach Foster." Also, "dirty dorm" sounds like a bacterial infection that ravaged the wounded on the front lines during World War I.

RELATIVE FINE AMOUNTS

Yes, we saw that players get fined more for having a gross locker than for missing a class or tutor session. The facade of the student-athlete warrior-poet has been laid bare and is in tatters at your feet. I haven't stopped fainting for 24 hours, please release me from this hell.