<p>^That’s not the point of the NCAA. And the schools that run at a deficit on athletics are not the ones building new stadiums and drastically increasing funding. The ones that do this are the big time programs that make a profit. Also, I’m not saying you even need to increase funding. I think college sports are fine as they are now. Also your point about student athlete graduation rates is completly irrelevant as that has to do with an individual’s drive to succeed both on and off the field, not a complete inability to graduate. Also at most schools student-athletes are given extra tutoring and help to succeed in the classroom because the school knows what kind of schedule they run. Along with this, some schools rely on athletics to attract students. Lets face it, where would a school like Gonzaga be without their basketball team? They would be completly invisable to the entire nation and would not be able to attract nearly as many students. As a result, their academics would suffer.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s athletic department is operating at a $13 million yearly deficit, and the athletic department is pushing for an athletes-only gym for $130 million and a renovation of the stadium for $320 million. Guess who will pay for that?</p>
<h2>Yeah, let’s not renovate Memorial Stadium. There’s nothing wrong with a state owned death trap. :rolleyes:</h2>
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<p>If most colleges run at a debt, what kind of pie of are we talking about?</p>
<p>u anti sports people really don’t get it. </p>
<p>sports, whether it’s football at Cal or fencing at Williams, does more to improve a persons life skills than any academic subject. sports is core to the development of a healthy and high performing human being. that’s why the Greeks did it, that’s why Harvard has a football team, and that’s why Cal should spend 130 million to have a nice facility…it’s as important, if not more important, than the chemistry lab facility</p>
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I don’t think you get it. I agree 100% that sports (and other activities like music, arts) are important to developing a person. I realize many students need those athletic scholarships. I agree that kids dream of playing football, basketball, hockey, whatever, at the college level. I get that sports also earn recognition, prestige, and more applicants for a college.</p>
<p>But people don’t shell out $20k-$200k for 4 years of sports. The point of going to a University is to get a degree, otherwise people would just play hockey for a couple years and then work as waiters forever. saying colleges should favor sports < academics is just stupid, esp if you think fencing or hockey is more important than a chem lab (and I’ve played both those sports btw). Harvard isn’t known for its football team, it’s known for being an academic superhouse. heck, you could probably cut sports entirely at harvard and they’d still get a ridiculous amount of applicants. </p>
<p>So, sports are important, but let’s be realistic… Sports shape the college experience, but academics are why colleges exist to begin with.</p>
<p>And whoever said we should cut sports in the K-12 level is an idiot. Half our country is dying of being fatasses for godsake, the kids ideas of exercise these days is the walk from their TV to the ice cream truck</p>
<p>We don’t need ten or hundreds of millions spent on a sports program to play sports. Sports should be at a school for the benefit of most of the student body, not the few athletes that get scholarships and perks to play in hundred million dollar facilities that only a few get to use.</p>
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<p>Harvard is, yes.</p>
<p>What is Texas known for? Wisconsin? Michigan? Florida? Penn State? Notre Dame? Southern Cal? Virginia Tech got a huge boost in applications after Michael Vick wen through and they rose to semi-national prominence.</p>
<p>When 60,000 people pay to watch someone do a chemistry experiment, we might have an issue, but until then…</p>
<p>Obviously if schools think they will be better off without sports, then they cut them. So, clearly schools don’t think that. They have decided that the sports are worth the money.</p>
<p>^ i was responding to whoever pointed out harvard has a football team, and said sports are more important than academics - my point was that between sports and academics, harvard isn’t exactly known for football. obviously a lot of schools are and that brings them more prestige, more applicants, higher selectivity, national recognition, etc. </p>
<p>i’ve reiterated the importance of sports over and over in this thread, but I can’t believe some people think athletics should be more important to a college than academics…it’s like they think universities exist for us to play sports, so hey, why not cut the English dept so the football team can have more money? why bother with chem labs when that money can go to the hockey team…c’mon</p>
<p>of course, it comes down to the individual college…some would be screwed without sports, others have no sports culture whatsoever. my college doesn’t give a crap about sports but our administration still hikes the overpriced tuition every year. I doubt cutting sports would make much of a difference at a lot of colleges.</p>
<p>alix: you’ve “played” sports but you’re not an athlete.</p>
<p>lots of athletes pay 200k to compete in their sport for their college and they graduate to successful careers in business, medicine, and public service. it’s the athletics that makes them successful, not the chem lab.</p>
<p>you’re not a real athlete so i understand why this is hard for you to see.</p>
<p>lol I didn’t say i was an athlete, i said my college has no sports culture and cutting sports would make no difference here anyway…</p>
<p>i think you missed my point. i’ve said like a dozen times that sports are important, but academics are the reason colleges exist to begin with. in order for those student athletes to graduate with careers in medicine, business, public service, whatever, they need classes, facilities, labs…college isn’t a sports camp, and most students aren’t athletes. I think it’s ridiculous some people in this thread have suggested cutting dept’s so sports can have more money. yeah, why bother having a chemistry dept or labs at all, right? c’mon</p>
<p>I’d just like to point out that the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the most prestigious awards given out to college students today, places a heavy emphasis on an applicants athletic abilities.</p>
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<p>there are also a lot of athletes who are pretty lazy about school and scrape by during their four years (which is easy to do given the low academic standards for athletes)</p>
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<p>a lot of athletes aren’t real scholars. :/</p>
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<p>lol yeah they gave the award to a football player with a kinesiology major.</p>
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<p>Who graduated with a 4-year degree in 2 years while playing major college football? And umm… kinesiology is not exactly an easy major…</p>
<p>yes kinesiology is a department well known for the scholarship of its students.</p>
<p>He was pre-med.</p>
<p>I keep insisting: unless atheltics division of a given univerisity is financially self-sufficient, there is no point in giving so much advantage with people with great sports’ abilities instead of people with great academic ability.</p>
<p>sports programs for big universities, especially, are often a big draw for college name recognition of a school and a HUGE source of school pride. Without sports programs for these universities, enrollment would drop significantly. There are plenty of students who took into consideration when applying for schools “does this school have div. I/good sports teams?” It is something that is very important to me, especially since I am a huge sports fan. I certainly agree that sports should not have a priority over academics, but sports as a whole is vital to the well-being of most universities (and students). I don’t understand why people think funding towards sports means cuts toward academics. That is typically not the case, as the sports programs are a great source of revenue and donations. (I am speaking in terms of big universities where sports programs are prominent).</p>
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<p>It’s a basic supply and demand concept… There’s a surplus of people with great academic ability in this world… Not so much with great athletic ability. Thus the athletic ones will be in higher demand because there are less of them.</p>
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lol not at all…there’s just a surplus of people with with high gpa’s and sat’s because the american public k-12 system is watered-down bs
exactly! especially for schools like MSU</p>
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<p>Plenty of people have the athletic potential to play college sports, but many realize that the rewards are too few to waste their time and their body. Just playing at a college level is not nearly enough to have a career playing sports after college.</p>
<p>As an aside, I think there should be some type of deal for colleges to get a monetary reward for getting their players on professional teams.</p>