Newsweek Article: The Case Against College Athletic Recruiting

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That’s a silly statement. Fiscal planning should be coordinated internally at each individual school. Some programs make money while others do not.</p>

<p>Regarding elite private universities, Malcolm Gladwell presents an interesting perspective:

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Halfway through the book, however, Shulman and Bowen present what they call a “surprising” finding. Male athletes, despite their lower S.A.T. scores and grades, and despite the fact that many of them are members of minorities and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than other students, turn out to earn a lot more than their peers. Apparently, athletes are far more likely to go into the high-paying financial-services sector, where they succeed because of their personality and psychological makeup. In what can only be described as a textbook example of burying the lead, Bowen and Shulman write:</p>

<p>One of these characteristics can be thought of as drive—a strong desire to succeed and unswerving determination to reach a goal, whether it be winning the next game or closing a sale. Similarly, athletes tend to be more energetic than the average person, which translates into an ability to work hard over long periods of time—to meet, for example, the workload demands placed on young people by an investment bank in the throes of analyzing a transaction. In addition, athletes are more likely than others to be highly competitive, gregarious and confident of their ability to work well in groups (on teams). </p>

<p>Shulman and Bowen would like to argue that the attitudes of selective colleges toward athletes are a perversion of the ideals of American </p>

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Umm…WHAT? Are you serious? You do realize that a large portion of college athletes would not be able to go to college if it were not for their sport. Lets look at Miami football in the 80’s, for example. They got in a ton of trouble stealing things, but it’s not just cause they were bad people, its cause they had NO MONEY! They are from inner city Miami and literally have no money to go to college with. Ergo, they wouldn’t go to college without football. And not only did they play football, they won national championships. The truth is most of the poor inner city kids are the best football and basketball (money sports) players because it is their ONLY way out. They could get as good of grades as they want but with no real possible activities besides football or basketball and no money, sports are their only way to go to college. You can’t say there could still be competitive college sports without athletic scholarships. That’s just garbage.
Most people on this board (myself included) have absolutely no prospective of what it is like to grow up poor, but at least I try to consider their prospective before spewing mindless bs that really shows a lack of understanding of where other people are coming from.</p>

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And you’re trying to come on here and tell everybody that high attendance schools such as big ten or sec powers don’t make money off of college sports with absolutely no data or reason to back it up? That’s ridiculous.</p>