<p>After my experiences attending college, I can swallow quietly the moral justification of legacies and development cases, but I just cannot accept the IMHO excessive role sport play in University context. Of course, in the present scenario, if one top university decided to scrap competitive athlete recruiting altogether (e.g., athletes would be selected among students admitted without any kind of preference or financial aid given as reward of their athletic abilities), its standing would drop and a lot of image and brand damage would happen.</p>
<p>As a system, however, I can barely accept the idea that competitive sport is tied to the university core experience. Nice dorms improve attractiveness of colleges and provide better accommodation so happier and better-lodged students perform better. Gyms, tracks and climbing walls affect overall students’ health. Extensive and low-cost parking expands catchment area and improves students’ mobility. Investment in labs, classroom, top professors etc. justify themselves for obvious reasons. Yet Varsity sport is, usually, a money-loser activity for universities, especially in spite of NCAA requirements of “x” level-“y” sports to be offered at a given school. It’s big business for cable channels, NCAA’s partners and, because ever institution invest in sport, no single university could turn its face to varsity without jeopardizing its ability to recruit students and attract donors.</p>
<p>Still, I think that competitive sport doesn’t belong to college scene. It could be managed as junior leagues or whatsoever, but as it is done nowadays, it’s like top universities where paying good players by means of conferring them a high-valued degree they can use later on the road.</p>
<p>What made me feel even worse about it were the privileges athletes had when it came to exams, due assignments etc. A student who suffered a car accident would be required do take an excused leave of absence if they were to miss more than 3 full weeks of classes. Many professors played it very hard the excused absence game, requiring students whose close relatives died to turn late work sometimes no later than 3 weekdays after funerals. An athlete could get himself easily off the hook at discretion of Dean. If they attended courses requiring large share of grade-worth work to be done in groups and/or during classes, professors were OBLIGED to provide “accommodation” for their particular schedule needs. They were waived from certain schedule, major and section selection rules if they prove to be an “excessive burden” to training – a privilege none student club had -. If one goes to professors’ forum in Chronicle of Higher Ed (their version of CC), one could read about pressure some Deans to on them to be “considerate” of the unique talent of athletes (= giving them an easier path to C’s and B’s)</p>
<p>Imagine if other academic irrelevant activity were taken over by college, let’s say, fashion shows. Colleges could become the biggest and more important players in young faces walking on the catwalk. Fashion weeks would be held in the halls, top models would be revealed at Ivy’s shows, and very good looking girls and boys would have huge advantage at admissions like athletes have today. Catwalk young models (as athletes) work their way very hard, have to exercise dozens hours per week, restrain themselves of much of pleasure food average HS student flocks to etc. However, if they want to capitalize on their combination of genetic talent + huge effort, they sign with a model or casting agency, not with Yale Admission Committee.</p>