Humor & Life Quote by Ruby Wax

A Ruby Wax line like this lands because it’s a sideways roast: not of “college athletes” as people, but of the machinery that turns higher education into a stage-managed brand exercise. “Used to” does heavy lifting, signaling nostalgia with a sting. It implies there was a time when the sham was at least less shameless, when the pretense of academics still required minimal participation. Now even that baseline has eroded.

The phrase “get a degree in bringing your pencil” is the joke’s sharpest move. It’s not merely calling someone unprepared; it invents a fake credential so comically low-effort that the credential itself becomes evidence of institutional complicity. A degree is supposed to certify expertise. Wax swaps expertise for a kindergarten-level requirement, making the university look like the gullible party selling prestige for compliance and ticket revenue. The athlete isn’t the only target; the system that rewards athletic labor while laundering it through “education” takes the punch.

Context matters: Wax comes from a British comedic tradition that loves puncturing American seriousness, especially around status rituals. In the US, college sports sit at the intersection of money, identity, and moral self-image. The subtext is about exploitation and optics: schools profit, fans cheer, administrators preach “student-athlete,” and everyone pretends the classroom is central. The pencil is the prop that keeps the fiction alive.