(10-15-2020 09:56 AM)Tank55 Wrote: I don't think anyone is saying that club and varsity are the same, but rather that it's not self evident that W&M should be sponsoring sport X at one level or the other. If it were, then we should be striving to add ALL possible sports as varsity programs.
IMO, the club program is here to serve the student body. The varsity program is here to serve the school. There's not a lot bowling can offer the school. There is a lot basketball can offer. Thus, one is a good fit for club and another for varsity.
Obviously you need to get to 14 sports and satisfy Title IX. Beyond that, I think we need to ask how each additional sport is serving the school.
I disagree. If the question was really, "What’s in it for the College?", then it could reasonably be argued that the College should sponsor zero sports, since every sport is a financial drain and no sport brings W&M national prestige or can reliably be expected to do so given the competitive landscape.
Since its inception, college athletics was intended to benefit the participants and the student body experience. Athletics were a way to attract high achieving individuals, diversify the student body, build camaraderie on campus, and celebrate and pursue the limits of human achievement (i.e., developing the whole individual).
Of course this vision of athletics has been thoroughly corrupted over the years, to where athletes at P5 schools are separate from the “regular” student body, seen as little better than employees of the university’s marketing department.
So, I cringe when I see arguments that call for W&M to follow this trend, join the crowd, and abandon the original intent of college athletics fully. In my view these cancelled sports were accomplishing the core mission at a fraction of the per athlete cost of football and basketball. The core mission being the development of exception adults, future leaders, and well-rounded human beings of tested character. Let’s truly be bold and exceptional by keeping the actual goal of athletics in mind to the extent its economically feasible.