More title IX garbage

Devil's advocate (and probably dumb) questions for everybody: why do colleges even give out scolarships for sports like swimming? How does it improve the academic or even athletic environment (see below for more on this)? Why do we think our kids have the right to go to college for free if they excel at a sport? So what if it impacts our ability to compete internationally? Why should colleges have to front the cost of that? Why should taxpayers, who partially fund colleges, have to pay for that? Why should people who actually have to pay to go to the schools pay for that? Don't get me wrong--I totally see the value of athletics as part of a complete collegiate experience. But you don't need to give away free scholarships to make that happen. Maybe if they stopped giving everyone free scholarships, more schools could afford to keep their swimming programs. Keep the opportunities--kill the scholarships? What's wrong with the D.III model? This mirrors my own views on the subject. (Which makes me somewhat of a hypocrite, I know, since I benefited from an athletic scholarship.) Since I work at a university -- and one that cut men's swimming & diving over the objections of the women swimmers, even though the men's team was non-scholarship and used the same coach as the women -- my views on college athletics have evolved over the years. While I too love athletics and athletes in college: -- Colleges are not meant to be the training grounds of future professional or olympic athletes. The NBA and NFL (and yes, USAS) should build their own developmental programs. It works for MLB, right? (I notice that no one mentions college baseball as a "money-maker.") -- Athletic scholarships can put a lot of pressure on students to continue in their sport even if they have little desire to do so. It screws up your priorities, to say the least. And makes for some desperately unhappy (and sometimes seriously injured) student-athletes. -- Speaking of screwed up priorities...many college coaches exert subtle or not-so-subtle pressure on their athletes to choose less demanding academic programs. I'm not saying all coaches do this, and even for the ones that do, the motivations are understandable: they are often judged largely by their success (so they want their athletes training rather than studying) and they are also judged by their students' academic performance (GPA, graduation rate, etc, all of which are increased by choosing a less-demanding major). Sometimes they do this for logistics: I have talked to a student who declined to major in a particular subject because they had too many required classes at 9am, and that conflicted with practice. Coaches and their staff (and ADs and their dept) will swear up and down and right and left that they are willing to accommodate such students. But the students themselves often don't want to cross their coach over this. -- I hate hate hate that universities accept student athletes with weak academic records (relative to their classmates). Most athletic programs have a certain number of "byes" that they can award to get lesser-qualified student-athletes admitted to the university. So you have a situation where these weaker students have to work harder to "keep up" with their classmates...in addition to their training and travel time. Again, combined with other factors, it pushes them into less demanding majors/programs. And it also instills something of an academic inferiority complex in these students: they think they "don't belong" with their peers. (I know this from direct conversations with such students.) -- My university has a very active study abroad program, and many students' educational experience is greatly enriched by it. It is no secret that the majority of college athletes basically do not have access to this opportunity because of training and competition schedules. Okay, slightly off-topic, but I feel better for getting that off my chest. And I can use this cool smiley: :rantonoff:

Devil's advocate (and probably dumb) questions for everybody: why do colleges even give out scolarships for sports like swimming? How does it improve the academic or even athletic environment (see below for more on this)? Why do we think our kids have the right to go to college for free if they excel at a sport? So what if it impacts our ability to compete internationally? Why should colleges have to front the cost of that? Why should taxpayers, who partially fund colleges, have to pay for that? Why should people who actually have to pay to go to the schools pay for that? Don't get me wrong--I totally see the value of athletics as part of a complete collegiate experience. But you don't need to give away free scholarships to make that happen. Maybe if they stopped giving everyone free scholarships, more schools could afford to keep their swimming programs. Keep the opportunities--kill the scholarships? What's wrong with the D.III model? This mirrors my own views on the subject. (Which makes me somewhat of a hypocrite, I know, since I benefited from an athletic scholarship.) Since I work at a university -- and one that cut men's swimming & diving over the objections of the women swimmers, even though the men's team was non-scholarship and used the same coach as the women -- my views on college athletics have evolved over the years. While I too love athletics and athletes in college: -- Colleges are not meant to be the training grounds of future professional or olympic athletes. The NBA and NFL (and yes, USAS) should build their own developmental programs. It works for MLB, right? (I notice that no one mentions college baseball as a "money-maker.") -- Athletic scholarships can put a lot of pressure on students to continue in their sport even if they have little desire to do so. It screws up your priorities, to say the least. And makes for some desperately unhappy (and sometimes seriously injured) student-athletes. -- Speaking of screwed up priorities...many college coaches exert subtle or not-so-subtle pressure on their athletes to choose less demanding academic programs. I'm not saying all coaches do this, and even for the ones that do, the motivations are understandable: they are often judged largely by their success (so they want their athletes training rather than studying) and they are also judged by their students' academic performance (GPA, graduation rate, etc, all of which are increased by choosing a less-demanding major). Sometimes they do this for logistics: I have talked to a student who declined to major in a particular subject because they had too many required classes at 9am, and that conflicted with practice. Coaches and their staff (and ADs and their dept) will swear up and down and right and left that they are willing to accommodate such students. But the students themselves often don't want to cross their coach over this. -- I hate hate hate that universities accept student athletes with weak academic records (relative to their classmates). Most athletic programs have a certain number of "byes" that they can award to get lesser-qualified student-athletes admitted to the university. So you have a situation where these weaker students have to work harder to "keep up" with their classmates...in addition to their training and travel time. Again, combined with other factors, it pushes them into less demanding majors/programs. And it also instills something of an academic inferiority complex in these students: they think they "don't belong" with their peers. (I know this from direct conversations with such students.) -- My university has a very active study abroad program, and many students' educational experience is greatly enriched by it. It is no secret that the majority of college athletes basically do not have access to this opportunity because of training and competition schedules. Okay, slightly off-topic, but I feel better for getting that off my chest. And I can use this cool smiley: :rantonoff: