Keller @ Large: UNH Offers Deflategate Course
DURHAM, N.H. (CBS) - "Why does it matter that a football might be 12.2?"
"Why is there even debate about football air pressure?"
"What's the Ideal Gas Law?"
These were just a few of the questions University of New Hampshire Law School Prof. Michael McCann threw out to the 60 students in attendance at the inaugural class of his course on Deflategate, a story with many questions surrounding it, but few satisfactory answers.
And as they waited for the kickoff of this semester-long course, these students made it clear they're baffled by both the legal battle and the coverage of it.
"The way that the NFL worked with the teams, it doesn't seem like it was completely fair," said Abby Martinen of Dover, New Hampshire.
"I just don't understand why it's going on this long, it just seems way drawn out," added Chris Carrigan of Peabody.
"The NFL definitely has a lot of holes in their system and the way they're operating," said Sam Rogers of Shrewsbury. "What Goodell is doing is bad publicity for the league."
And Rachel Goodreau of North Reading was unimpressed by some of the Deflategate media coverage: "Journalism now is a lot of social media and there's some things you don't know if it's true or not."
We asked Prof. McCann: "What do you think these students will wind up learning about human nature?"
"I think they're gonna learn that human nature is about following rules," he said, "but also about appropriately applying rules."
And also, suggested an older student auditing the class, Dan Pearson of Bedford, N.H., about the things people will fight over when money is no object.
"That's the entertainment for me, this is big money, one big money against another big money," he said.
And for Carrigan, the whole affair call into question the litigiousness that has become the baby-boom generation's trademark.
"If you think about it, it is very silly that it got to the court level, but at this point everybody put in so much time that neither side wants to lose."
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