Like the passion of the World Cup? You can have it in your college experience, too!

College Search & Selection
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<p>@coureur: I don’t necessarily disagree with you. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to characterize quality athletic programs as “exceptions” along the lines of elite schools ie Stanford and Duke. I recommend reading this interesting article: [What</a> does college do for athletes? - TrueHoop Blog - ESPN](<a href=“http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14373/what-does-college-do-for-athletes]What”>What does college do for athletes? - ESPN - TrueHoop- ESPN)</p>

<p>I completely agree that academic money should not be used to support fiscally failing athletic teams.</p>

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<p>They already do, hawkette. Those students who value the big-sports-scene will look at Duke, Vandy, Stanford, possibly NU, and those students who don’t will look at the Ivies, U Chicago, MIT, Caltech, etc. There is no shortage of potential applicants to your favorite schools, and the existence or lack thereof of big-time college sports isn’t a secret that students don’t find out about until they’re already on campus.</p>

<p>Everyone applying to the Ivies already knows they aren’t going to have the big SEC-style all-encompassing football weekends. If those things were important, they’d choose otherwise. I think the real problem is that you just get bummed that more people don’t value the big-blowout-football-scene to the extent that you do.</p>

<p>The other thing is that you continue not to get that for people who aren’t particularly into watching an actual sport, they might have just as much fun / camaderie watching and cheering on the team in a relatively small stadium as in a large, nationally-televised event in a big stadium. Not everyone defines sports fun as proportionate to the number of spectators. I am quite sure that the people who follow Cornell hockey or Penn basketball have just as much fun doing so as the people who are at the big-blowout-football weekends at SEC and similar schools. You can’t look at someone else’s fun and deem it objectively not as fun as yours. You might personally prefer a different style, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t having fun, too.</p>

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<p>^I agree, each school makes their own decisions. Some want to have big time athletics, some don’t. There’s no such thing as a “bad decision” if colleges decide whether to have division 1 athletics or not.</p>

<p>The thing that I’m mad about is that people stereotype all athletes as being bad students and not deserving of being at that college. And from my experience at a state university, at least among non-football/basketball athletes, this could not be further from the truth.</p>

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<p>I would also add that some students consider the full range of experiences and see a culture with a heavy spectator sports emphasis as being a negative, not a positive.</p>

<p>My S saw Tufts and Brandeis in one day earlier this year. Neither has a big spectator sports culture, though obviously students can participate in intramurals and friendly competition if they so desire. That was a plus for him, not a minus. A school in which a lot of the appeal is “oh look, you can scream yourself hoarse for the football team in a stadium with 40,000 of your best friends!” is one that I, and my kids, want to stay far, far away from.</p>

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<p>Coureur,</p>

<p>You really are suffering from a bad case of jealousy aren’t you? It might surprise you to know that a D1 football team is made up of 85 school athletes and maybe 5-8 more walkons. The vast majority of those athletes do in fact enter the workforce in a field other than sports and most of them, not all, use their educations after college not unlike the rest of the student body, many of whom, struggle to match academic training to a job/career. </p>

<p>Most athletes play by the NCAA rules and probably do not think the financial assistance they received in exchange for playing sports was a waste of the U’s resources. Your comments were far truer 25 years ago before Prop 48 when any knuckhead could get into a school that wanted to win bad enough. Things have changed despite your tired rhetoric. </p>

<p>Here is more new for you. </p>

<p>Hawkette’s list is minor compared to the number of schools that do it right. Look at Lehigh’s football roster and you will see the same number of engineering and accounting and PolySci majors as anywhere else. Check out any other Patriot League school and you will see the athletes not only deserve to be there but perform academically. Check out the Pioneer League (Davidson and Butler which almost beat Duke for the basketball NC last year). </p>

<p>Check out Furman or William & Mary and many others including D1 schools like Wake or Cal. It isn’t just Stanford and Duke. And, by the way, even at schools that have problems once every 5 years – most of the athletes are good citizens after college. </p>

<p>It must really bother you to know that athletes can compete on the field where you can’t and be just as good in the classroom. Your shame is showing loud and clear. </p>

