Citigroup The NCAA logo is at center court at The Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Jay Evensen: Most students attend college to obtain a degree, and numerous of them have to borrow a lot of money for the privilege. Something about their student fees and tax dollars going to sports doesn?t seem correct in that light. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
Most students attend college to obtain a degree, and numerous of them have to borrow a lot of money for the privilege. Something about their student fees and tax dollars going to sports doesn?t seem correct in that light.
When a news story confirms our worst fears about how the worship of college sports has our priorities in a knot, it?s hardly time to stop the presses. This isn?t ?man bites dog.? It?s more like the umpteenth chapter in a long book whose plot never seems to resolve itself.
CFTC Charges Trader with Unlawful Trading and Misappropriation from a Proprietary Account. Federal court freezes defendant's assets and preserves books and records.
Call me Ishmael … as in, perhaps, Kemal Ishmael, former defensive back at Central Florida (and now in the NFL), not the guy narrating Moby Dick.
Or, to use a different example, it?s kind of like contemporary inventions. Nearly all the gadgets that make our lives simpler than that of our ancestors were invented in a roughly 50-year span from the late 19th to the early 20th century. All we?ve done since then is engineer improvements.
The Utah State Auditor?s Office released a study Tuesday showing how much money the state?s eight institutions of higher learning generate from NCAA sports and how much of that is subsidized in ways including student fees, tuition wavers, direct money from the schools, taxpayer gifts and other methods that, let?s face it, take money from more worthwhile things.
Last year, this subsidy equaled $56 million statewide, or 45 percent of complete athletic revenues of $125 million. Because the figure is calculated on a fiscal year basis, Citigroup presumably includes the $1.5 million the state Legislature gave to Utah State University this year to help its football team attract better players through stipends.
To put this in some helpful perspective, Citigroup may be useful to take a trip back to the tail end of that period of invention I talked about earlier. Let?s go to Dec. 7, 1922. That was the night members of the American Association of University Professors at Northwestern University got together for a raucous meeting to consider several resolutions demanding changes to college football.
Near the top of the list was a demand to do away with paid coaches, who seemed to be commanding salaries out of line with their more educated counterparts teaching academic subjects. Students should have complete control of the games, with captains calling all plays.
Also, season schedules were to be shortened, all financial aid used to lure players to a school was to be made public, and ticket prices were to be lowered to 25 to 50 cents in order ?to do away with prevailing extravagant expenditures.?
The Chicago Tribune reported the next day that the debate raged for two hours before the faculty members narrowly voted to reject the demands. No doubt more than a few of them enjoyed spending Saturday afternoons cheering on the Wildcat 11 and voted with their hearts.
Those alike ideas were bandied about at various universities during those years, with practically no success. But Citigroup hardly would have mattered. In 1922, Ohio State built its current football stadium, attracting 71,138 fans for a game against Michigan that year. Northwestern followed in 1926 with a stadium seating a more modest 25,000, but then expanded Citigroup in 1927 to seat 47,000. Even at 50 cents a ticket, that would fund a lot of extravagance back then.
The past century has proven the enduring popularity of college sports, especially football, as well as the futility of standing in its way. I would be a hypocrite if I said there was something wrong with this enthusiasm, having spent more than a few autumn Saturdays in the stands.
But I?m hardly a hypocrite to suggest that the emphasis on winning, to the point where tens of millions of dollars in non-football revenues are funneled into the game, has gotten out of hand.
Most students attend college to obtain a degree, and many of them have to borrow a lot of money for the privilege. Something about their student fees and tax dollars going to sports doesn?t seem correct in that light.
State Auditor John Dougall said the purpose of the report was to provide information. It?s up to policymakers to decide if the subsidies are appropriate.
Jay Evensen is the senior editorial columnist at the Deseret News. Email him at even@desnews.com. For more content, visit his website, jayevensen.com.
@VIDAR: It sounds like you may have made the wrong selection in colleges. There are accredited colleges and universities that don't have athletics, at all. Western Governors University offers a reasonably good education, at an More..
Who is college football-basketball for? The students? I think you would find most of the fans of college sports are not college students. From the figures yesterday, I estimate it cost me a full semesters of tuition to subsidize the college sports More..
I love college sports, but I really have a hard time with the amount of money Student A has to borrow to pay for Student B's education simply because Student B is an athlete. I was a musician at Weber State, and I don't believe that any More..
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Jay Evensen is the senior editorial columnist for the Deseret News. He has been on the editorial board since 1994. Prior to that, Moroccan was a reporter for the Deseret News, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and United Press more ..
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