<p>This I agree with, except the part about the kids not wanting an education in DI football or basketball. I think many of them really do. But, the practice and travel make it nearly impossible for them.</p>
<p>I would even go further. I would say that many of the universities actually take advantage of these kids so that they can get massive shoe contracts for the coaches, not to mention other endorsements, and that many of these kids come from incredibly impoverished backgrounds, and it is ridiculous for these coaches to be making millions off the backs of these kids when they don’t even have 20 dollars to go to the movies and get a piece of pizza.</p>
<p>As for why people want major sports teams, ask yourself the same question about major league sports. I think it’s a part of the day to day life and a big part of what creates "community’ and a sense of really being a part of things, and I really think that can be severely underestimated in terms of making kids feel at home and like they belong…Think about the seminal U.S.A chant during the olympics, think about tailgating and everyone dressed in __________ on Saturday afternoon, cheering together. It’s more important to school spirit and the collective experience than you might think.</p>
<p>yep. i really can’t wait til the day when some of these crooked coaches…excuse me…“athletic directors” start to really be held accountable for their sketchy stuff!! tired of the athletes taking all of the blame and getting scapegoated while these millionaire coaches, recruiters, etc. throw them under the bus and never look back. year after year. it needs to STOP.</p>
<p>Okay, so you set up “farm systems” with the NFL and NBA. Well that covers two sports. What about the rest of them? What about lacrosse? Wrestling? Women’s Soccer? Volleyball? etc</p>
<p>But why should the NFL and NBA fund those other sports? Why do we think it should be their jobs? </p>
<p>We’re running into an interesting problem here this weekend. Our women’s soccer and volleyball teams play Friday night, volleyball plays Saturday afternoon, football team plays Saturday night, and soccer plays again on Sunday. The three sports utilize two facilities which are connected. It’s interesting from my standpoint because the resources to make it all work will be challenging because we don’t have substantial resources to pull it off like other schools do. Our ice machines will be used to the brink and probably then some. We were talking yesterday about starting to stockpile ice either Wednesday or Thursday to get us through the weekend. We’ll make it work; been there before.</p>
<p>But it was funny; the GA with football made the comment that his sport was most important. Afterall his team was winning AND making money. The other two were not ;)</p>
<p>I recently met some girls who were travelling in our area on their college’s club team for training.</p>
<p>Many of these girls wished their team was a varsity sport because if it was they would have gotten priority registration for their classes and allowed some slack with professors. As it was, they still travelled great distances for their club, but without some of the perks of a varsity sport. They still had to manage their class load and travel to play their sport. </p>
<p>Plus, all the costs were paid by the parents. These girls travelled 1700 miles for the training, in addition to the costs during the season. All this, on top of the cost of tuition, and none of the girls knew that going in as freshmen.</p>
<p>Not every club sport will have high fees to play. This one did, and it is one of the bigger, well known midwest schools.</p>