Education and Sports

[DARISC]

I just came across nostatic's post on the JoePa thread:

Originally Posted by nostatic

There was a time when college sports were a sidelight to the educational experience, and kids played them for the love of the game.

People can bemoan the politics of the faculty all they want, but frankly I think that turning college athletics into a professional enterprise is the real culprit for much of the downfall in higher education.

I have strongly felt the same, all the way back to jr. High school when I first learned how important sports were to so many of our colleges and universities.

I think college athletics as a professional enterprise should be abolished from our institutions of higher education.

Can this be "discussed"...or is that like asking to "discuss" gun control?

[widebody911]

I suggested something similar a few years ago and got run out of town.

[daepp]

Completely agree with Todd (finally!)

How can these schools devote so many resources to athletics???

[Noah930]

Because it brings in big bucks to the schools. Money that can be directed at non-athletic endeavors. Plus it's good for bragging rights.

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by Noah930

Because it brings in big bucks to the schools. Money that can be directed at non-athletic endeavors. Plus it's good for bragging rights.

Do you believe it's "the real culprit for much of the downfall in higher education"?

[Noah930]

no

I haven't read the Paterno thread, but sticking just to the topic you raised: What percentage of students are NCAA athletes in big money sports?

[daepp]

But there are so many schools that have huge sports programs that can't possibly even break even.

[ossiblue]

Originally Posted by DARISC

Do you believe it's "the real culprit for much of the downfall in higher education"?

Originally Posted by Noah930

no

I haven't read the Paterno thread, but sticking just to the topic you raised: What percentage of students are NCAA athletes in big money sports?

IMO, these are the two questions around which this discussion should revolve.

To say that there is a downfall of our higher education system is too broad a statement and requires an identification of the elements of higher education, which define quality, that can be agreed upon so there can be a rational discussion. Otherwise, everyone enters the arena with a hazy, amorphous "feeling" that higher education has either plunged down hill or is better than ever.

This ties into the second question as students are certainly a part of the important elements that define higher education. How many are actually directly involved in big money sports is one factor but a student does not have to be directly involved to be negatively affected by by the corrupting influences. What about "special" treatment many athletes receive on campus--private tutors, preferential enrollment into easy classes, leniency in disciplinary matters--that regular students do not get? These things do have an effect on the educational climate and culture of a campus and that may be one element which defines the quality of higher education.

There can be no doubt that sports affect the climate and culture of any campus, large or small. Small colleges and universities with sports programs that are a financial drain (read a budget item) rather than a revenue stream still rally around their teams with pride but the administrative decisions made by the deans, regents, and board of directors are rarely influenced by what impact they may have on the sports programs. The same cannot be said for big money sports schools and that, IMO, is where the corruption of the campus culture lies.

Money is power, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more that a school depends on the revenue from its sports program, the more power that program has and the more diligent the administration must be to prevent the corrupting forces from permeating the campus culture. This is an old story that we have seen may times which leads to the conclusion that there is a "downfall in higher education" and by that standard, there is. Penn State is the current and most criminally corrupt shining example. Penn State's corruption extended beyond the campus, into the surrounding community, and eventually into lives of innocent young victims. The culture of the campus (Paterno, et al) was corrupted by the power of the sports program and the sports program corrupted the community. Any school, large or small, is open to this danger especially if the draw of their athletics is the most significant identifier of the school .

Is this indicative of a "downfall of higher education?" I would say, no, not entirely. It is a collapse of administrative responsibility to maintain the quality of education of students as the main focus. It is a problem that has spread wider across the higher education scene due to the need for revenue. It is a problem that should be addressed by the public, students, faculty, administrators, coaches, athletes, and any who support big money sports. The horrors of Penn State should not be forgotten, it's just the latest and most extreme example of absolute corruption.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by ossiblue

Any school, large or small, is open to this danger especially if the draw of their athletics is the most significant identifier of the school .

I enjoyed your post, L.J.. My experience going to an SEC school was that their football programs are a huge identifier for the schools in the conference. The Universities of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, etc., everyone first thinks football.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

I enjoyed your post, L.J.. My experience going to an SEC school was that their football programs are a huge identifier for the schools in the conference. The Universities of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, etc., everyone first thinks football.

I did as well. L.J.

I played baseball on scholarship in college. There are really only two revenue producing sport at the college level: Football and basketball. And even then many colleges do not make money.

I am going to make a clumsy analogy: Football programs are like the top earning salesman at a company. Management is often willing to overlook certain behaviors as long as the salesman produces...behavior they wouldn't tolerate from an average earner (the baseball program, for example).

In the Penn State circumstance, the entire state was willing to overlook the wretched behavior...and more than just the janitor and an assistance coach knew, trust me, of their top salesman.

