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Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

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Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#41

Post by lucasjung »

absconditus wrote: post #19
parfe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand what quality education and sports have in common. Ever seen 50,000 alumni show up on campus for a theoretical physics conference?

Were the Japanese forced into submission by a great football match?

More than they were by homework sets. Academic research certainly played a role in winning the second world war. I'd say that quality leadership played an even bigger role. Cadets and Midshipmen at our service academies have always been required to participate in athletics because team sports develop leadership, teamwork, and tactical and strategic thinking (in the '30s through the '60s, the service academies were powerhouses in college football). Academy graduates were a minority of overall officers in the war, but were a majority of the most senior officers. Prior to the war, the cadre of war college students and faculty who developed the tactics and strategies which won the war were also predominantly academy graduates.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#42

Post by lambda »

micks56 wrote: post #25
burgerbrain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is and always has been a terrible argument. Academic scholarships will always be a better use of money. There is no reason those first generation students can't get the attention of schools with academic excellence instead of sports, particularly if they are generally as bright as you claim.

Not every lesson or piece of information can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Good luck getting soft skills there. Real learning occurs while playing sports. Soft skills, discipline, teamwork, personal fitness, and long-time dedication are just a few areas where sports help the whole person.

If real learning occurs while playing sports, then why isn't every student at a university allowed on a sports team? If it's so essential to education, then it should be part of the curriculum.

And are soft skills, discipline, teamwork, and long-term dedication not things that people learn running clubs, competing at quiz bowl, going hiking, hacking software in their free time? Then why is there such disproportionate funding for sports vs all of these other activities?

Having been involved in several clubs and club sports in college, you're treated like shit compared to varsity athletes. I'll be damned if the juggling club could reserve a room in the gym once a week to practice. The Tang Soo Do club had to fight to get enough funding from the college to buy pads and gloves for practicing and sparring with, and that's mostly because it actually brought in money as people outside the college paid to be able to take classes. And yet the football team, which was notorious for losing almost every game it played, had several full-time coaches and staff, its own building and stadium reserved only for their use, got bussed or flown all over the east coast for games and so on. Most other club activities were lucky if they could wrangle a hundred bucks a semester from the college for support.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#43

Post by nazgulnarsil »

micks56 wrote: post #36
burgerbrain wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because those things are of actual intellectual interest. They are what schools are for .

In college I took a course called "Physics of Alpine Skiing." A manufacturing engineering professor taught the course. He was a big ski racer in his younger days. While searching for a college major, and generally just drifting along, a mentor at his school explained to him that skiing is machining. This got the professor interested in manufacturing engineering. The professor ended up having a successful collegiate s…

because anecdotes trump data

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#44

Post by nazgulnarsil »

dustingetz wrote: post #40

look guys, when nearly every single player in a mature market is doing the same thing, its a good bet that what they're doing is good for business. instead of screaming about it, maybe we should try to understand.

public schools do not exist in a market. what private schools do is their business, the issue here is that they are spending your money on what amounts to a hole in the ground benefits wise.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#45

Post by fleitz »

It's advertising. I bet most University research programmes don't make money either. But they do move undergrad degrees, and endowments. Harvard does not have a rowing team for the benefit of the Winkelvoss twins, it has a rowing team because that is the kind of thing that their parents and other alumni expect.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#46

Post by fleitz »

runevault wrote: post #38
burgerbrain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is and always has been a terrible argument. Academic scholarships will always be a better use of money. There is no reason those first generation students can't get the attention of schools with academic excellence instead of sports, particularly if they are generally as bright as you claim.

You're ignoring the fact some of the money is only given FOR sports. Plus the prominence sports brings in can help drive donations. I seem to recall the University of Arkansas getting some serious donations recently to fund giving their football head coach a nice raise, so that money could not go anywhere else even if the university wanted to, because it was the condition of the donation.

Yes, but now you have a qualified lead for your endowment fund and also, if you raise money for the coach that frees up an equal amount in your budget for doing whatever the heck you want with. You can't give money exclusively FOR something. This is similar to how when the US requested troops for Iraq from Canada we sent troops to Afghanistan. We couldn't go to Iraq but a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan frees up a US solider to go to Iraq.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#48

Post by burgerbrain »

micks56 wrote: post #36
burgerbrain wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because those things are of actual intellectual interest. They are what schools are for .

In college I took a course called "Physics of Alpine Skiing." A manufacturing engineering professor taught the course. He was a big ski racer in his younger days. While searching for a college major, and generally just drifting along, a mentor at his school explained to him that skiing is machining. This got the professor interested in manufacturing engineering. The professor ended up having a successful collegiate s…

"In college I took a course..."

Key part of your post.

American Football is not a course, and contains no intellectual content. Pretending otherwise just makes you look a fool.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#49

Post by burgerbrain »

micks56 wrote: post #34
jhaglund wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. The question is does the amount we spend on athletics (millions) really do anything for academics? No one is saying athletics have no place in university. But why are we spending so much on it, compared to the drama program, debate team, musical ensembles, and school newspaper? When those subjects which tie into academics better than athletics.

> No one is saying athletics have no place in university. burgerbrain seems to be saying this, which is what I responded to. > When those subjects which tie into academics better than athletics. Tie in differently, not better. There are many ways to learn and many lessons to be learned. Drama, debate, music, newspaper, and sports, among others, are all different paths to learn those lessons. I am not justifying the l…

"> No one is saying athletics have no place in university.

burgerbrain seems to be saying this"

Absolutely incorrect. I merely believe they should not receive disproportionate funding, compared to other non-academic clubs; and assert that like other non-academic clubs, they should play absolutely no role in acceptance.

"Tie in differently, not better"

BULLSHIT. Journalism (newspaper club) is a respected academic study. Tackling dudes on a lawn over a ball is not. Drama, debate, and music are similarly intellectual endeavours, not sports.

"What I am saying is that sports do educate people"

Spoken like a true meathead. Even if they did educate, which is a laughable claim, they have no place in the curriculum of universities.

Re: Nearly All US Universities Lose Money on Sports

#50

Post by sb »

That's just appalling. In Europe, AFAIK there is usually no such thing as college/university sports--competition-wise, that is (aside of the known the Oxford/Cambridge rowing competition.)

I just recently discovered the following site, which just makes me sad: http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=papadimitriou

Why are UC-Berkeley and UCLA head coaches earning more than 8 times as much as Christos Papadimitriou? Granted his salary is stellar by comparison, but there are a couple of other well-known UC professors who earn much less. (Richard Karp [of Rabin-Karp fame and Turing-Award winner] gets 166k [14 times less than the UC-Berkeley head-coach].) In addition, the professors from the med-schools seem to do a lot better; even though they are quite out of proportion, at least they're saving lives.

Previously, I supposed these were profitable investments, but when one head coach salaries buys you 14 Dick Karps or 8 Christos Papadimitrious, I really think it doesn't make any sense at all...

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