A diversion from the mission of an otherwise serious university. It appals me to think of that spirit getting even a toe-hold again at the University of Chicago. The problem with sports on a college campus at this level of intensity is that it is both too grindingly serious and too frivolous. The serious part comes in the form of the professional-in-all-but-name training regimes at these places, the frivolous part in the devotion of that sort of energy to activities of no consequence - unless you count unlocking the wallets of feeble-minded alumni.
It is all very well to say that Stanford has the best of both worlds, but those are two very discordant worlds. Student culture must be quite schizophrenic. Ugh.