Fw: [Vision2020] Football

[Mark Rounds]

Folks,

I grew up while my father was at a small, private college in MT.  Since I
was a kid, they scrapped and restarted an athletic program three times.
Each time, a board of regents made the decision that the athletic program
had to break even.  This didn't include the new buildings such as a gym and
training center that the students benefited from but just travel,
scholarships, supplies, coaches, etc.....  Each time they struggled and
died.  Then a new president would come in and decide that the athletics
program would be the thing to stimulate donations.  So it flourishes for a
while, then donations trickle off and with the next economic down turn, the
programs are cut down to the bare minimums and then removed.

This is a trend that is increasing at the smaller private schools and the
figures put forward in some of the posts here aren't a surprise.  All but
the biggest schools can't really afford first rate major sports programs.
If you don't believe me, spend a little idle time searching the web or
better yet, just do some basic math.  Find out what athletic directors make,
scholarship totals are, work study given to athletes that in many cases
wouldn't have gone to college in the first place, what the true costs of
maintaining a top flight athletic program are, factor in a reasonable amount
of over head and the numbers are huge. .

The athletic program was created as a diversion to allow students to let off
steam and socialize while they are attempting to complete their course of
study.  Instead, esspecially in the major sports such as basketball and foot
ball, our college teams have been turned into farm teams for the pros.
Unlike baseball, which supports its own farm team and scouting system, these
sports have conned the tax payer and the sports minded university donors in
to paying for their farm team systems.  Great racket if you can make it
work.  These figures also don't count the tragic human cost in injuries and
folks who leave the game educationally handicapped and broke because most
college athletes level school without a chance at the big money in the pros.

Don't misunderstand where I come from.  I am an aging jock myself, having
played football and water polo at the college level and my father, a brother
and several cousins played pro football.  I also don't believe the system
will soon change because there is a whole industry that has grown up
supporting the care and feeding of major sports programs at universities.  I
just want them to know that I see the game being played.  I enjoy playing
sports (hey, even old guys play) and to a lesser extent watching selected
sports, but bare in mind that with all the high minded rhetoric about what a
sports program can provide, it is just part of the entertainment industry.

Mark Rounds

At 07:42 PM 12/23/2002 -0800, Brent Capener wrote:
>     Tim makes a good, but I feel one sided point.  His post disregards the
>fact that the huge flow
>of money to sports (football) does alienate some of the academia minded
>alumni, thus reducing these
>contributions.Why send $50 to the college of engineering knowing that a cool
>million will be diverted
> from essentially the same pot for football?  After all, isn't the first and
>foremost mission of a real university education?
>     Sure, I enjoy a good game of college football, just like most people.
>But I believe that college
>football should be precisely that, not pro football in disguise.
>
>Brent Capener
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- >
>> But if a program IS losing money, I guess the question
>> would come down to the bottom line. Does it makes more
>> sense to subsidize and keep alumni contributions
>> flowing OR alienate alumni by cutting the football
>> budget--thereby insuring that giving from sports
>> minded alumni slows to a trickle?
>>         TL
>
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