I realize that I do tend to get a bit defensive about this issue because it’s one of those things where my own opinion lies way, waaaay out there on the lunatic fringe (by U.S. standards, anyway)—viz., I really don’t see the point of “college sports” at all, beyond the intramural level. My impression, for what it’s worth, was that a number of studies had pretty thoroughly debunked the whole “they bring in money” argument. If anyone want to play sports at a more “serious” level than sheer recreation, the opportunities for them to do so should be made available…but what any of that has to do with a university education just escapes me entirely. “School spirit” is a pretty vague and ephemeral justification, given the very real negative effects of sports-mania on college campuses.

You know, the great thing about blogs is not that people with disparate viewpoints can meet and discuss; it’s that people with similar viewpoints can argue!

Ophelia said that athletics said that she saw no reason why athletic ability should be considered in university admissions. You leapt from there to “But if you start from the premise that athletics has no role in the university experience….” Apples & oranges. I’ve got no problem with athletics being a part of the “university experience”—there’s always intramurals, for instance. (I’m not being facetious in saying that, btw.)

What’s more, on reflection, I’m not prepared to argue that athletic achievement (NB: not athletic ability) should have no role in university admissions, and I’m not sure that that’s what Ophelia was really arguing either. Achievement is achievement, whether it’s in sports, music, the fine arts, writing, community service, political activism, etc., and it can be seen as indicative of certain desirable personal qualities.

But treating athletic achievement as just one more variety of achievement among many, of course, is a million miles away from where things stand right now. So if I was pissy, it was because I bristled at another part of your post:

If it’s fair to take an applicant’s skills as a flutist into account, why not his/her abilities as a diver, or runner, or point guard?

Please, George. When the flutist gets a 4-year all-expenses paid scholarship, when he/she is granted all kinds of extra academic assistance (see BZA’s post above) because our star flutist cannot be allowed to fail before the big concert!—then this comparison might begin to make sense.

Anyway, as grist for the mill, let me throw in those occasional studies that show that football players are generally the smartest among the three major American sports. Because they are required to go to college, while baseball and basketball players are not? That would be a hard claim to defend, but it’s interesting.

Were these donations to the academic programs, or just the athletic ones? In terms of trying to assess the value of athletics to the rest of the school, that’s a key distinction.

Interestingly, I think that some of the above posters have come close to the solution, without quite seeing it: treat scholarship athletes as employees of the university. Pretty clearly, that’s what they are. NCAA rules forbid awarding scholarships for four years, instead requiring that they be for one year only, renewable. This rather clearly establishes that the athletes are working for compensation, and that job retention depends upon performance. In other words, they are athletes.

Of course, despite this rather obvious fact, the courts have repeatedly held that athletes aren’t employees. The NCAA has fought this very hard. They’ll tell you that the reason is because they think athletes should be amateurs and not paid, but the real reason is that they don’t want athletics to be subject to labor laws. Workers comp alone would be a nightmare.

If this is ever changed, and athletes are found to be employees, expect the entire world of NCAA athletics to change. I suspect that you would see a small number of large schools break off and form super leagues, while the rest of them return to real amateur athletics. The costs of treating all scholarship athletes as employees would simply be too prohibitive.

As an aside, the NCAA’s fights to keep athletes from being considered employees simply put them over a different barrel. As part of their legal arguments, they had to declare that making money is not a significant motivation for NCAA sports. (Snicker at will.) Where this left them, though, was having no outs when it came to Title IX. Whenever you hear someone say that football should be exempt from Title IX considerations because it makes the money that supports the rest of the athletics program, you don’t even need to get into a discussion of whether this is true. Simply point out that the NCAA itself argued, in court, that this was not true. They don’t get to have it both ways.

Alot of non-athletes don’t grasp the time commitment that doing well at a sport entails. There is the obvious commitment of being at practice, including the logistics of changing before and after, shwoering, icing, getting taped etc. There are also other “hidden” time losses, such as an athelete can’t keep a normal college stuentd hours, you need your sleep.

As for the notion that athletes arn’t all that bright or dedicated, there are some kids who fit that, but it is unfair to catagorize all athletes with that. In my class of about 30 physics majors there are 4 varsity athletes (1 track, 1 lacross, 2 crew, none of which are joke sports here) and the team I am most familair with, the mens cross coutnrty distance crews, is predominatly engineers, which is also not a slouch program here.

On a differnt vein of this, college is about the only place to develop younger tallent in the more obscure sports like crew or track. Unless you were enough of a stand out in high school to get picked up by a sponser or are independently wealthy, college is about the only venue for these sports in this country.

I apolgozie for this being rambling, it is 1:30am local time and i acctully fell asleep about an hour ago

(Continuation of immediately previous post)

Yeah, true, Harry. And it also wouldn’t do so much to foster anti-intellectualism at the universities themselves. That would be nice…

Thanks, Uncle Kvetch. In case you want further reading, there’s a collection of articles partly on this subject in an In Focus at Butterflies and Wheels, that I put together I think around the time Bowen’s first book on this subject came out.

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/infocusprint.php?num=19&subject=Higher Education and its Discontents

Hello strawman, my old friend.