Time to Dispel Myth that Athletics can Bankroll a College
Athletics contribute enormously to college life. They provide a unifying force across the campus community in which the college’s principal stakeholders – faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, donors, and the community – can rally with pride in support of the institution. Athletics are often the public face of a college. At the largest institutions, this…
AAUP Leaders Speak on the “Athletics Arms Race”
Howard Bunsis, Chair of the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress, and David Hughes, President of the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT, discussed college and university sports spending and priorities on an episode of HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, to be aired tonight. Here is a segment with Howard Bunsis: And here’s a link to the trailer featuring…
World Cup: American Education 0
I did not watch the World Cup soccer game between Brazil and Germany, but I have been unable to escape the media coverage of the 7-1 “record-setting” football event, including photos on the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal of Brazilian flag color decorated fans in various expressions of mourning as if someone, yes,…
A New Direction in College “Athletics”
Robert Morris University in Illinois has announced that it will be fielding a team to compete in the Collegiate Star League, a video-gaming league in which 103 other institutions now field teams to play the video game League of Legends. So, in those details, this is not a new story. But Robert Morris has taken…
There May Be Nothing Inherently Wrong with It, But, Honestly, I Don’t See How #KUBOOBS Is Helpful
During the NCAA men’s basketball season, the Kansas Jayhawks were losing to their arch-rivals, the Missouri Tigers. Ostensibly to inspire the team, a female KU fan took a “selfie” of her considerable cleavage and posted it at #KUBOOBS. The KUBOOBS website (so, yes, the tweet quickly became a website; who could have predicted that that…
Another Way of Looking at Big-Time College Football as a Corporate Enterprise
Over the course of this college football season, there has been much talk about whether college athletes, especially those playing for major universities whose athletic programs generate millions of dollars in revenue, ought to be paid some sort of modest stipend. Writing for Business Insider, Cork Gaines has offered a radically different perspective on this…
Glimpses Back to a Time When Both College and Professional Football Had a More Amateur Air about Them
Business Insider presents some wonderful photo sequences. One of the recent pieces is Tony Manfred’s “40 Stunning Photos That Show You What College Football Was Like 100 Years Ago” [http://www.businessinsider.com/vintage-college-football-photos-100-years-ago-2013-9?op=1]. Take a look at this photo of the Army Mascot from 1910 to 1915: