Just yesterday my daughter said to me "Look at how many more womens teams than mens teams there are at X University." with X being the latest brochure of colleges looking to entice her into giving $50,000/year to attend.
There will no more Cinderella Stories like James Carney's trek from Millersville to PSU to Professional stardom. "Don't get me started! And get off of my lawn!"
The Blue Hens will never get another dime from The Great Bile
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. Although this action seemingly only affects 30 athletes, the ramifications go way, way farther. It's Anti-American, anti-male, and counter to the very charter that Universities are supposably working under.
ReplyDelete"Athletics is for EDUCATION and recreation, nothing else..."
(emphasis mine from the quote from Coach Groves at last year's reunion.)
University Athletic Departments are socialistic in nature. Football and Men's basketball (except perhaps women's hoops at UConn and Tennessee, although they may not produce surpluses) subsidize the rest of the teams representing the school. At PSU that means 1)filling Beaver Stadium to capacity, 2)hoping that most Big 10 football and basketball teams make it to the best bowls and big March dance of 64 and 3)signing ever expanding TV contracts with any cable networks that are willing to fork over the dough (by over charging subscribers).
ReplyDeleteIf college athletic departments were businesses, only those sports that made money or had self sustaining endowments (see, U of O; Knight, Phil) would survive to compete. Divide the current XC/T&F budget by 5% and you will arrive at the amount needed to sustain the program somewhat indefinitely. $10 million will support $500K per year (as long as real investment returns are 5% or more)
Neither education or recreation are free. Your mini-rant sounded like that of an Italian or Greek politician looking for the perpetual subsidy of an entitled lifestyle!!! Are you losing your conservative bearings???? :)
LTM
BTW, it's supposedly, not supposably.
ReplyDeletehttp://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Supposably
To hell with Physics, does anyone in our midst possess a degree in English? I need a Quark of beer!
hee hee hee. (My English as a second language course doesn't begin until Summer School!) Blogging are hard.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't see the problem as a socialism vs. capitalism debate. Universities don't just function as a bastion of socialism. They export it after taking all the capitalist's money from them.
I see the problem as money-crunchers using the Title IX as a convenient vehicle (scapegoat) to balance a checkbook that can never be balanced. I would wager that no sport at Millersville secures a profit for anyone. Very few programs anywhere are balanced like PSU's has been. But even though Millersville would pass 2 of the 3 prongs of Title IX's Y-chromosome-killing dictates (only 1 is needed), they save money by dropping only the men's programs. That's the easiest demographic to get rid of, and the one that will bring them the least amount of scorn and hassle. My reading of the original intent of Title IX was to balance the opportunities for women in sports with that of men. In practice, it destroys everyone not playing football. It leads to moderately talented women (no knock there, I didn't even qualify as moderately talented!) receiving scholarships and an ever diminishing pool of places for very talented men to pursue their best.
I have been a proponent and practicing member of the group of people trying to make the track program at PSU a self-funding program. None of this garbage would apply at that point. Walk-ons like me would again be able to make significant contributions to the team and the educational benefits to the athletes could be restored.
And a Quark of Beer sounds good to me!