To Todd's point: No. It is fair to say the exact opposite. Penn State is a great University with an endowment in excess of a billion dollars (kind of makes the 60M fine a rather paltry sum) largely based on the laurels of the football team.

Penn State was a winner on the football field that was able to afford to attract academic talent, staff and students.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Penn State was a winner on the football field that was able to afford to attract academic talent, staff and students.

And Caltech has no football team (other than club sport) and attracts even better academic talent, staff and students.

I believe that sports and competition have a place in higher education. Just not to the level that many seem to want. Then again, I did not go to a large Division 1A university, and frankly don't "get" the whole live-or-die with the football team results.

Or to offer another example, USC has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation over the past two decades. It now is a top university, with many of its schools in the top 20 or top 10 rankings. And that was accomplished by President Sample focusing on academics. While football certainly played a role (though I'd love to see a breakout of the budgets), it was the focus on research and academics that turned the place around.

To say that a university now has a huge endowment because of the football program is somewhat self-fulfilling. They focused on that aspect and based everything else on that. Clearly there are many successful universities that have not used football as a "necessary evil" to fund their academic programs.

College football and basketball are now the minor league programs for the pros. Many of those on scholarships never graduate, so basically the "students" are getting paid their minor league salary to play. And this all so the alumni can get bragging rights about how great their football team is?

Higher education is broken - and this is one reason why.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by nostatic

college football and basketball are now the minor league programs for the pros. many of those on scholarships never graduate, so basically the "students" are getting paid their minor league salary to play. And this all so the alumni can get bragging rights about how great their football team is?

Higher education is broken - and this is one reason why.

+1

[Seahawk]

This is a classic which came first, the dinosaur or the egg argument: You wrote that the focus on sports at the university level is responsible for much of the decline in higher education.

I simply disagree. It may be part of the problem but certainly not, in my mind, the cause. MIT has no sports program of any note, Stanford does. Both are top flight.

The decline in higher education can be traced to the mindset that everyone needs a college degree, the subsequent cheapening of degrees, and the lack of rigor (both curricula and grades) at the high school level.

College is the new High School, with degree programs that make little sense other than as a boutique exercise in degreemanship.

Higher education has become cheapened because the schools value in the influx of money over the quality of student...not everywhere, but in enough schools that it matters. They treat students in much the same way they treat athletes, as a commodity that will be gone soon.

Originally Posted by nostatic

And Caltech has no football team (other than club sport) and attracts even better academic talent, staff and students.

I believe that sports and competition have a place in higher education. Just not to the level that many seem to want. Then again, I did not go to a large Division 1A university, and frankly don't "get" the whole live-or-die with the football team results.

Or to offer another example, USC has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation over the past two decades. It now is a top university, with many of its schools in the top 20 or top 10 rankings. And that was accomplished by President Sample focusing on academics. While football certainly played a role (though I'd love to see a breakout of the budgets), it was the focus on research and academics that turned the place around.

To say that a university now has a huge endowment because of the football program is somewhat self-fulfilling. They focused on that aspect and based everything else on that. Clearly there are many successful universities that have not used football as a "necessary evil" to fund their academic programs.

College football and basketball are now the minor league programs for the pros. Many of those on scholarships never graduate, so basically the "students" are getting paid their minor league salary to play. And this all so the alumni can get bragging rights about how great their football team is?

Higher education is broken - and this is one reason why.

[nostatic]

I think we only disagree about the percentage. I will back away from "responsible for much" but will maintain that the increasing professionalism of college athletics is a significant part of the problem. Whether it is a cause or a symptom is an interesting question - I would say it is both.

I would argue that broader cultural shifts are a big part of the problem. But inherent in that is the explosion of money into sports and "entertainment".

Everybody get off my lawn!

[sammyg2]

I agree we can eliminate sports from the university arena, right after we stop using taxpayer's money to give "some" select students a free ride on everyone else's dime.

Here's my suggestion:
No athletic scholarships. No TV money to the schools, period. No advertisement revenue, no sponsorship revenue, no alumni support of athletic programs whatsoever.

Instead the NCAA or whatever organization takes all that revenue generated from the sports or having to do with sports in a given class (div 1, div2 etc) and evenly distributes it to all schools competing in that given level of sport.
But the money must be used to equally lower the tuition rates of all students attending that school and for no other purpose. No increases in the coache's salary, not one penny going to faculty, only to reduce tuition and fees. For ALL students, not just the ones favored by racism.

The TV revenue has created a monster that needs to be killed, but I will not downplay the importance of athletics in the educational setting.

I played sports all the way from age 5 to senior year in high school. Same with my brothers and their kids, same with my daughter, and will be the same with my son. Actually two brothers played in college, one went on to play for the atlanta braves but that's a side track.

Organized sports taught us very important life-lessons you can't learn from some poser wanna-be endumacator who hasn't BTDT.
They taught us the spirit of competition, that hard work is it's own reward, that worthwhile goals can only be reached with hard work and sacrifice, and you only deserve what you earn.
And you know what? It worked.