<p>If schools only admitted the folks you deemed worthy they wouldn’t be doing what they are supposed to do for society because not everyone would get what they need from the educational system. I will echo what others have said and that you seem to ignore – most athletic programs, well, at least the revenue generating sports like football and basketball, contribute to the operating fund not deduct from it. So, athletic programs do not drain needed resources for other things. </p>

<p>And Dabo Swinney, Clemson’s new coach, is making far less than market value for a D1 coach at a major program. </p>

<p>Cour, you really don’t know what you are talking about. You can fool some of the people here I am sure but you are being factual inaccurate on most of your comments. The fact is that people identify with sports heroes and that is good for the overall university mission. People don’t get real excited about a science or Lit class and that must be where the jealousy comes from for folks like you. No, I wasn’t being to harsh on you earlier. You are a hater :-)</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>Yes, Holy Cross has suffered quite a bit. Check their enrollment compared to BC’s and see who made the right call to not de-emphasize football. </p>

<p>How many students does Brandeis have? Like 2,000? Yeah, that sounds like fun.</p>

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<p>^ACCecil, I’ll say that there’s a demand for individualized education at a small school rather than taking classes at a large school with large classes. Just because your idea of fun isn’t that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun for someone who wants a close community. I chose Clemson because I wanted the school spirit atmosphere but not everyone wants that.</p>

<p>yes and true Dabo is getting underpaid, but we’re still paying for Tommy Bowden…</p>

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<p>Pierre,</p>

<p>Oh, I agree. Let each choose his own. Pizzagirl said not everyone wants to go to a football-crazy school. She’s right. I went to a football-crazy school and there were times I felt that the jocks got to much attention. There were times I felt like the school was built for the jocks and the rest of us were just sort of there to pay for everything. That is unfair and wrong, so I don’t disagree with Pizzagirl’s premise or some of Courier’s points. </p>

<p>I jumped in on this thread because I am a firm believer that, if done right, athletics and academics can mix beautifully and it isn’t just at a select few schools that it happens. USC in LA is a stunningly expensive and outstanding school. Their football team got into NCAA trouble because one basketball player and one football player were being paid and/or their family members were. Okay. That doesn’t mean the school sucks or that the rest of the hundreds of jocks at the school do not deserve to be there. </p>

<p>And that, ladies and gents, is pretty much the bunk Courier is trying to sell on this board. I am not buying it. There was a time, 25 years ago, when admissions for jocks really was a joke especially in the SWC and SEC. Those days are long, long gone. Time for the haters to come up with a new routine.</p>

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<p>blah blah blah blah</p>

<p>meanwhile CalTech manages to find its way into discussions about the World Cup.</p>

<p>This is CalTech’s way of participating in major sports:</p>

<p>[Caltech</a> trains its eye on the World Cup ball - latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-world-cup-ball-20100624,0,4874871.story]Caltech”>Caltech puts the tourney's ball to a test)</p>

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<p>but Hawkette wasn’t it you that started this thread regarding the game of Soccer and how enthusiastic the fans are to watch it?</p>

<p>gee sorry that I didn’t compare Princeton Soccer with Rice Soccer</p>

<p>you see</p>

<p>I had a little problem with this - It turns out that after hours and hours and hours of research into college soccer teams, I was truly amazed that the great school from Houston that you trumpet about its Athletic program, Rice University, doesn’t even have a men’s soccer team</p>

<p>ouch!</p>

<p>and now that you are discussing college football again, did you fail to review this college football table that was prepared specially for you?</p>

<p>College Football Rankings 2009-10 (Div. IA and IAA combined)
31. Stanford
45. Northwestern
71. Notre Dame
98. Penn*
101. Duke
128. Harvard*
146. Vanderbilt
151. Rice</p>

<p>*Ivy League schools</p>

<p>so now you are bringing up Rice’s average attendance per game at Football games eh?</p>

<p>lets see how it compares to some of the Ivy League Schools for a year that is readily available for each school:</p>

<p>2006 Average Home Football Attendance
18,562 - Yale
15,548 - Harvard
14,760 - Rice
12,220 - Princeton
12,021 - Penn</p>

<p>and now to top it off you are claiming that the Texas/Rice game is going to be exciting?</p>

<p>Are you kidding me?</p>

<p>a 60-0 shelacking will not be exciting for either Texas or Rice students</p>

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<p>pizzagirl fully agree with you on this</p>

