Of course, sports can also be seen as a kind of performing art, although the competitive aspect is more obvious and clearly defined.
Or NEITHER!
The national leagues, clubs and owners, should have to take their gazillions and fund the development of talent through their own regional and local club systems, not conveniently “delegate” that to high schools and colleges, and their funds, and parents’ income.
Someone’s outstanding game performance, or orchestra play, or chess score, does not end up on the college transcript. Evidently, they are not educational concerns, and thus are not University concerns. All those activities should be treated as any other clubs, like underwater basket weaving, where students can pursue their ECs at their own leisure.
NO club membership require/justify recruiting, dedicated staffing, or real-estate development.
Academic education and funding should be completely segregated from sports ventures/funding. These are entirely parallel systems.
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If a recruited athletic spot disappears, I assume the class size would stay the same, and the spot would go to a diversity candidate, or a poet, or a math geek, or maybe just a smart, well-rounded kid. The idea is that you cease to privilege athletes over those with other talents. Though the athletic tradition at Ivys and similar is strong, it wouldn’t surprise me, as I mentioned in an earlier post, if there was a trend to move away from privileging the wealth-correlated sports like fencing and sailing.
Whether arts or athletics should be valued more is, as you put it, a waaay big conversation. I like both myself and have no intention on wading into this argument. But right now athletics are generally privileged over arts, at least insofar as most elite schools specifically reserve perhaps several hundred spots on campus for athletes, but certainly not anywhere near as many for artists. It doesn’t seem to me that there is any intrinsic reason to favor one over the other. The argument could certainly be made that it would fine to have as many star poets, dancers and painters as star athletes on campus.
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Yes, true.
But…
How about engineering a pivot to things that tangibly benefit society? Westinghouse and similar academic achievements? One could say the whole inclusion of athletics in the admissions calculus was (historically) to put a thumb on the scale for a certain demographic when colleges wanted fewer smart folks who were the “wrong” religion (documented in the lay media by Gladwell and others). Maybe we come full circle by sending the affluent folks’ time and money towards micromanaging their special snowflake’s high school scientific research instead of their fencing career. Either way, the rich people win in the college admissions race, but at least in the latter we get some cool scientific advances?
Yes, I’m joking…mostly!
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From the article that @MWolf shared:
Most of the examples of Black athletes rising from poverty to become sports stars come from football and basketball, sports which only a small proportion of all college athletes play. In addition, most college athletes compete outside of the top division that attracts most of the attention of the media and sports fans, Knoester said.
If colleges limited their athletics teams to football, basketball, and volleyball, students from low-income families would make up a much more significant percentage of student athletes.
Harvard’s varsity sports include (source: Student Activities):
baseball, basketball, crew, cross-country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rugby, sailing, skiing, soccer, softball, squash, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, wrestling.
How many city rec leagues offer the sports that I bolded? Squash and tennis probably could have been bolded as well, but at least have a chance of being a more affordable sport for people from less wealthy backgrounds to have meaningful participation. Take the bolded sports out and the demographics (economic and racial) would probably have some substantive change from the current athletic recruits.
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FYI: Crew is available through 3 different community park and rec depts where i live - cost of entry and cost to compete is minimal
to zero based on income.
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Same here for crew in Chicago and some suburbs, including some non-profits that work to help spark interest and participation from a broader set of students. Similarly, there are also several successful squash non-profits in some large cities doing the same.
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There is a lot of variation by sport. In general, popular sports among the general population that may have positive revenue often have a larger portion URM, and decent non-wealthy representation. Examples include football and basketball. And less popular sports among the general population tend to be primarily White, with wealthy kids overrepresented. However, fencing is something of an exception to this generalization. Fencing often has large non-White representation, particularly Asian and international. Some specific numbers are below form the NCAA Div I database (only has 3 race categories – Black, White, and Other)
Men’s Basketball – 23% White, 55% Black, 22% Other
Football – 37% White, 47% Black, 18% Other
Women’s Fencing – 41% White, 4% Black, 54% Other
Men’s Soccer – 47% White, 11% Black, 43% Other
Men’s Fencing – 48% White, 4% Black, 47% Other
…
Men’s Lacrosse – 83% White
Women’s Lacrosse – 84% White
Women’s Equestrian – 89% White
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I am curious abut the “others” in fencing. I have seen a lot of Asian moms taking their kids to fencing lessons.
FWIW, my neighbor’s son got into a top ivy as a baseball recruit and friend’s wife was a swimming recruit to another ivy. Another neighbor was the long snapper at an ivy – I am certain another athletic recruit.
National leagues, clubs and owners should definitely develop their own talent. It is delegated to schools, colleges, parents and volunteers. Interesting financial system going on there. All of the developed talent to pick from with little investment or risk.
My kid trains at an advanced level in a non-recruitable sport. The life lessons in dealing with others, persevering, working with a variety of worldviews, keeping fit, eating well, getting enough rest - among other lessons - is tremendous for their personal growth. A really deep experience compared to what’s going on with their schooling.
Many athletes are, for better or worse, a type of employee in an unconventional work setting. Depending on the athlete, sport and training experience, it’s excellent preparation for college and the real world afterwards.
(For what it’s worth, my kid is an URM quite “unrepresented” in their sport; success is measured fairly objectively amongst competitors so it’s never been an issue in terms of getting recognition for what’s thrown down.)
