sports bros

[Bread Regal]

i guess somebody took the blue pill

[Bread Regal]

can't we just agree that it's a vulgar misallocation of resources that exploits the naivete and virility of youth for the benefit of a select few.

[Bread Regal]

like isn't that reason enough to depise its existence

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Bread Regal

can't we just agree that it's a vulgar misallocation of resources that exploits the naivete and virility of youth for the benefit of a select few.

misallocation of resources that would not exist but for the thing you're railing against.

and i also am not of the mind that college athletes (especially in non-revenue sports... i may side with you when it comes to football given the inherent danger, but probably not basketball) are exploited and get nothing out of it. and when you say the benefit of a select few, do you just mean monetary benefit? because as a cultural phenomenon the benefits are pretty substantial (detriments can be too of course). i think we can agree that players should be compensated according to their value. beyond that i'm not sure we'd get anywhere.

[Bread Regal]

like, if makng cash hand over fist wasn't a direct consquence of being a division 1 team, would anyone really give a shit

[Bread Regal]

the answer is no because the people who are paid to run athletic programs would instead go into something else like running asweat shop

[Bread Regal]

or a sweet shop. children love sweets.

[Eulogy]

i'm not following

[Bread Regal]

Im saying, would universites pour millions into building a stadium, paying coaching staff, printing t-shirts and everything if it was a purely cultural pursuit? the answer to that is definitely not.

[Bread Regal]

and i'm fairly positive you'd agree that for-profit anything in education is really not good at all.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Bread Regal

Im saying, would universites pour millions into building a stadium, paying coaching staff, printing t-shirts and everything if it was a purely cultural pursuit? the answer to that is definitely not.

well... no shit..? but they pay for themselves. and for new engineering buildings. at least in some cases.

it's a cultural pursuit that also happens to bring in a fuckton of money that helps prop up the rest of the university. compensate the players (or just allow them to be compensated via outside sources) and i'm pretty much entirely on board.

[Bread Regal]

i want to use UCF and an example because that's the case that i'm most familiar with. They are notorious for their lack of academic rigor in some of their colleges and they have pitifully high student to faculty ratio, and tuition is ridiculous, and even includes an extraneous "athletic fee".

UCF might be a special case but this has informed my opinion of collegiate athletics.

[Bread Regal]

UCF's college of engineering also has close financial ties with military contractors, which I find objectionable for obvious reasons. I'm not trying to pin it all on football

[Bread Regal]

And because engineering =/= science, the college of sciences gets neglected. Seriously, that building smells like urine.

[Eulogy]

I do think UCF is a special case in the same vein as FGCU and basketball. Where it's been a cash grab at the expense of credibility. But I honestly don't know that much about it. In the long run, it may not be a bad move though. Universities need money. High profile athletic teams bring in money. also look at unaccredited tiny dumb christian schools getting huge payouts for the honor of getting blown the fuck out by actual D1 basketball teams.

there are a lot of problems, i'm not denying that at all. but most are the result of the idiotic monstrosity that is the NCAA and not the concept of college athletics in and of itself.

btw, UCF's coach was fired from notre dame after about three days for lying on his resume like 11 years ago. kind of a funny anecdote.

[Bread Regal]

I apologize for being terrible at containing all my thoughts to a single reply.

[Eulogy]

now i think i might just be confusing UCF and FGCU and stories i've read about one or the other

[Bread Regal]

I would love to tell a bunch of stories involving a colleague of mine dealing with academic dishonesty on the part of athletes whose names you probably know and nothing of substance arising from it. That would violate FERPA.

So when you say " it's been a cash grab at the expense of credibility" I agree wholeheartedly. Maybe I'm wrong in extrapolating my friend's experience to make a judgement on how other schools run things, but I find it hard to believe.

[Eulogy]

Athletes of course have it easier. Even non-revenue athletes have one-on-one tutoring every day (or close to it... at least at ND). My concerns about my school are somewhat assuaged by the fact that in the most recent football and basketball seasons, each team has had its best player (or most valuable or whatever) suspended for the entire season as a result of academic violations.

But yeah, athletes get special treatment everywhere. Some more than others. I don't really get that outraged about them getting passing grades or whatever though because why would I? Plenty of non-athletes graduate college without putting forth any effort.

[Bread Regal]

One-on-one tutoring for athletes is another example of a misallocation of resources. Why are athletes favored over people who are actually at the university for the purpose of intellectual growth?

[Bread Regal]

Answer: hippocracky.

[Eulogy]

Because they bring in money and are valuable to the overall worth of the university.

Are you also opposed to athletic scholarships in general? That's certainly more unfair than offering tutoring.

[Eulogy]

I can't really see any reason why your average english or art history major is more valuable to a university than some soccer playing sociology major. or whatever.

[Bread Regal]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

I can't really see any reason why your average english or art history major is more valuable to a university than some soccer playing sociology major. or whatever.

Yeah, athletic scholarships are bullshit. I thought that was implicit in my argument.

[Eulogy]

well that will be another point of disagreement then

[Trotskilicious]

eulogy you fucking suck

[Bread Regal]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

I can't really see any reason why your average english or art history major is more valuable to a university than some soccer playing sociology major. or whatever.

man. i don't even know what to say to that other than that it seems willfully obtuse.

i mean, i rag on liberal arts majors all the time, but they certainly have intellectual value. studying english lit or art history actually requires a degree of analysis and reflection and changes one's perspective on where humanity stands currently.

[Bread Regal]

the memory's fuzzy, but didn't you get into college on a soccer scholarship?

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Eulogy

High profile athletic teams bring in money.

22 college football programs made money in 2009-10

one of them was probably yours

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by Bread Regal

man. i don't even know what to say to that other than that it seems willfully obtuse.

i mean, i rag on liberal arts majors all the time, but they certainly have intellectual value. studying english lit or art history actually requires a degree of analysis and reflection and changes one's perspective on where humanity stands currently.

so you're asserting that no athlete on scholarship does the same work as an average liberal arts student?