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Sunday, August 21, 2016

Athletic Waste


The Buffalo News had a feature article today titled “How athletic spending helps boost enrollment.”

Increasing enrollment is one thing. Increasing achievement and graduation is another. And Increasing full time faculty is a whole other ball game altogether.

And the article talks about none of these. And it should have been the focus – holding the people in power accountable for wasting student tuition dollars on programs that provide no academic worth whatsoever.

As a UB alumni, I give nothing to the general fund when I make donations. I specify the 2 departments that I graduated from (Bachelor and Masters degrees) or the libraries. According to students that I have spoken with, the general fund goes to support athletic scholarships. I'm not an athletic supporter in any way. I went to college for academics and from 1986 to now I have been to 1 total sporting event, and that was involuntary. I had to go to something for a freshman colloquium class that I had taken. Easy credit. Totally worthless as far as academic worth.

And I achieved a better workout biking from the West Side of Buffalo to the Amherst campus than any of those athletes on the field received playing the game. Or preparing for the game all week. Cost to other students? Zero. Health benefits to me? Many.

I have had my academics interrupted by sporting events when I couldn't find a parking space because all the parking near the Lockwood Library was taken up by people attending a sporting event at the overpriced and totally underused stadium or at the Alumni Arena. (Cost to taxpayers? Too much. Utility? Go back two sentences. The University could have saved money by getting a contract to use Rich Stadium.)

My questions/problems about this article are that it is too shallow. It doesn't look at the most important aspect of this whole adventure – the books. By that I mean the accounting books. The spreadsheets. And that is all that matters for this story.

Let's get down to brass tacks: How much are the local universities spending on athletics as a whole and how much do they bring in? Are they self sustaining as some universities claim or are they a big vacuum sucking up money that would better serve the university as a whole if it was spent to support full time professors?

Any sporting program that is not 100% self sustaining – gets the ax. Colleges are about education, not entertainment. UB's athletic program did nothing for me or anyone that I have spoken with in all the years that I attended college and have donated except inconvenience us and our educational goals. I have heard from many students that complain about being taught by adjunct professors that are here one year (or semester) and gone the next. (So much for letters of recommendation.) Or can't get the courses that they need to graduate because they are only offered at certain times and you need certain pre requisite courses to take them and those courses aren't always available either. But the university always has the money for a chartered flight for a sports team.

How many of the athletes that receive scholarships actually graduate? And in how many years? In what major(s)? (I have met so many athletes over the years majoring in communications and other majors and when I ask them what their career plans are I get the infamous “I don't know.” They know they have no chance at playing professionally.)

So, what are colleges supposed to do?

First: No sports at all. Can them. It's not their responsibility of the students of the university to provide fodder for the professional teams. Given the high profit margins that the professional sports teams have, they can afford to make their own farm teams. So there are only 32 teams in the NFL. Not my job to subsidize someone else's pipe dream. The increased competition will be good for the league. (Am I sounding like a good conservative capitalist here or what?) Baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc can all do the same. They have the money. It's not our job to subsidize their profits.)

Second: If a school wants to have a sports team – make it a club like the UB Mad Turtles (Rugby. At least when I went to UB it was a club.) They get a small stipend and the club members have the responsibility to make up the rest of their financial needs.

Third: Colleges need to remember why they exist – career education. Granted, I took some courses for the fun of it, but I went to college to prepare me for a career. Originally colleges were created for career and higher education and they will only move forward if they go back to their original purpose.

So, this story looks like it will be a series for several days this week. If it fails to show how athletics are destroying students' opportunities and dreams and saddling them with debt, it is a waste of ink and paper.

Somehow I doubt we will see anything critical.

So I am not going to hold my breath.


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