Long story short, my college’s football team is division 3 and, as such, they suck. They suck so hard that they actually lost to a deaf team.
Yet last year the school shelled out many thousands of dollars to install a brand new turf field, new bleachers, and lots of fancy stuff for the field.
How can that kind of spending be justified when meanwhile the dorms are falling apart (there are literally large holes in the walls, squirrels living in the ceilings, etc) and there is ONE shuttle that can only carry 24 people at a time that runs on a very limited schedule? Perhaps that money could have been better spent renovating the dorms, buying several additional shuttles, and hiring several additional shuttle drivers so that everybody who needs to leave campus at a certain time can do so.
No, you are probably not justified. A college is generally expected to offer a range of activities to suit student interest. It is no easy task to prioritize between a large number of things, from the science labs to dorms to theater props to everything else that needs to be tended to.
Simply because money was spent one place when it could have been spent other places that you would prefer doesn’t make it an unreasonable decision. Maybe the old turf was requiring extensive maintenance to remain in suitable shape, and the new turf is that stuff that requires less water and fertilizer. That would seem like a very good use of money, IMHO.
Rather than getting pissed, you may want to get involved with your student government to make your own priorities heard. But as an immediate reaction to your post, it sounds like you just don’t like football.
Of course, my opinion is subject to change with new facts.
Many schools – even Division 3 schools – find that football (and sometimes basketball or other sports, depending on the school) is something that many alumni take pride in. Even if the team isn’t very good, the alumni may return to campus to go to games, and relive their college years.
Having an attractive stadium encourages the alumni to come back, and that can lead to the alumni being willing to donate money to the school (and not just to the athletic program in particular).
(Edit: it may also be that the improvements to the stadium were made using donations from alumni which were specifically earmarked for that purpose, rather than coming from the general school budget.)
I was going to say what kenobi said - it is very likely that they raised funds specifically for the football improvements, less likely that they were given funds for that purpose. In a non-profit organization, if your donors earmark funds, you must use them for the purpose they told you to, or you said you would. Generally those sorts of improvements don’t come out of the general fund - unless your alumni are stingy.
My (division III) alma mater dutifully sends me athletic program news on a regular basis, apparently hoping that memories of my glory days (insert sarcasm smiley here) in soccer will inspire me to send them lots of cash.
Hasn’t worked yet.
Our football team was legendarily bad, especially when I went there (one of the chants from fans in the stands directed at opposing fans/players was “We Have Higher Board Scores!”).
Not sure why you think losing to a team featuring hearing-impaired or deaf students is bad. When I was in high school, we played the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB) one year in football. The usual jokes were made when the schedule came out and we saw them as an opponent.
Let me tell you, those guys were TOUGH. Obviously the blind students didn’t play, but the hearing-impaired students were extraordinarily skllled. They didn’t use a traditional quarterback signal or cadence to snap the ball; they had a big bass drum on the sideline, and the drummer would bang it to indicate the snap. They varied the snap count just like a regular team would - sometimes the ball was snapped on the first drum beat, sometimes on the fourth, etc. Because every player on their offense felt the snap count, as opposed to just hearing it, they were very efficient and organized when the play began - never had a false-start penalty.
The hardest part was, they basically trained us the first half of the game to listen for the drum beats. We didn’t know which beat would cause the snap, but we knew it would be on a beat. In the second half, they started waiting a half-second AFTER the appropriate drum beat to snap the ball. Our defensive line got pushed all over the place for several plays, because we literally had no clue whatsoever when the ball would be snapped.
It’s neither right nor wrong. It’s the school’s decision on how to spend their money. If they want to take 95% of their funds and spend it on pink widgets then that’s what they do.
You vote with your feet. If you don’t like what they do, use your feet to take you to another school and get your degree there.
Came in to say that just because it is Div III doesn’t mean it sucks. UW-Platteville is Div III and in the Bo Ryan (current UW-Madison coach) years, they had a couple of undefeated seasons and more than a couple national championships. Not sure how they would have fared against Div I or II, but agaianst DIv III they were great.
There may be certain criteria that the school’s sports facilities have to meet in order for them to be eligible to participate in Division 3 football. If so, the choice may have been between spending the money for new turf etc. and not having a football team at all. And the decision-makers may believe, with some justification, that doing away with the football program would ultimately do more harm than good to the overall health of the school.
That said, if there are needs that are not being met (e.g. dorms falling apart), I think you’re justified in being pissed off about that.
Also remember that if it is a D3 program that none of the players are receiving a dime for playing. Like it or not, the school does raise some money from the games and they have to give the players some motivation to pick this school over another. A nice field, stadium, weight room, trainers, and locker room are about all they can offer. Oh yeah… and a good education depending on the school, but they had to qualify and pay just like you did.