Originally Posted by
dchen09
Reducing the parity is something that might be long time coming. The fact that there are 351(?) schools with division 1 programs is probably hugely overblown. How many are truly profitable in the first place. Even more relevant of a question is how many of those programs are actually doing their schools any good in terms of their "real" mission of educating students or is college athletics more of a distraction. Maybe paring down the number of programs is better for college athletics. The schools who actually have money for them can put out a better product. All those random youtube media videos to get to know our players... that's all paid for by money in the program, not school spirit. For all the posters who lament the good ol' days where you had a smaller ACC and round robin tournaments, you might actually get what you want. Instead of playing exhibition matches against Grand Canyon University, most of our out of conference matches will actually be against teams as good as Kentucky, Villanova, or Gonzaga. As far as I'm concerned, no one really knows how it will play out.
Regardless of allowing boosters to pay players or not, it's pretty clear that not allowing players to benefit from their own likeness is an entirely unsustainable and immoral system not dis-similar to indentured servitude. The facade that these players maybe getting an education as payment is ridiculous. If it is really only due to this artificial regulations that we can enjoy college sports, then I'm fine with letting it die whatever death may comes.
DChen: There are a number of smaller schools, many of them private, who have decided that having a sports program is the key to the success of the college -- which involves attracting students who pay tuition and keeping the alums supporting Dear Old Siwash. But, of course, larger schools see the benefits of high-profile athletic programs. Long-time Arkansas coach and AD Frank Broyles referred to athletics as the "front porch of the university." And as Clark Kerr, the long-ago chancellor of UC Berkeley said in 1958 at the inauguration of the UDub president, Charles Odegaard, “I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty.”
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013