Lmao, @PurePhysics . Youre not totally wrong about all of that, but your point seems to be based on the fact “I’m smart and an athelete so most atheletes are.” The problem isnt’t that every athlete is dumb, the problem is that some get away with ignoring academics and still graduate from schools like that because professors let them slide. There is absolutely no need to remove sports; however, they should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Does it make sense that the average GPA and SAT scores(Yea, SATs arent a great measure, but thats how things go) are noticibly(see multiple houndred points) lower for athletes than non athletic students? Seems a bit unfair. But to your point, they do it for URMs and the opposite for ORMs and such so why not do it for athletes too? Although URM and ORMs rarely get the treatment after admissions, atheletes seem to always be in the news for it.
Sports can productive and fun, but do they help further society? Not directly besides for entertainment at least while academics/relevant research can.
Also, you do realize youre not some insanely talented student, right? You have no college classes outside of math and only 10 or so of those, a non 4.0 GPA, middle of the road SAT score, no major awards (ISEF finalist is pretty good I guess) and a single published research paper(looks like you had help with all of those eh?). Not to say those arent great, but you’re not Terrence Tao, and by the way you talk, you seem to think you are. Step off your high horse and realize that you’re not above everyone else.
Also, sorry for spelling and punctuation. I am on my phone and it is hard to to type on it.
Source: Current ivy league student that played soccer while in highschool and definitely isn’t a dumb student(by grades at least).