This week I came across two really thought-provoking articles. The first was about the world's largest particle collider, which was activated this week, in spite of the fears of some in the scientific community that it might produce a black hole that could swallow the planet. (Such fears have proven to be groundless. So far...) The second article was an op-ed piece about college football. That might seem like an odd pairing, but I think that when viewed together, they say a lot about what our priorities are in this country, and what that might bode for our future in the world community.
Let me start with the op-ed, which was written by Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights. Bissinger's piece was about Nick Saban, head coach of the University of Alabama's football team. At a university where the average professor makes $116,000 (and I'm assuming those are fully-tenured professors - I'm sure the T.A.'s and doctoral candidates who are actually teaching their classes are getting by on a mere pittance), Nick Saban makes $3.75 million a year. For coaching football. And that's just his base salary; his contract includes a number of other performance bonuses. For example, if his team wins the national championship, Saban gets an additional $400,000 - he gets less (though still a lot) if the team finishes in the top ten, makes it to a bowl game, etc. And get this: Saban can get an additional bonus of up to $100,000 if a certain percentage of his "student athletes" (not all of them, mind you, just a certain percentage) graduate. That bears repeating: he gets more money, more than most Americans see in a year, if he can just see to it that kids who are ostensibly going to college to get an education actually go through with it.
The focus of Bissinger's piece was that in spite of Saban's bloated contract, not to mention all of the non-salary perks that go with it (country club membership, two cars for his family, use of a private jet), his team won only 6 of its 12 games last year - that's over a half-million dollars per victory. Bissinger pretty much just left it at that, but I wish he had gone on to comment on what it says about our educational priorities when a guy who loses 50 percent of his football games makes over 30 times what successful teachers and researchers do.
Let me say here that I have nothing against sports, though college football has never been my thing. Actually, far from not having anything against sports, I'd say I'm really into them - I'm a rabid baseball fan. (If there is a God who answers prayers and sanctions preemptive wars, then my beloved Mets will be in the playoffs this year.) But however much I might like sports, I can recognize there are places where sports should be the focus, and others where it shouldn't be. School is one of those places where it shouldn't be.
The purpose of a university is, or should be, to teach, to support research, to encourage innovation and independent thought, and to provide a forum in which ideas can be exchanged and debated. When you get right down to it, everything else is just gravy. A football team (and, indeed, any extracurricular activity) can be an important part of enriching the college experience, but it's not an essential part of that experience. The problem is, that's exactly how it's treated in a lot of American universities. In many cases, the football team is the school; academics are just part of a larger life-support system for a semi-professional sports franchise. The emphasis placed on athletic achievement at some schools always baffled me: arguing that a school needs to invest more in its football team is to me like arguing that the Mets organization needs to devote more of its money to developing a more competitive biology department.
Over the past decade, the tension between sports and academics has become something of a hot topic at my alma mater, Rutgers University. Founded in 1766, Rutgers in one of the nation's oldest universities. It's also considered the birthplace of college football; Rutgers met Princeton in what is regarded as the first college football game way back in 18-oh-who-really-gives-a-crap. Since then, the Rutgers football team has, by and large, sucked. But that was cool, because at the same time Rutgers developed a reputation as a really solid school - from philosophy to pharmacy, its individual departments rank among the best in the nation. Two of my favorite professors - one who had previously taught at Harvard, the other at Princeton - were drawn to RU because of its reputation as one of the "public ivies". I was, and still am, very happy with the education I received there, not only from what I learned in the classroom, but also what I gained from living on one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse campuses in the country.
Since I graduated back in 19-none-of-your-damn-business, Rutgers has instituted a policy of increased footballification. The university built a state-of-the-art new stadium, joined the Big East conference, and gave its head coach a Saban-like contract. (Why on earth they decided to take this particular course is a subject too big for this blog.) On the surface, this seemed to pay big dividends. In 2006, perennial also-ran RU capped a magical season by coming from behind to defeat a highly-favored Louisville team in a dramatic upset. As the clock wound down, fans mobbed the field in what was hailed as "pandemonium in Piscataway". In a way, it was nice to see all of those kids so ecstatic, but at the same time I was left with a sinking feeling about what this might mean for the future of my old school.
Since then, Rutgers has committed to investing $100 million into making that brand-new state of the art stadium brand-newer and even more state-of-the-art. According to reports, that coach's Saban-like contract contained a clause that would allow him to bail on his contract (but keep the money) if these improvements were not made. So far this season, the Rutgers football team has played two games. It has lost both, by a combined score of 68-19.
When I hear about those $100 million improvements, I can't help but think about the normal students at Rutgers - you know, the ones who can't throw a football. I wonder how many of them still have to live in those spartan, depressing, bunker-like river dorms. I wonder if the incoming first-years will have to endure living with two other roommates in rooms that can barely accommodate two people. I wonder if those old, refurbished buses still billow all that black smoke. I wonder if the food still sucks. Most of all, I wonder how many programs are going to have to suffer because this football team just can't operate unless its stadium has a few more luxury boxes. When I was at Rutgers, the university closed a women's center that, among other things, provided support to victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. I wonder how many of those battered women will be able to sit in those luxury boxes and watch their football team lose.
Defenders of this footballification as I called it will probably say that the increased revenue generated by a team's success actually goes back to funding for research, facilities, teachers, etc., but I just don't buy that. The bigger the beast gets, the more it needs to feed - the bigger a football program gets, the more it needs to spend to stay that way. But what about the boost of "pride" that a student body gets from having a winning football team? Well, consider this: in 2007, Rutgers ranked #59 in US News' list of the nation's best colleges. This year? #64. I don't really get much of a boost of pride out of that.
So what does all of this have to do with a particle collider? I'll get to that in my next post...
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2 comments:
You should come down to Arkansas some time and visit Fayetteville, where the U of A Razorbacks would qualify as a religious cult of which almost the entire population of the state is a member. My entire elementary school would "call the hogs" on game day. Football fulfills an almost religious urge for a lot of people, for better or worse. It's the modern equivalent of gladiatorial combat. Until we can get the general populace to stop paying so much for it, I don't see any other way around this cultural behemoth.
Having attended a large university where sports were a huge part of the school culture, even I (who barely knew what a football was before college) got into going to the games. For me, it was more about school spirit than actually caring about the sport. Still--
What I found reprehensible was the fact that members of the team are accepted into this and other universities based solely on their athletic abilities (not on academics at all). AND -- even worse -- that the school would bend over backwards so that these students could pass extremely basic classes. My college roommate worked at a tutoring center exclusively for student athletes, and she would basically hold their hands while they completed simple homework assignments or studied for tests. The stories she would tell me were insane. None of these kids ever attended class, read the textbook, or had any concept of what was going on in the classes they were taking. These students are coming out of a well-known college with degrees! Just as you say, money and resources were poured into these individuals who could barely write a coherent sentence!
I say, if you can't pass the class, you can't pass the football. [Crappiest football metaphor ever.]
Eagerly awaiting the particle collider...
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