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Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

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Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#31

Post by roenxi »

wolverine876 wrote: post #24
ehnto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a thought, faith has been lost in institutions, and society in general, and rightly so in many respects. But I think instead of feeling agency to fix the issues, people feel they have to either capitulate, break the system or work outside it entirely. I feel we forget, or don't teach, the fact that we built all of this, and for the purpose of our own benefit. Society and institutions have become antagonists in peo…

> faith has been lost in institutions, and society in general, and rightly so in many respects. But I think instead of feeling agency to fix the issues, people feel they have to either capitulate, break the system or work outside it entirely. Yes, but it's bizarre to feel so hopeless. In this example, it worked (and we worked) far better for decades until a few years ago.

Broadly speaking, it is illegal to fix things. If there is a problem that could be fixed with industrial processes, it is a common requirement that any attempt cause no pollution and be perfectly safe. If there is a problem in the medical system any attempt at a solution must be proven to be safe and effective. If there is a social problem, any scandal will have the government move in to license and regulate it. Something like 2 or 3 accidents ended the entire nuclear industry through safety regulation even though we then sailed into an energy crisis that has so far been much worse than a dozen nuclear disasters.

It is obvious why the system is tending in this direction, but the problem is that society is trying to achieve impossible goals. So it isn't succeeding and it has disarmed people of the agency to make improvements. My catchphrase is "everything China does to get ahead is illegal in the west". And that isn't a knock against Chinese methods. They have noticeably bettered their society in a way that the Anglosphere has not.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#32

Post by lost_womble »

aziaziazi wrote: post #26
listenallyall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. On the other hand, "amateur" leagues for popular sports (football, basketball) being associated with colleges is extreme…

Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know…

Cheer is a pathway to gymnastics in the US for going on 30 years; it's not been a pom pom sport for a VERY long time.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#33

Post by NobodyNada »

csa wrote: post #8
k310 wrote: post #4

Now that Stanford and Cal are in the ACC, there will be vastly more air travel, having environmental impact and lost time for academic study, which these two universities actually care about, and consequent fatigue for the players. Zoom classes on the long flights, or sleep? Same for other left (over) coast teams, but less impact.

I’m guessing that you grossly underestimate the academic support for athletes. 1. Most athletes take fewer and easier classes during their season, or the main part of their season. Missing credit hours can be made up for during the summer, which sometimes have easier classes. 2. Many athletes take easier majors in general. 3. Athletes have access to free tutors. Sometimes these tutors help, sometimes they help a lot…

While it's true that athletes get a lot of support (at least for money-making sports like football), that doesn't make it okay! Most college athletes aren't going to go pro, and so getting a rushed and watered-down education is not serving their best interests in their career beyond. Of course they're adults and how much they learn is up to them, but increasing the time and travel commitment of athletics greatly increases the pressure and need to rely on this "academic support", even more so than they do is today.

Also...while the football players will probably be fine, the same cannot be said about all students. For example, marching band also requires heavy time commitments and lots of travel, but these students receive little funding and no academic support. Last year when my school's football team went to a bowl game, the team was of course flown out and had a great time while my friends on the marching band came back with horror stories. The school was supposed to handle all the travel arrangements, but they consistently cheaped out and forgot about important things like food -- the whole band was loaded up into a stuffy tour bus for 16 hours without a single meal.

Or, consider less-funded athletic departments like the University of Oregon's beach volleyball team. UO is a top athletic school with a Nike sponsorship deal and a huge budget; the football team (in)famously wears brand new uniforms each week, whereas less-profitable sports are so badly underfunded that the school is under Title IX investigation for mistreatment of women athletes: https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2023/07/oregon-ducks-beach-...

> The team practices and plays home games in a city park. The players, who do not receive athletic scholarships, have had to use a public restroom with no doors on the stalls. At times, they’ve driven hundreds of miles for games and stayed three or four to a room and had to share beds.

