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<p>Hanna, I was shocked when that was done at our local high school. (although by unpaid “team managers”. I did tell my D she was NOT allowed to be a football manager).</p>
<p>I can imagine how shocking it must be to learn that college athletes, many of whom are 18 year old boys from low-income families (and some of whom, like those at Hanna’s college, receive no athletic scholarship money), reap the benefit of someone else laundering their practice uniforms they must sweat in for 3 hours per day, 6 days a week. OMG they should be washing their own stinky socks in the dorm laundry room like every one else!! How dare they get a pass on spending two hours in the laundry room when they only have to be on the field away from their studies for 18+ hours a week!! And a load of laundry costs at least what nowadays? $2.50??? If they did not want to do all their laundry, then they should not have played a sport!!</p>
<p>Better yet, those who are losing their marbles over a minimal benefit should have gone out for the team.</p>
<p>Should female lacrosse players also get their stinky, sweaty uniforms laundered for them? Those intrepid gals also sacrifice their study time to toil on the practice field and to travel for faraway games. Their wins also increase school pride.</p>
<p>Yes they should and to my knowledge they do.</p>
<p>Every time an undergraduate research student gets their name on an abstract, conference presentation, or journal article, they should get 6 months free laundry.</p>
<p>I was a D1 athlete in a non-revenue sport. Nobody was washing anything for us.</p>
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<p>Your college was probably trying to save its “poor” students the $.001 per year subsidy it would have cost to wash your stinky sports bra.</p>
<p>Or they may have been chasing the spiral of football and basketball coaching salaries and the revenue sports facilities arms race that are the real drivers of this problem. But I always appreciate a good thread jack and thus applaud your laundry posts.</p>
<p>D is a 3-season Stanford athlete. Not being a football player, she did not get free laundry her first year despite sometimes having morning AND afternoon practice sessions. Harvard and Yale and some other schools she looked at did offer that service to their xc and track teams, which was surprising because given Stanford’s sports reputation, you’d have thought it would be the other way around. Her sophomore year they started offering a practice clothes laundry service to her team, but D learned really quickly that it was not a good deal because so many of her clothes got lost or ruined that way. She went back to doing her own. Besides, laundry machines are free for everyone there anyway, and from what I hear many schools have gone that route.</p>
<p>Frankly, I’m not sure the reason for it is to help out the athlete. It’s neither pleasant nor sanitary to have one or two sets of sweaty clothes and undergarments per day piling up in mesh bags in people’s dorm rooms until they get a chance to wash them, which could be a long while since these kids have to frequently travel across country to competitions.</p>
<p>Thanks, SomeOldGuy. Not doing one’s own laundry always touches a nerve with someone. :)</p>
<p>Not me. If I had known about Davidson as a 16 year old, I would have hitched all the way to North Carolina for an admissions interview. That said, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go unload the dryer.</p>
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<p>Cal offers it. It could be their biggest marketing ploy to try to nab would-be Stanford athletes. ;)</p>
<p>Cal is stinky enough without adding the smell of sports bras. They had no choice.</p>
<p>In other countries, public universities are places for higher learning. Oxford & Cambridge’s reputations seem to do just fine w/o Big sports</p>
<p>Good for them. They also tend to have bad teeth and love soccer.</p>
<p>This whole intertwining of sports with higher education is just …well…odd.</p>
<p>And the bad teeth…well I guess thats the intertwining of social medicine and higher education.</p>
<p>The bad teeth & soccer are independent of higher ed there, so what is your point about mentioning them?</p>
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<p>Seems like a certain NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision conference is frequently mentioned on these forums.</p>
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<ol>
<li><p>Oxford and Cambridge are organized entirely differently from pretty much any other school in the UK, let alone schools in America.</p></li>
<li><p>Since when is the [Boat</a> Race](<a href=“http://theboatrace.org/]Boat”>http://theboatrace.org/) not Big?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>What does that have to do w them not needing Big sports?</p>