The Lie of College Athletics and Money

[Rhythmdvl]

HSHP, you should take a look at this post, made by someone much who is more erudite than you and probably went to a better school.

(For the link averse: it’s a well written post by HSHP in a different forum, addressing some of the issues of this thread. The rest of the line was not meant as mean spirited or snarky. Insert smiley as appropriate. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate.)

[Nava]

Answered from one of the over 150 countries where college sports are extracurricular activities, definitely not ever a way to pay for a pretty diploma which may not even have required class attendance (I’m serious, as a TA at UM we were required to give passes to athletes for missing class, while people going to interviews or simply getting sick weren’t even supposed to be able to make it up).

[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]

[li]They generate interest and attention for the university. Yes, a lot of fans didn’t attend the uni, and don’t care what the French lit department published this year, but they do buy merchandise.[/li][/quote]

I know Deusto for its Law program; they have a reputation as the best for Business Law.
I know UN for its University Hospital (you know it’s gotta be good when the royal family go there for their biggest medical bills, rather than for hospitals in the places where they live).
I know Salamanca for its history. It may also be the Spanish University where you’re most likely to have foreign classmates before Erasmus levels, thanks to its popularity as a language-exchange spot.

[quote]
[li]The powers that be (state legislators) tend to pay more attention to a school when you’ve had a successful year.[/li][/quote]

See, hereabouts since no school has a big sports program, it’s not a consideration.

[quote]
[li]It allows a common experience to be shared among students and alumni. Of course, it isn’t the only experience that might be shared, but yes, I know people who came to the University of Texas at Austin in large part because of the athletics.[/li][/quote]

Funny how many times I’ve run into alumni not just of my Uni but of others in the same area and we have a common history. Remember the big strike of '92, did you guys have class that day; oh, you’re Physics from Central? I’m Chem Eng from Quimic! (the enemy of my enemy, in this case Chemistry from Central, is my friend)…

[quote]
[li]College athletes are the only members of the student body who are asked to risk their health and well-being for the benefit of the institution. I didn’t play a sport; I was a brain. (They’re not mutually exclusive, but you get my point.) But as I wrote papers and worked on projects to improve the school, I was never in danger of blowing my ACL or breaking a wrist. And while a fraction of those students will get a big payday in the major leagues, most won’t.[/li][/quote]

Ah, see, my classmates in the rugby and female basket teams weren’t asked to do anything. They just felt like playing, respectively, rugby and basket, and were able to get the school to provide uniforms. But nobody asked them to risk life and limb, no.

[quote]
[li]Athletics are a good “hook” for students who are not part of the local community. One of the reasons that students know about our campus is because we won a national championship in football a few years ago, Vince Young was the quarterback, and Matthew McConnaughey was on the sidelines. Those facts might grab the interest of a student in California, or New York, and he or she might go to our website, learn about the school, and decide that it’s a good match.[/li][/quote]

Aaaaaah. Did I mention that Miguel de Unamuno taught in Salamanca? No idea where Corbalán got his degree, but given that he played for Real Madrid, I imagine it must have been one of the Unis in Madrid.

Several other points are just seen as completely alien from this side of the border. Cheerleaders? Marching bands? Dancers? Say what? For Americans it’s “all part of the college experience;” for most other people the idea of someone getting a full fellowship for being good at cartwheels (yes, I know cheerleading is more complicated than that) is just ludicrous.

Some things which have also been mentioned in this thread, like researchers being paid and given labs when they suck at teaching or outright refuse to do it, were also a shock to me. The tenured professor who sends his “grad monkeys” to do the teaching exists in Spain too, but I’d never thought I’d see non-tenured guys do it.

[villa]

@Rhythmdvl

You can call me an intellectual snob, sure (I’m in good company here on the Dope). But a plain reading suggested choosing a school known for athletics over a school known for academics. A plain reading didn’t suggest the two schools were equal – villa referred to one by its athletic relevance and the other by its academics. I believe there was an intentional setup there when it turned out that the schools were equal, but I stand by the thought that it would be buffoonish to choose a lower-tier school over an upper tier school so you can watch people play games. (Oh, do keep your panties on… of course there are top tier schools with strong athletic programs, of course there are other reasons to choose between schools, of course it wasn’t the overriding, totally determining factor (I even acknowledged such), and of course I’m speaking in generalities.)

