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Full Version: The rise of the college sports thug
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Anonymous

No,

Have you ever been to an NBA or NFL game? The audience is predominantly, white, affluent, and conservative. As long as this crowd is willing to spend big money on ridiculous status symbols, such as season tickets, the money will flow to illiterate, physically gifted, specimens.

That is why I usually stick to high school athletics, and pay my $5 for a ticket, and $5 for a Hot Dog or 3. ;-)
I agree with about 80% of his view. As much as we love our alma maters represented by teams, especially as they do well, and the camradarie games bring to college life, the ultimate mission of a Univeristy is education. Unfortunetly, sports offers opportunities for public acclaim not offered by say, research grants, that attract interest and interest attracts students and money. Maybe we ought to start to keep scorecards for research grants- compete for bucks from the Keck Foundation instead of bowl games.

Evidence that the role of sports has gotten out of hand at many (not all) Unversities surrounds us. Look no further than $32 million for a coach, $100s of millions to put luxury boxes in 80,000 seat stadiums. One must wonder if those kinds of dollars can be raised for sports, what if SOME of that was actually applied to the educational mission, especially for the
"disadvantaged" students so often held up as benefitting from sports rides? Interestingly, don't know how many have been following Senator Chuck Grassley's challenge to the NCAA on a similar point. He is asking the NCAA to justify why college athletics should maintain their tax exempt status. His primary point is that the fund raising and spending has reached a level more reflective of professional sports and not educational institutions, so maybe athletics doesn't deserve the tax break under the guise of education.

So , if as a result, college athletes have become a monster, it's a monster of our own making.
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