“Last Chance U,” now in its third season on Netflix, shines its impressively dispassionate light this season on the football program of Independence Community College in southeast Kansas.

A perennial afterthought in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, the ICC Pirates made a bold hire two years and brought Jason Brown to campus. Admittedly a better recruiter than coach, Brown, as he tells it, lured 32 serious football players to campus last year alone.

Brown, a “white dude” straight out Compton, literally, describes his players as “broken.” Many of them, some extremely talented, had been bounced from other colleges and community colleges before resigning themselves grumpily to Independence, their “last chance” at securing future admission to a Division I university and, ideally, the NFL beyond.

In the eight one-hour segments of this remarkably candid series, not a single player expressed the slightest interest in getting an education. Many griped that they were more or less expected to. Brown’s primary concern was not so much making the players smarter as keeping them eligible. Many, if not most, would be gone from Independence after a single season.

Arguably the best sports documentary series ever produced, “Last Chance U” refrains from commentary and allow its viewers to draw their own conclusions. Two questions a Kansas taxpayer might ask on watching this team in action are, ‘Who is paying for all this and why?’

As to the “why” the only real reason offered by Brown or school president Dan Barwick is that local residents, whom the producers treat with great respect, like sports for their entertainment value. A winning team, which Independence had not had for a generation, also fosters community spirit.

As to the “who pays” local taxes make up roughly 50 percent of the school’s revenue. If area residents paid the whole bill, one would not begrudge them their chosen entertainment. At Independence, however, the state provides roughly 20 percent of the college’s overhead. This is close to the norm statewide.

Independence is one of eight schools in the Jayhawk Conference. Several of them were at least as competitive as Independence was in the 2017 season. These schools also spend a good deal of money on players, coaches, trainers, facilities, uniforms, insurance, academic assistance and the like. Although some of the larger schools may make up the cost in gate revenue, Independence clearly does not. With slightly more than a thousand students, the school is the smallest in the conference. There were plenty of empty seats even in the most crucial games.

Despite the fact that a great majority of the Independence players are black, the show is blessedly free of the media’s usual race obsession. The townspeople, virtually all white, at least one in an NRA hat, defy media stereotypes in their open embrace of the players.

The only jarring note in on the race front was the insinuation by President Barwick that the conference’s prior quota on out of state players was somehow racist. The quota had been a generous 20, more than the quota in many states right now.

On the 2017 team, virtually all the players came from out of state. No player that the viewers got to know came from any place near Kansas. The reason why is that Kansas is not a football state. The state’s high schools produced only four five-star recruits from 2010 to 2016 and not a single All-American during that time span. According to Bleacher Report, Kansas “is the lowest ranked among states with at least two qualifying players.”

If the state were awash in revenue, the open recruitment of out-of-state football mercenaries might justify itself for the entertainment value. If great sports programs attracted paying students, the program might justify itself on enrollment grounds. If a school like Independence actually fixed its broken players, administrators could pride themselves on their contribution to social justice.

Unfortunately, the state is straining to pay its educational bills. Almost no one attends a community college to watch its sports teams. And the players leave just as broken as they came. Although oddly likable, Brown makes Bobby Knight look like John Wooden. Profane, abusive, disorganized, he is as broken as his players.

On watching this well produced and wonderfully revealing series, Kansas taxpayers have to be asking themselves, “Why are we paying for all this?”