How do athletics influence the college life of a typical student?
- Hacker, Andrew, and Claudia Dreifus. Higher Education?: How Colleges are Wasting our Money and Failing our Kids--and what we can do about it. 1st ed. New York: Times Books, 2010. Print.
- Exploration:
This book expresses the belief that higher education is too obsessed with money and has lost track of its original mission---education. The book frequently argues that every noneducational part of a university must defend itself. Hacker and Dreifus believe in a simpler university. The chapter about athletics was very informative. College athletics began nicely as recreation but has distracted the university from many of the things it should be focused on. This chapter is trying to argue that "the athletic incubus" is a wide-reaching. There are many troubling facts regarding college athletics. Sports become an athlete's main activity and takes their time first. Travel costs are a lot. Coaches are paid way too much. 113 out of 118 top tier football teams lost money. Title IX and smaller sports have caused schools to recruit athletes from other countries. Many myths about college athletics can also be busted. The book argues that sports are not needed to build school spirit/pride, pointing at low turnouts for many schools. Athletics do not necessarily create more diversity or good diversity because many schools have a lot of white athletes and increasing diversity through athletics is not effective because it is such a low percentage of the student body. The authors do not support varsity sports and only support club teams with volunteer coaches. The information for profit of sports is interesting because colleges submit money data to the NCAA so we really do not exactly know about the money. Profits from football do not help pay for other teams that much. Less than half of the basketball teams and 10% of football teams collect as much money as they spend. Huge recreational facilities should not be provided by the university and the school should not spend so much money on an athlete. Students miss too much class through athletics. Varsity sports do not increase loyalty or donations because they only get support when the teams win and upgrading to a better division will increase the admissions of athletes with questionable records. Donations do seem to rise if a big team does extraordinarily well in the post season but it is so rare that schools should not depend on athletics for money. Additionally, through some programs, athletes get proportionally more assistance than academic students. Colleges with football do not see an increase in alumni contributions. The authors want teams' athletic programs to all mimic Cooper Unions': no athletic admissions decisions, playing a sport for fun after start of freshman year, low budget, rented gym, and public transportation.
Because this book is so broad, it helped me learn other information more than helping me answer my question. I agree with the book's overall argument, that higher education must get back to its original intend of educating. However I disagree with the authors' perspective that every noneducational part of a university must defend itself. I believe that although many things are extra commodities, many of these are vital to a positive atmosphere on campus and can all come together to help attract potential students. But the focus does need to be realigned with education. All of the basic facts stated at the beginning of the athletics chapter all seemed accurate and credible except one. It said that 113 out of 118 of the top divisional football teams have a deficit but later talks about how only about 40 out of 618 football teams make money. The book should have been more specific when to clarify to the read and therefore lost some of its credibility to me. I agree that it is bad that schools recruit students from other countries to play sports. I get that its the American Dream to come from another country but our nation should focus on providing an education for our own kids before inviting kids from abroad, just for athletics. If a student from another country wants to go to school in USA, he/she must be completely qualified, without athletic factors, because if not, then we are hindering our country's potential to have more and equally educated citizens. Although the book argues that sports are not needed to create school pride, I still believe that they can enhance spirit. From personal experience at college football games, it is pretty special to be able to sit in the student section surrounded by fellow classmates. The comradery I believe strengthens the attitude on campus, even if the team loses. The books points out concrete facts to disprove this but does not take into account the emotional aspects. This could all be irrelevant if we did not have college sports though. I agree that athletics do not makes significant positive effects on diversity, because the stereotype of athletes provide harm to the student-athletes. I think the author's idea of having club teams only is possible but the coaches must get paid a little, because I think a volunteer coach would be useless. We do not know enough about the profits from sports because universities could be hiding some of that information. The money from football (or lack there of) does not seem worthy enough for the sport to attract so much attention. The fact that student-athletes miss so much class is disturbing. This cannot be happening for the majority of kids who are going to need an actual job in their future. Athletic conferences should have the same breaks and these big athletic events should be over those breaks so students do not miss much class. The book's point about football not bringing in more alumni money does not seem to credible because the data did not include football powers. Schools must stop trying to overuse sports or depend on sports for money. Athletes should not be able to get more assistance than regular students. It seems like the authors' Cooper Union opinion is very radical for schools where athletes have a chance to become pro. Overall, this article helped me create more general conclusions regarding college athletics but also shed a little bit of light on campus life.
Source 4 says that the majority of athletes see injury as a stressor in their lives and recommends the athletes to use counselling more as a stress reliever. This source establishes that students miss too much class and sports are too much of a priority in athletes' lives, and it would be better for these athletes to play recreationally and for universities to spend very little money on athletics. What this whole situation comes down to is how important the sport is in a student-athlete's life. There still needs a way for talented athletes to transition from the high school level to the pro level. This could be solved through an alternate training method but what if these athletes are also very intelligent and could have a great professional career after their pro sports career? These talented people are going to have to pursue their business career later. Developmental sports leagues should become bigger because sports are so big in popular culture and athletes must still be able to have the opportunity to make it to the biggest level. Students should not have "injury" as a major stressor. "Students" (who are really only athletes) should not be taking space at a higher education institution from other kids who actually need to become trained for a career. Developmental leagues should become available for kids out of high school
I believe I am beginning to come to my conclusion that sports seem overall bad for universities and they might be able to work on their own in a developmental league. University athletics only really increase public relations with people who do not care about higher education, provide student athletes with a bad classroom environment, do not use university money fairly, negatively affects athletes' mental health, and creates a less safe campus environment. I still have not found the full answer to the effect on campus life from sports so I need to finish that research and round up other useful information on the way. How is campus life effected by university athletics?
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