History, Human Rights, and Basketball
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Bronson Koenig is a guard on the University of Wisconsin basketball team. He is also a Native American. This fall he visited Standing Rock not just to participate in the protests against the Dakota pipeline but also to conduct basketball clinics. In “What I Found at Standing Rock,” a piece for…
NLRB Declares Speech Restrictions on College Football Players Illegal
BY HANK REICHMAN In a potentially landmark victory for the free expression rights of student athletes and other student employees, the National Labor Relations Board has declared that Northwestern University must eliminate “unlawful” rules governing football players and allow them greater freedom to express themselves, ESPN reported today. The ruling found that as employees the…
The Highest Paid Public Employees
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH According to an article written by Evan Comen, Thomas C. Frolich, and Michael B. Sauter for 24/7 Wall St., the highest paid public employee in 39 of the 50 states is either a football coach or a men’s basketball coach. Alabama > Highest paid employee: Nick Saban > Position:College football coach…
And NASCAR Drivers Aren’t Running Moonshine Any More
BY MARTIN KICH Here are the lead paragraphs in a photo-essay published by Business Insider: “College football met NASCAR in Tennessee on Saturday night when Tennessee played Virginia Tech in the “Battle at Bristol,” played at Bristol Motor Speedway. “The game set a college football attendance record with 156,990 fans in attendance. That shattered the…
NCAA Moving Multiple 2016-2017 Championships out of North Carolina
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are several of the opening paragraphs of an article written by Des Bieler for the Washington Post: “he NCAA announced Monday that it was moving its slate of 2016-17 championship events set to be played in North Carolina out of that state. The college sports governing body made its decision…
Spending Money to Make More Money to Spend
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for University Business, Ray Bendici provides an “Inside Look [at] College Stadiums.” The implications of the focal statistic in the second paragraph are worth considering. And the name of the expert quoted throughout the article seems one of those ironic pairings of name and occupation: “Colleges now enhance game-day experiences…
UC Spending on “Athletics Arms Race” Is Irresponsible
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is an op-ed written by Ron Jones and John McNay and published on the August 13, 2016 on the Cincinnati Enquirer website [http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2016/08/13/uc-spending-athletic-arms-race-irresponsible/88584650/]. Ron Jones is a librarian in the University of Cincinnati College of Law and president of the UC chapter of the American Association of University Professors. John McNay is…
Beer Sales at College Games
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This week, I came across an Associated Press story by William Petroski about discussions to permit alcohol sales at the University of Iowa’s football games and other collegiate sports events throughout the state. It turns out that Iowa is hardly the first state to sidle up to the bar. A 2015…
Mismanagement and No Meaningful Oversight [Item 4]
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On the Costs of Intercollegiate Athletics This is an excerpt of an e-mail sent to the CFO of our university by Rudy Fichtenbaum, who, in addition to serving as the President of the national AAUP, is employed an adviser to the Executive committee of our AAUP chapter at Wright State: “When…