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<p>oh my…something is wrong here…</p>

<p>I again fully agree with pizzagirl here</p>

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<p>I think the world is imploding, JohnAdams :-)</p>

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<p>Why does every university have to have the same mission, though? There’s room for schools with big spectator-sports cultures, and room for schools with small or no spectator-sports cultures. Just like there’s room for schools with big Greek lives and room for schools with no Greek lives. Or room for schools with a very heavy emphasis on the arts / music and room for schools with a comparatively minor focus on the arts / music. Why is there a desire to turn them all into the same? I think it’s <em>good</em> that there are choices at different points along the spectrum of rah-rah sports to eh-sports-whatever.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl,</p>

<p>Well, then we agree :-)</p>

<p>I never said that all schools need to have the same overall mission. We don’t all drive the same kind of car either. Some people like beaches others like mountains. Some people like to stay home others go out 6 nights a week. It’s all good. No harm, no foul either way. One can be happy at any number of colleges. </p>

<p>However, there is some bashing of spectator-sport culture schools, as you like to call them, that is baloney. If you got a problem with them at least get your facts straight. I am not saying they are perfect but, frankly, neither is a work all the time, costs too much, lets very few in, cold and gray 80% of the year, sweat shop like school. </p>

<p>Give me a break. And you have to pay to go to a place like that? It reminds me of the comedy routine about hot-pockets on YouTube. </p>

<p>There are a few folks on this thread that should read the “what’s wrong with Public schools” – great thread in which someone points out that Ivy snobs constantly have to find fault with actually quite good public schools to justify their own overpriced educations. Talk about sad!!!</p>

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<p>If you love the excitement of World Cup soccer then U Akron is the place to be! Harvard is good, too.</p>

<p>National Soccer Coaches ranking </p>

<p>NSCAA National Rankings </p>

<p>NCAA Rankings National Men
Division I Final Postseason Poll - November 17, 2009 </p>

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<p>Rank School Prev. W-L-T<br>
1 Akron (23) 575 1 20 - 0 - 0<br>
2 Wake Forest 529 3 14 - 3 - 3<br>
3 Virginia 526 6 14 - 3 - 3<br>
4 North Carolina 512 2 13 - 2 - 3<br>
5 Monmouth 426 8 18 - 1 - 1<br>
6 Louisville 422 7 13 - 2 - 4<br>
7 Maryland 414 5 12 - 5 - 2<br>
8 UCLA 411 10 10 - 3 - 4<br>
9 Harvard 409 11 13 - 3 - 1<br>
10 UC Santa Barbara 369 4 15 - 4 - 2<br>
11 Tulsa 359 12 13 - 4 - 2<br>
12 Connecticut 285 9 11 - 4 - 3<br>
13 Ohio State 241 25 12 - 4 - 4<br>
14 St. John’s 230 24 9 - 2 - 9<br>
15 North Carolina State 220 20 13 - 6 - 2<br>
16 South Florida 194 13 13 - 3 - 3<br>
17 UC Irvine 182 RV 15 - 6 - 0<br>
18 North Carolina-Wilmington 162 22 14 - 2 - 4<br>
19 San Diego 133 14 12 - 5 - 2<br>
20 Duke 126 15 12 - 6 - 0<br>
21 Northwestern 118 16 10 - 4 - 4<br>
22 Butler 115 23 14 - 2 - 2<br>
23 Saint Louis 76 RV 14 - 6 - 0<br>
24 Drake 74 RV 13 - 6 - 2<br>
25 Charlotte 72 18 11 - 3 - 5</p>

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<p>If this is really an important category for “athletic but prestigious” schools Hawkette, Duke would be ranked much, much lower in your list. Duke is a basketball school, not a sports school. They haven’t had a winning season in football in nearly 3 decades, and that is reflected by their attendance each Saturday in the fall. :)</p>

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<p>Not always. A lot of money for athletic renovation and stadium construction comes from private donations. At UNC, for example, the university as a whole is facing budget cuts but the school just green-lighted a $70 million expansion of the football stadium. No state or school money is going to the stadium, though-it is all coming from private donations. People should be able to decide where they want their private money to go, and obviously a lot of people care about the football program.</p>