These students' situations are going to get a LOT worse now that they're competing entirely against teams from the opposite side of the country.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#34

Post by dgoldstein0 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #26
listenallyall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. On the other hand, "amateur" leagues for popular sports (football, basketball) being associated with colleges is extreme…

Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know…

Physical education (p.e. or gym) is mandatory in most us state education systems. But that's a far cry from competitive sports - they more just try to teach the kids to be active and blow off steam, with a bit of education about different sports, stretching etc. my high school pe classes were graded on whether we changed into gym clothes and participated.

Most universities in the US have recreation centers for students to exercise, play pick up basketball, and other forms of casual sports. College Athletics however is a whole different level - d3 and up are serious teams, though d1 teams is where the real athletic talent concentrates. Many d1 athletes seem to be at school for the sport, not the academics.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#35

Post by bondarchuk »

kube-system wrote: post #11

Ad dollars ruin everything. It ruined the internet, and now it is ruining amateur athletics and academics. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I suspect we'll need some regulatory answers. Just like some places have laws to prevent a billboard being built in a place that harms others, we shouldn't enable advertisers to harm others in other realms.

It would be easy and straightforward to ban third-party advertising across all business domains. But you will see when this is proposed that some people really really really like ads, curiously enough.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#36

Post by pjc50 »

kashunstva wrote: post #19

As an outsider with close to zero knowledge of American football, the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre. I mean, I understand the old principle of _mens sana in corpore sano_ but it’s a stretch to imagine college athletics serving that goal for all but a very few students. I don’t doubt that the system has produced some academic success stories but it must be the exceptional case. Instead, the whole system…

> the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre

Unlike European football, in the US town-based football seems not to have taken off quite so much. The college scene, possibly because of affinity to elites, became the one that got the self-reinforcing money spiral that led to it becoming really big. This leads to weird distortions where the most highly paid public employee in many states is a sports coach.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#37

Post by mattikl »

I was just wondering the other day, are any of the top college athletes majoring in something demanding (in a way that it requires one to spend countless of hours learning new mental models) like CS or physics? As a European, my exposure to college sports is pretty limited, but I've never seen a major like that listed.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#38

Post by karp773 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #26
listenallyall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College athletics is a pretty good system for promoting lesser-followed sports that would have difficulty maintaining an organized league -- team volleyball, swimming, field hockey, rowing, etc -- because it provides infrastructure and funding that would unlikely be available if reliant on revenue. On the other hand, "amateur" leagues for popular sports (football, basketball) being associated with colleges is extreme…

Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know…

It's way more complicated in the USA. You forgot U21 teams at European pro clubs. American Division 1 college sports is roughly equivalent to those but affiliated with colleges rather than professional sports club.

Division 3, intramural leagues, and physical education classes at colleges are a totally different thing. These are more in line with college/university sports in Europe.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#39

Post by dgoldstein0 »

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #30
kashunstva wrote: post #19

As an outsider with close to zero knowledge of American football, the spectacle of college athletics seems bizarre. I mean, I understand the old principle of _mens sana in corpore sano_ but it’s a stretch to imagine college athletics serving that goal for all but a very few students. I don’t doubt that the system has produced some academic success stories but it must be the exceptional case. Instead, the whole system…

College football and basketball seem mainly to function as publicity for the schools and, when the teams are winning, help them to get the alumni to donate more. And serve as entertainment for the non athlete students. It's profoundly weird and completely unrelated to the academic functions of the university. Lots of people confuse schools with good sports teams for schools with strong academics.

Also fun random fact, but at a lot of major US public universities, the highest paid employee would be the men's football or basketball coach.

Re: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it

#40

Post by aziaziazi »

soneca wrote: post #28
aziaziazi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those sports accessible to anyone in the university who want to join? My knowledge is only founded by US movies/series and this is what what I get out of it is: - male good enough at sport: can participate in sport - good looking female: can participate in cheers/pompom girls - male not good enough /female not in beauty standard: can’t participate, go to the free urban basketball field. In the EU countries I know…

You left out female good enough at sport. Also not from US, but campi usually have a great physical structure for sport practice. So, even if not part of the team, you have easy access to play the sport with friends.

> You left out female good enough at sport.

That was intentional, the only movie including girls team I remember is “Whipe It”. The main character is in college and she fight to make sport instead of beauty contests.

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