The
phenomenon present in
American universities where the focus shifts from academics to sports. Allow me to present evidence in the form of facts about my school,
Virginia Tech.
At Tech, the academics and sports are closely tied together. The
priority students recieve when requesting
classes goes in this
order:
athletes;
students with disabilities;
honors students. Yes, that means that any athlete who wants a class gets it before the kid with no legs or the smartest student at Tech. Clearly this is in contrast to what should be the goals of an
academic institution. Would you pick the
starters for a
football team based upon
grade point average?
Also, partipcation in a sporting event is one of the few
acceptable excuses for missing a class. Personally, I think it is a valid reason, but it is not just to allow this without allowing certain other excuses. The main one being
intramural club sports. They are extremely similar situations, save for one key difference: the "
official" sports bring the school increased
revenue and
prestige. This clearly represents a bias which unfairly
caters to athletes within the academic portion of the school, based upon their performance in a completely unrelated area. While I agree that revenue and prestige are certainly important for any school, how is it
justifiable to allow one student to miss class simply because his
extracurriculur activity brings the school money? I see it as a
conflict of interests.
Video games are as important an activity to some as football is to others. I'm certainly not excused from class to go play video games. Nor would I be allowed
priority registration for a class just because my
Quake 2 clan has
practice every afternoon at 3, and I just can't possibly attend class then. If letting me skip class because I'm my teams
star sniper sounds
ludicrous, well then why doesn't letting someone else skip class because they are the team's star
quarterback sound equally ludicrous?
If this is starting to sound like a personal
rant on how I hate football, I'm sorry. That's definitely not where I'm trying to go here. By all means I do not wish to
abolish football or any sport. I merely think it would be beneficial to
separate them from schools. I believe
Europe is ahead of us on this one. For example, instead of providing football players with
scholarships, pay them to play football, and they can use their
salary to pay
tuition. This seems like a much better
model. Try to forget that athletic
scholarships have been in place for years. Think about it; does it really make sense? As an
academic instuition, why invite someone skilled in athletics to come attend a
college? It doesn't, if the sports and academics are separated. But they aren't, so it makes
financial sense to pull in flashy athletes to put your football team
on the map, and by
association your school gets on the map too. This is suprisingly effective. Many more of Tech's
acceptance letters for incoming
freshman are actually being accepted. So many in fact, that they've exceeded the number of in-state students that the state government has promised to provide partial tuition funds for. Also, they offered anyone 150 dollars to move off
campus so they would have enough room for others. Aren't the values behind an academic instituion
undermined when it insists on riding the
coattails of its football team? If a school wants a
positive image, they should strive for having one as an excellent instute of higher learning, and not resort to
baiting kids with football and other sports.
Hopefully some of these practices seem unfair by now, but the point is that they
hurt the school. A large part is simply that the school has now lost its focus. Instead of being completely
devoted to being an academic institution, it will persist in playing games to attract students to its "
beer and
circus" to get their money. Also by
discriminating against students who aren't athletes the school creates a
hostile environment for some kids. In a way it perpetuates the
social stratification of some high schools, where the athletes are popular and the
intellectuals are not. The popularity itself isn't really a concern to most, but instead the concern is where the
administration's attention gets focused. I'd like to see educational institutions adjust their focus back to instituting education...
Althought I haven't read it yet, there is a book out called Beer and Circus: How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education by Murray Sperber. So if this topic interests you, it may be worth reading.