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Specific numbers of 2021 Div I are below. Fencing is one of ~3 NCAA sports where Asian students are overrepresented. In the vast majority of others, Asian students are underrepresented.
Men’s* – 168 White, 64 Asian, 30 Hispanic, 25 Unknown, 24 Multi-race,23 International, 15 Black, 1 Native American
Women’s – 168 White, 92 Asian, 40 International, 31 Multi-race, 30 Unknown, 28 Hispanic, 17 Black
*A small number of women compete in men’s division and are included in totals
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The ultimate perversion is that middle-class school districts are continuously expected to divert academic or job-training funds to building expansive athletic facilities and staffing coaching positions, just to satisfy parents who do see the need for their public schools to provide college-admission/funding opportunities that might somewhat compete with the sports programs afforded by private schools funded by more affluent parents.
Virtually none of them expect their kids to actually become professional players in whatever sport. In fact, many wouldn’t care if their college student was benched for 4 years. It’s basically all about college admission/affordability.
Just to be clear - I’m all in favor of a well-rounded education, which absolutely DOES include varied Phys Ed offerings, music and arts education, etc. But once it gets into varsity levels that require “stadiums” where many players sit on the bench most of the season solely for strategic reasons - it’s no longer a “public” (=school) interest that we all should be taxed for.
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When @skieurope pages me, I respond.
Daughter was a recruited fencer who graduated last year. In my understanding of the recruiting process, there are fewer than 30 open slots per weapon per gender in any given year at the stronger programs, (i.e., those who send people to NCAA Championship).
Focus on the most selective schools (where the boost of an athletic slot is more meaningful) and that number drops down to (low to mid) teens. So, to be attractive to any of those schools, one should optimally be in the top 10 or so in your recruiting year.
One thing I dislike about this article is that the headline makes it sound like it’s some direct cause and effect…fence and you’ll get into Harvard. It’s more like, fence (a lot), become one of the best in country, and maybe you’ll get recruited by Harvard…unless Harvard already happens to have a surplus of fencers in your weapon/gender or a few people ahead of you in the rankings are also targeting Harvard.
And that’s not even considering international recruits, as skieurope mentions…though TBH, I saw more of that at the bigger and not-as-selective schools (like PSU/OSU).
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The only sport that fits your description is football, isn’t it? To play devil’s advocate – because I don’t like football and will not watch it – stadiums wouldn’t be built if no one was in the stands. In some places high school football is really important to the community.
Football is just a convenient/representative placeholder. An indoor gym, an outdoor “field”, and where applicable an aquatic center, is all that’s needed for physical education of all students, incl. learning how to swim.
If the community desires a stadium to host competitions, shows, with electronic score boards and a press booth, to accommodate in-town and out-of-town spectators, concessions, etc. then that’s way outside the schools’ core function of education – and the citizenry can approve that as part of their town’s budget.
I understand of course.
But that “term” alone is the core issue: There should not be “College anything- ball” or “High School anything- ball”.
Sports teams, competitions between communities’ teams/clubs, and the coaches, facilities, travel those necessitate should be a community’s sports funding, not taken out of education budgets/taxes.
Even in well-funded school districts, I see classroom-aids being cut, just so that seven figures can be allocated to another “town pride” project/upgrade.
Once the competition is between TOWNS not between educational institutions, there will no longer be an issue with educational admits being more available to those families who are affluent enough to sink money into their athletes.
I know this sounds like Utopia - but that’s how things actually do work elsewhere.
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Obviously this hits a bit of a nerve, as we have a child that participates at an Ivy in a “country club sport”. What this article and many others fail to say is that:
The athlete has a passion for the sport - it is not about a big $ contract waiting in the wings
The athlete has to balance their sport with 20-30 hours a week of practice with schoolwork
They can’t take all the classes they want due to schedule conflicts with practice - not all schools make exceptions for athletes especially in non-revenue sports
The Ivy league and others do not give athletic money - yet many people think our child is getting a free ride due to her sport
These articles appear every year (I think last year it was squash) - but there are so many other more interesting stories about these sports vs talking about the wealth - imo.
Yes, our child’s college team has kids from expensive independent schools - but it also has kids that participated through park and community programs and qualify for financial aid with the school.
For crew - our costs didn’t exceed $2000 in fees and travel over 4 years - the program was through a local parks department and offered any interested teen a chance to try crew with no charges. (underwritten through fundraising)
The college has institutional priorities and these sports are part of it - be it tradition, money from alumni’s, hiring companies that see the value of athletes etc - but at the end of day, our child loves the sport and we are grateful she can combine it with a school that she loves too.
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Absolutely - I have always been impressed how many of our school’s brightest kids were doing so well, despite super-intense sports schedules.
My sincere admiration for those young athletes, musicians, dancers,… would be the same, if the sports were not funded from education budgets.
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At many universities sports stadiums are funded by wealthy donors or even businesses. D1 football and basketball can be revenue streams for the school, free advertising, and frankly is fun for students. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
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The vast majority of tennis players in college are recruited from other countries, esp Europe and South America. Very few come through the US pipeline esp in Division 1. That may be why it is excluded for much of this conversation.
This article says about 1/3 of the approximately 5,000 NCAA D1 tennis players are international.
How many college tennis players are there?
A lot. There are approximately 5,000 Division 1 college players (and about 20,000 college tennis players across all levels), of which about one third are international students. There are also Division II and Division III players, but they are lower level programs and very rarely funnel into the pros.