My ultra-lefty uncle on the other hand, suggested many years ago that I keep my kids out of sports because sports are bad for children and teach them all the wrong things, and that I should put them in somethnig creative like drum-line instead like his kids (whatever the heck drum line is).

My brothers, myself, our kids are sucessful while my uncle's "non-competitive" kids are always in and out of trouble, and haven't held down a reasonable job in their life and are living off the gubmint.
Sports are very important.

[Seahawk]

Sports in general have attained a position in our society that is just so odd to me.

When I was a kid growing up in SoCal the father of a good friend would take us to go watch the Dallas Cowboys practice at Cal Lutherun, where the Cowboys held their training camp.

This was the late 60's....I remember watching Staubach and Morton compete for the quarterback job, listening to Landry wear them both out.

There was no one there. My buddy and me walked around the practice like assistance coaches. I sat in the grass and watched Jordan and Lilly do Oklahoma drills, twenty feet away from where I sat.

Different time...now ESPN shows high school games.

Weird. And wrong.

Originally Posted by nostatic

I think we only disagree about the percentage. I will back away from "responsible for much" but will maintain that the increasing professionalism of college athletics is a significant part of the problem. Whether it is a cause or a symptom is an interesting question - I would say it is both.

I would argue that broader cultural shifts are a big part of the problem. But inherent in that is the explosion of money into sports and "entertainment".

Everybody get off my lawn!

[sammyg2]

Here's an interesting story about someone I know who got a full ride scholarship to a big-name sports school and it hurt him more than helped him.

He had a part time job he got paid to not do.
He had paid "tutors" attend classes for him even took tests for him.
He got As and Bs for classes he didn't even know he was enrolled in.
He was enrolled in the most ridiculous classes that would make a liberal arts major smirk.

BUT, certain professors wouldn't allow that crap and made him take his own tests and by that time his head was so big and he was so spoiled he blew off those classes.
That got him in academic trouble and he wasn't going to be eligible to play his senior year, even though he was the ace on the top team in the nation that year.

Word got out that he had to draft out that year and it drove his stock down big-time. He still went reasonably high in the draft but the signing bonus and salary offers were a fraction of what they would have been after his senior year. He had a cloud over his head for years because of that, and when injury eventually ended that career he had nothing to fall back on.
He would have been better off without all that sports $$$$$

Now this guy was from a reasonable middle to upper middle class area and family, so he at least had a support system and a potential opportunity to start and develop a career. Imagine if he was from a poor setting and didn't have anything to fall back on?
He's have ended up in prison inside a year.

The idea that full ride sports scholarships are a good thing for the students is a bunch of crap, just like every single other "well intentioned" hand-out program.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Organized sports taught us very important life-lessons you can't learn from some poser wanna-be endumacator who hasn't BTDT.
They taught us the spirit of competition, that hard work is it's own reward, that worthwhile goals can only be reached with hard work and sacrifice, and you only deserve what you earn.
And you know what? It worked.

I played sports all my life. I get that part of it and believe that it is part of a well-rounded education. The issue is how it has become the focus rather than a piece of the puzzle.

As for "wanna-be endumacator who hasn't BTDT", my undergrad adviser was tossed in the Manzanita internment camps as a kid during WW2 (she's Japanese, born in the US and was a citizen). The then went on to get a phd in chemistry from Harvard in the 50's, back when women just didn't do that sort of thing.

Some of the faculty have been more and done more than you think...

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by nostatic

And Caltech has no football team (other than club sport) and attracts even better academic talent, staff and students.

I believe that sports and competition have a place in higher education. Just not to the level that many seem to want. Then again, I did not go to a large Division 1A university, and frankly don't "get" the whole live-or-die with the football team results.

Or to offer another example, USC has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation over the past two decades. It now is a top university, with many of its schools in the top 20 or top 10 rankings. And that was accomplished by President Sample focusing on academics. While football certainly played a role (though I'd love to see a breakout of the budgets), it was the focus on research and academics that turned the place around.

To say that a university now has a huge endowment because of the football program is somewhat self-fulfilling. They focused on that aspect and based everything else on that. Clearly there are many successful universities that have not used football as a "necessary evil" to fund their academic programs.

College football and basketball are now the minor league programs for the pros. Many of those on scholarships never graduate, so basically the "students" are getting paid their minor league salary to play. And this all so the alumni can get bragging rights about how great their football team is?

Higher education is broken - and this is one reason why.

Last I read, USC's annual gross revenue from their football team is just under $90 mil. That pays for the football team and then some.

[VincentVega]

I bet there are a lot more kids that go to college focused on sports and end up with an education. Happened to me. College football was fun, to a point. Thankfully I realized it wasnt the center of the universe and used the opportunity to learn something.