A very interesting debate took place last night regarding college football.
Event info:
I didn't get a chance to post it in time but here are a few articles that recap the event:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7908395/should-college-football-banned
http://www.azdesertswarm.com/2012/5/8/3008542/the-ban-debate-college-footballs-positive-outweigh-negatives
Anyways, I thought the two authors - Buzz Bissinger and Malcolm Gladwell - were pretty clueless about the benefits of football, especially in college. Gladwell mostly talked about the injuries and the physical toll of the sport, whereas Bissinger threw everything including the kitchen sink full of empty arguments delivered with anger and frustration. They are both obviously very intelligent men, and great authors, but I didn't agree with most of their points. They want colleges to focus more on education and less on football. Bissinger went so far as to call the head coach on any major college football team to be more powerful than the college president. What they're failing to understand is that college football is a HUGE money maker for the schools. For example, UConn probably doesn't get a new Business or Technology building, or a new student center if it wasn't for their football program taking off. I know there are hundreds of other schools that benefited from the money that their football programs were able to generate. And guess what, that directly or indirectly helped the academia of those schools.
I thought Tim Green and Jason Whitlock both posed some very good arguments in opposition. But one thing I wish they would've posed this question to Bissinger and Gladwell: What would the world look like with no college football?
In my estimation, schools would not have nearly as many ways to raise money which would directly affect what other programs the school is able to offer. For example, on a campus like University of Alabama, I have to imagine every sport but football and maybe basketball is considered a luxury - as in football, and to a much lesser extent, basketball funds all of the other available varsity sports that the school gives out scholarship for. With no college football, wave goodbye to men's and women's soccer, rowing, volleyball, swimming, track, etc etc. Of course, maybe some schools would manage to keep some of those things, but the effect will definitely be felt elsewhere on campus. Maybe they don't get that new chemistry building or business building etc etc - I think you get the point.
The other unfortunate drawback of completely banning college football would be that going to college would no longer be an option for the underprivileged who may not have had the same level of education in middle school and high school as many of us had access to. Do college athletes get spoon fed their "education"? Yeah, some of them do. And most schools do it for selfish reasons - to keep their star player on the field and not on academic probation. But that doesn't mean we need to ban college football. We need to reform it. Believe me, there are plenty of things I would love to change about college football; paying the players would be the first thing, in my opinion. But I don't think the injuries or the after effects or the argument that colleges should simply focus on education hold any water.
What do you think?
By the way, there were several other arguments that Green and Whitlock made that I entirely agree with, especially about the benefits of football to young men, but I thought the above two points were simply glossed over and so I thought posting them here would be a good starting point to a discussion.
Event info:
Intelligence Squared Debate: Ban College Football?
Amid
scandals and head-injury concerns, Malcolm Gladwell ("The Tipping
Point") and Buzz Bissinger ("Friday Night Lights") will back a ban, with
author and ex-player Tim Green and Fox Sports's Jason Whitlock opposed.I didn't get a chance to post it in time but here are a few articles that recap the event:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7908395/should-college-football-banned
http://www.azdesertswarm.com/2012/5/8/3008542/the-ban-debate-college-footballs-positive-outweigh-negatives
Anyways, I thought the two authors - Buzz Bissinger and Malcolm Gladwell - were pretty clueless about the benefits of football, especially in college. Gladwell mostly talked about the injuries and the physical toll of the sport, whereas Bissinger threw everything including the kitchen sink full of empty arguments delivered with anger and frustration. They are both obviously very intelligent men, and great authors, but I didn't agree with most of their points. They want colleges to focus more on education and less on football. Bissinger went so far as to call the head coach on any major college football team to be more powerful than the college president. What they're failing to understand is that college football is a HUGE money maker for the schools. For example, UConn probably doesn't get a new Business or Technology building, or a new student center if it wasn't for their football program taking off. I know there are hundreds of other schools that benefited from the money that their football programs were able to generate. And guess what, that directly or indirectly helped the academia of those schools.
I thought Tim Green and Jason Whitlock both posed some very good arguments in opposition. But one thing I wish they would've posed this question to Bissinger and Gladwell: What would the world look like with no college football?
In my estimation, schools would not have nearly as many ways to raise money which would directly affect what other programs the school is able to offer. For example, on a campus like University of Alabama, I have to imagine every sport but football and maybe basketball is considered a luxury - as in football, and to a much lesser extent, basketball funds all of the other available varsity sports that the school gives out scholarship for. With no college football, wave goodbye to men's and women's soccer, rowing, volleyball, swimming, track, etc etc. Of course, maybe some schools would manage to keep some of those things, but the effect will definitely be felt elsewhere on campus. Maybe they don't get that new chemistry building or business building etc etc - I think you get the point.
The other unfortunate drawback of completely banning college football would be that going to college would no longer be an option for the underprivileged who may not have had the same level of education in middle school and high school as many of us had access to. Do college athletes get spoon fed their "education"? Yeah, some of them do. And most schools do it for selfish reasons - to keep their star player on the field and not on academic probation. But that doesn't mean we need to ban college football. We need to reform it. Believe me, there are plenty of things I would love to change about college football; paying the players would be the first thing, in my opinion. But I don't think the injuries or the after effects or the argument that colleges should simply focus on education hold any water.
What do you think?
By the way, there were several other arguments that Green and Whitlock made that I entirely agree with, especially about the benefits of football to young men, but I thought the above two points were simply glossed over and so I thought posting them here would be a good starting point to a discussion.
Thought i saw somewhere that only 9 or so BCS schools actually makes a profit with football. As for UConn's specific situation, the business school was finished before they finished pouring the cement at Rentschler.
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