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Why should we get over it, now that we’ve got the power? Why should we want any of our money go to fund scholarships for the same kind of people who picked on us?</p>
<p>I’m not anti-sports, I like sports. I just don’t happen to think it’s necessarily appropriate for colleges to pay people to play them at the college, or relax standards. I went to my HS basketball games and enjoyed them, even though none of those guys were getting paid to play. As long as the playing field is level, and it is a fair competition fas ar as talent pool goes, sports can be exciting enough for me. Within reason.</p>
<p>i would imagine the reason several posters have this mindset is that we came from schools that were members of the Ivy league, which did not give athletic scholarships. So for many of us this notion of paying people is not the normal, inevitable course of things, actually.</p>
<p>
The 6 schools identified by hawkette obviously have strong academic reputations. But they don’t compete with the Ivies when it comes to the academic reputation of their athletes.</p>
<p>Under NCAA rules, every Division I athletic team is required to document its Academic Performance Rate (APR). According to the [NCAA](<a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=333]NCAA[/url]:”>http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=333):</a>
</p>
<p>The Division I teams with the highest APRs (approximately the top 10% in each sport) are honored annually with NCAA [Public</a> Recognition Awards](<a href=“http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=332]Public”>http://www.ncaa.org/wps/ncaa?ContentID=332). We can compare the number of 2007-2008 Public Recognition Awards garnered by the hawkette “Top 6” to the Top 6 Ivies as follows (Ivies in bold):</p>
<p>28 Yale
24 Dartmouth
21 Brown
20 Penn
19 Princeton
18 Harvard
12 Duke
11 Notre Dame
10 Stanford
8 Northwestern
8 Rice
2 Vanderbilt</p>
<p>Hawkette’s schools may indeed have teams that are “nationally competitive and relevant” in athletics. Unfortunately, the “academic cultures” of many of these teams appear to be somewhat deficient relative to those found in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>In fairness, the “hawkette schools” post impressive award numbers relative to many traditional Division IA sports powers, like USC (3 awards), UCLA and Florida (1 each), or Oklahoma (zero). But they obviously aren’t impressive relative to the Ivies.</p>
<p>C’mon, sports are blown way out of proportion. People care way too much about them. Because of media hype, look at the sorry list of celebrities (sports and otherwise) who have been made into heroes for our youth.</p>
<p>Look at the wonderful list of celebrities who have, throughout the years, been heroes to all of us. Roger Staubach is one example from the past. I think pretty highly of Donovan McNabb, too.</p>
<p>This is exactly what I mean. You have been MADE to think highly of them by media hype. Why are they worthy of adulation? Because of their skill at manipulating an oblong rubber bladder. I think we can do better than that.</p>
<p>We are manipulated. It is so deeply ingrained in our culture that we accept it uncritically.</p>
<p>What do our young people dream of becoming? Basketball and football players. That’s sad. We should try to get African-American kids to dream about becoming doctors and engineers.</p>
<p>You are showing your ignorance. Do you know ANYTHING about these people or what they have accomplished-NOT just on the field, but in the business world and for their communities? I wouldn’t have picked you for my kickball team, either!</p>
<p>Hunt wrote: “Why should we get over it, now that we’ve got the power? Why should we want any of our money go to fund scholarships for the same kind of people who picked on us?”</p>
<p>Noone can guide you in your giving priorities, but just let me comment that revenge is mostly a misuse of energy.</p>
<p>Mom- Have you been a good mother to your “wild child”? Then you have made a far more significant contribution to human welfare than Roger Staubach.</p>
<p>Roger Staubach has been a wonderful father, a successful businessman who employed many people and a generious contributor to many charitable causes. How can you minimize the contributions of someone about whom you know absolutely nothing?<br>
It is now up to your neck. I would take a deep breath and keep my mouth closed if I were you.</p>
<p>Sounds like Roger has made more valuable contributions to society OUTSIDE his football career. He would probably agree.</p>
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</p>
<p>Didn’t he subsequently sell out and lay a lot of those people off?</p>
<p>He recently sold the company. Like lay-offs are unique to Staubach’s company these days… Catch the news lately?</p>
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</p>
<p>He profited. They didn’t. Great role model for the young ones.</p>
<p>Perfect role model. He built a successful business and he sold it. Are you not supposed to profit? What do you think they teach you at Wharton?</p>
<p>“what do they teach you at Wharton”…</p>
<p>I certainly would never use Wharton as the true north on a moral compass!</p>
<p>What Hawkette and the rest of the “Hire some gladiators, and entertain the kids, the alums and the local merchants for big bucks” crowd misses is that they Ivy league picked a point in time when college sports represented a good balance of Academics and Athletics and when teams really represented the typical student in the school they played for and drew a line. They saw things slipping towards semi-pro athletes, corporate sky boxes, schedules and procedures set by television channels and advertisers and a gentle slide away from “real” college activities. </p>