There was no intentional set up. The reason I mentioned it in the first place was as a comment that a straight financial review of college athletics is unlikely to cover all the benefits. The names of the schools weren’t relevant to the discussion as I (naively apparently) did not believe it would devolve into a pissing match over which schools are better. You jumped straight to my decision being “buffoonish.” I think it is possibly the best decision of my academic life. As I said, there was no effort to set anyone up. Your response shows far more about you than me. To you, it was apparently inconceivable that an SEC school could be intellectually comparable to an Ivy League school (even with the nice little backpedal to “ivy league”), especially at grad school level. And your anti-sports prejudice seems to run very deep. While accepting that people might make choices based on environmental decisions, you continue to denigrade making that choice even partially on sports.

Maybe you should have gotten to a few more Hoyas’ games and lived a little. Maybe even the tourney game where the refs handed them a win over Vandy.

[Captain_Lance_Murdoch]

@Airman Doors

Universities build lots of buildings that hide costs, ostensibly to provide more classroom space, but you and I know better (or at least you should know better). We had an initiative to expand the student union building at my school, which I voted against. Guess what? It didn’t matter what I voted, they were bound and determined to build it anyway. No way they were going to throw away the sunk cost of the architect and all the ancillary planning. And the kicker is that the building is already underutilized.

I used to think that the Edifice Complex was a satirical thing that Laurence Peter invented in The Peter Principle. I should have known better. For some reason schools at every level have this “Build or Die” attitude. Why would a stadium be any less useful than two or three other buildings that are superfluous to the learning process and do little but consume resources best used elsewhere while raising student fees 100% every four years?

Build the stadiums, I say. At least they will be used every week for football and other sports.

If by “every week”, you mean six days a year, yeah. And I doubt any student center A) gets used less often than any football stadium or b) costs as much to build as a football stadium.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@Rhythmdvl

Wow Happy Scrappy, you really need to put on your big-girl panties and get a grip. Perhaps spend some time with Oprah or a good self-help book? Seriously, some of your inner demons are peaking through.

This from the lunatic that did backflips over someone turning his back on his Ivy League Pedigree?

Please. My inner demons are just fine. It’s my outer demons you got riled with your “How could you POSSIBLY prioritize anything other than academic pedigree?!?!?!”

Where the fuck did that come from? Did I dress funny too? Do you have some past issues you’d care to share with the group? Here, have a nice cup of chamomile; we’ll listen.

Dude(dudette), YOU are the one that came out, guns blazing, against choosing a school by emphasizing (or even considering) athletic tradition. Backpedal all you want, but that’s not on me.

@Rhythmdvl

First off, people rarely make the distinction between Ivy League schools and ivy league schools. I have no idea where you got the idea that I was suggesting that eight, and only eight schools in the entire country are worth going to.

Oh, no. Nope. Go back and read your first post. You affirmatively selected those 8 and then defended yourself on it later. You can’t weasel out of that now.

@Rhythmdvl

That said, I daresay that it’s a bit preposterous to suggest that in general the talent, ambition, and background of the typical MIT grad student is at least a bit more substantial than the typical SUNY New Paltz student.

Sure, but the typical MIT student waits drooling for the fucktruck or sits home at night either studying or wishing he was out.

The thing you don’t get is that I and others in this thread are prioritizing the complete development of the individual, while you’re clinging to the idea that academic development is the sole determinor. It’s not- at least, not if you have the potential to be or even desire to be a complete person.

@Rhythmdvl

You can call me an intellectual snob, sure (I’m in good company here on the Dope). But a plain reading suggested choosing a school known for athletics over a school known for academics. A plain reading didn’t suggest the two schools were equal – villa referred to one by its athletic relevance and the other by its academics.

If a plain reading did all those things, then why are you encountering such resistance?

And I’m not calling you an intellectual snob by any stretch of the imagination. I’m calling you someone whose irrational prejudices were exposed and now is getting defensive about it.

@Rhythmdvl

I believe there was an intentional setup there when it turned out that the schools were equal, but I stand by the thought that it would be buffoonish to choose a lower-tier school over an upper tier school so you can watch people play games. (Oh, do keep your panties on… of course there are top tier schools with strong athletic programs, of course there are other reasons to choose between schools, of course it wasn’t the overriding, totally determining factor (I even acknowledged such), and of course I’m speaking in generalities.)

