A Growing Many college managers are trying to convince students, graduates, and donors that it’s time to eliminate college sports.
Dozens of colleges, including Brown, Michigan, William & Mary, Iowa, and George Washington, have suddenly eliminated numerous athletic teams this year in sports such as swimming, tennis, gymnastics, lacrosse, boating, wrestling, and athletics.There are hundreds For chopping blocks..
Decisions are usually made manually on budget issues, COVID challenges, and lack of funding that requires “painful reductions,” but the reality is much simpler. Many managers always look down on college sports and have an excuse to finally solve them.
When college leaders were surveyed by landmarks in 2009 Knights Committee on Inter-University AthleticsOne respondent expressed this general attitude among so many people in the Ivory Tower.
To Works for AtlanticJonathan Cole, a professor of sociology in Colombia, was even more straightforward. “I admit too many athletes,” he insisted. .. .. “Future artists and writers, political scientists and economists” “deprive these universities of the greatest diversity of students possible.”
A special kind of prejudice is needed to believe that an artist cannot be an athlete or an economist cannot wear a suit on a match day.The· Forbes The list of 400 of the wealthiest Americans Chock full of former national team athletes..And Gallup study As announced last summer, “College students who participated in athletics tended to perform better than non-athletes in their academic, personal and professional life during and after college.” [such as] Health, relationships, community involvement, and job satisfaction. “
These sparkling results don’t seem to reach the admin. Indeed, the worst example of all is Stanford University and its president, Marc Tessier-Ravine. The school recently announced that it would reduce 11 diversity sports, most of which produced multiple Olympic champions. School reasoning? Stanford can’t afford it.
It seems puzzling as it sits on top of a $ 30 billion donation (just behind Harvard and Yale Universities) and counts the ectenia of the world’s wealthiest among its graduates. However, the students who shattered their dreams of exercise did not have the opportunity to resolve cognitive dissonance. Instead, the decisions were made in a closed room, with no prior warning, no input from the most affected people, and no opportunity for creative solutions.
That ruthless indifference has become the default method among university bureaucrats. When Dartmouth College announced its own program cut, athletic director Harry Potter revealed why he didn’t consult with the offending student. “I know it sounds right, but the school doesn’t … scrutinize the decisions for coaches and players. [because] I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed. ” He told the school newspaper.. “Young men and women think it’s cold, ruthless, cruel, and in many ways it’s true.”
Dartmouth has postponed the final planned cuts indefinitely, Horrible Title IX Proceedings Threat Move them. Stanford is not budding. Incredibly, athletes from both schools themselves raised millions of dollars to permanently self-fund the team, but in each case the manager refused the money. According to Stanford University accounting, reducing 11 teams as planned saves about $ 4 million annually. But when school athletes raised $ 30 million to fund the program, the government said it wasn’t enough.
The claim that cuts are needed to diversify students also turned out to be secondary. First, athletics has long been recognized as a bridge to poorly serviced communities. And many of these teams are already much more diverse than the entire student. For example, almost half of Stanford’s wrestling teams come from first-generation college students or low-income households, but only 17% of the school as a whole. The team Stanford is ready to cut also represents a complete half of the Asian student athletes on campus.
And athletics, which transcends demographics, is of greater importance in creating comrades, common goals, and communities. Young women and men from different backgrounds can train together, support each other, wear the same uniforms and unite around the same goals and aspirations. Classic professors may remind colleagues that athletics has been an essential part of building personality and even maintaining peace, at least since ancient Greece.
Fortunately, students and graduates from all schools facing reductions have signed and pushed back a petition promising to withhold donations from their institutions if the sport is abolished. Anyone worried about the trajectory of American higher education institutions should join their cause.