<p>This is best represented by the recent phenomenon of the “Thursday Night Game”. The only reason for the Thursday night game is to fit holes in the television schedule, not to benefit students or alums. The new stadiums often come with skyboxes for corporate entertainment accessed by an elevator to promote “college comradery and togetherness”.</p>
<p>Then much of the money raised by the “Thursday Night Game” is spent to fund the new indoor training facility and lesser sports such as wrestling or crew are cut to avoid diverting money away from the “money sports”. This is a slippery slope and schools such as Stanford and Duke that attempt to play the game with the rest of the “big time” crowd find themselves sucked in to the abiss year after year, doing things they might regret to keep up with the crowd. Where does it end?</p>
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</p>
<p>Teach you how to run the American economy into the ground and bankrupt a lot of hardworking people in the process while you enjoy the sins of excess.</p>
<p>Sherman,
It’s clear that you and some others posting here don’t get it and probably never will. You portray sports and student-athletes at the Division I scholarship colleges as evil and that the blessed Ivy League, with its pure, scholarship-free teams (hah!), is the moral compass to guide us. Get over yourself and get a clue.</p>
<p>People who do “get it” know that sports can be a positive force on a college’s campus, both in terms of the participation opportunities AND in the social opportunities at events that can be bonding experiences and which can enhance school spirit. That is the beauty of colleges like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame. Do you really think that these are “gladiator” places as you sneeringly call them? I would bet that you know exactly zero of these people, but you are all too happy to paint them all as intellectually inferior with your big, black “the Ivy League is so superior” brush.</p>
<p>I really hope that Harvard is successful with its basketball program and becomes a competitive and relevant team on the national level and maybe even appears on national TV a few times. I am pretty darn certain that the Harvard/Ivy bandwagon would very quickly and fully fill up with Ivy students and alums. Maybe even you….</p>
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</p>
<p>If you are aware of under the table, non-need based scholarships occurring at any of the Ivies, please come forward with your evidence. I’m certain a lot of us Ivy alums would have a field day with whomever the culprits are, my own alma mater included. It’s just not done.</p>
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<p>I don’t think anybody is painting anybody else as intellectually inferior, it’s just we think we’ve found a happy balance between student and athlete at the Ivies, and we’re proud that all of our student-athletes are subject to the same academic regulations regarding admissions and enrollment. The same standards can’t be said of all Division I schools, schools that we are competitive against on a fairly regular basis, be it hockey, basketball, wrestling, or lacrosse. Cornell’s non-scholarship basketball team with a walk-on farm boy and a point guard who didn’t get recruited anywhere else led both Syracuse and Minnesota by double digit points earlier this season. And an inconsistent Harvard beat BC. I think that’s pretty damn exciting.</p>
<p>The secret behind the League’s success is balance. Student athletes at these schools are more than just athletes, and we recognize them as such. And when they may happen to go pro, we’re happy for them, but we do not despair when the team has a losing season. And we’re frankly happy that our schools aren’t plowing untold resources into athletics and a beer and peanuts circus when there are much more important challenges facing us at this moment in history. And yes, schools like Duke have turned some of their student athletes into modern-day gladiators, present only to entertain.</p>
<p>What’s always been so insulting about your tirade against the Ivies, Hawkette, is that you fail to recognize the fantastic sporting tradition that exists at the Ivies, a sporting tradition that has many loyal fans and followers. I’ve been to sold out volleyball, wrestling, lacrosse, track, swimming, hockey, and basketball events around the league, and I don’t see how the experience is any different in meaning that what you may find at Vanderbilt or Northwestern.</p>
<p>Cornell hockey is playing a nationally televised game tomorrow night, and I’ll probably be heading out to a bar to watch the festivities with a bunch of other area Cornellians, including one alum who played varsity hockey and will go down in Cornell lore for scoring a famous overtime goal against Harvard. But I suppose you wouldn’t like him, considering he went on to earn a PhD, and well, that’s just too intellectual for you.</p>
<p>Some friends of mine from Northwestern headed down to San Antonio for a bowl game over the holiday season, and they had a great time. Meanwhile, I went to Baltimore for the lacrosse final four two years ago, along with thousands of other Cornell alums. I’m not certain how just because Northwestern is a Big 10 school this makes it a “bonding experience… which can enhance school spirit”. Then what was my Cornell experience all about, and why were there more Cornell fans than Duke fans present?</p>
<p>By the way, a former starting power forward for Kentucky just announced today that he is transferring to Cornell after considering options at places like Notre Dame, USC, etc. So Ivy athletics must be good enough for some of your kind. </p>
<p>[The</a> Cornell Basketball Blog: Recruiting News: Former Kentucky Wildcat Trades Blue for Cornell Big Red](<a href=“http://cornellbasketball.blogspot.com/2009/01/recruiting-news-former-kentucky-wildcat.html]The”>http://cornellbasketball.blogspot.com/2009/01/recruiting-news-former-kentucky-wildcat.html)</p>