You believe there was an intentional setup. Riiiiiight.

@Rhythmdvl

Perhaps it was just my experience, but I don’t think anyone I knew ever lost site of the fact that it was organized recess… there was a good sense of perspective. I was also glad our debate team had the budget to fly me all over the country and the world.

So why are you whining when athlete gets the same?

@Rhythmdvl

I think one of the issues underlying the OP is that some schools’ administrations lose that perspective. That by paying gajillions of dollars to a coach to get their name in the papers, or by substantially lowering their academic standards to fill teams with ringers, they are drifting from the essence of what it means to be an institution of higher education.

I’ve never argued this. But then again, this isn’t your point. You’re trying to hide behind this.

@Rhythmdvl

This question is typically dodged by saying that the programs pretty much pay for themselves. The OP is suggesting that conventional wisdom is wrong and so the question should be directly addressed. I think the social maladjustment you refer to comes from disproportionately focusing on the physical development, school spirit, campus identity, and pride that comes from having a winning football team rather than the caliber of faculty and research output.

@Rhythmdvl

The other major issue that’s come up is the question of admissions. I was fortunate enough to go to a school that (in my experience) didn’t drop its admissions standards to get good players, so I never ran into the “dumb jock” syndrome that you seem to have faced. This too is conventional wisdom (that some schools do), and challengeable at that.

It did. Not to the point that FSU or Miami or other large state schools did, but Columbia and every Ivy did. Furthermore, you’d be surprised at the disproportionate number of athletes receiving “need-based financial aid” at Ivy League schools. You’d have no real reason to know that, of course, but it certainly exists. Your average Columbia football player is going to be smarter than your average FSU player (or maybe even student) but don’t think there isn’t a boost with regard to admissions.

@Rhythmdvl

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that it doesn’t take place anywhere, or that the standards are not lowered such that there is no detriment to other student’s classroom experience. I guess you could even argue that admitting dumb jocks is the same as admitting otherwise disadvantaged students. But since you’d be bucking conventional wisdom, if you can’t come up with a cite at least come up with some rational arguments as to why this is the case, rather than merely getting worked up into a tizzy. I don’t have the background to agree or disagree, but I’d be interested in the general viewpoint.

What question are you asking here?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

It did. Not to the point that FSU or Miami or other large state schools did, but Columbia and every Ivy did. Furthermore, you’d be surprised at the disproportionate number of athletes receiving “need-based financial aid” at Ivy League schools. You’d have no real reason to know that, of course, but it certainly exists. Your average Columbia football player is going to be smarter than your average FSU player (or maybe even student) but don’t think there isn’t a boost with regard to admissions.

Nitpick: Miami isn’t a state school, it’s private.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@RNATB

Nitpick: Miami isn’t a state school, it’s private.

Nitpick acknowledged. I’m sure I knew that, but it sure doesn’t look that way from my post. :smack:

[villa]

@Rhythmdvl

A plain reading didn’t suggest the two schools were equal – villa referred to one by its athletic relevance and the other by its academics.

I did? I referred to an SEC school and an Ivy League school.

And as you have told us repeatedly, Ivy League refers to athletics.

@Rhythmdvl

The only reason I brought up Columbia was to point out the irony relevant to this thread that it’s known for academics but referred to for sport. Heck, I even included a rolleyes.

[Labrador_Deceiver]

@bannerrefugee

I know the vast majority of fans did not attend UGA, and probably do not have relatives who attended.

How do you know this?

[kidchameleon]

@Nava

for most other people the idea of someone getting a full fellowship for being good at cartwheels (yes, I know cheerleading is more complicated than that) is just ludicrous.

The idea that all atheletes (or even most of them) get full ride scholarships is rediculous. Heck, I went to a school that didn’t even offer athletic scholarships and still managed to produce an NFL-caliber player every few years, even a first rounder in '83. Oh no, what an academic shithole we must be, we have athletes!

But obviously US schools might be able to compete with those from the 150 nations that far outshine our educational system because they don’t spend money on athletics. We might be able to get some of the brightest minds from other nations to come here if only we got rid of our sports… :rolleyes: