Question for those of you who ran in college (Read 883 times)

the football and basketball programs that help fund the other sports.

Myth.

Myth.

Absolutely not a myth. Are you twitching your mustache again coming up with these theories? I like them.

I played soccer (not track) for the University of Chicago in the 1990s and can at least vouch that the school has a pretty healthy view of athletics. Sort of an odd setting (geographically) and the athletics physical plant is definitely more DIII than DI. That said, I definitely encourage a look-see. And if needed, you can saunter past the trophy case and see the first-ever-awarded Heisman trophy to make you feel fleetingly big time. (Jay Berwanger ftw!)

Since everyone else is promoting their school I'll add my alma mater to the list - The Colorado School of Mines. pros - - very strong academics - very supportive and influential alumni (networking opportunities when you graduate) - small college atmosphere, but near big city (Denver) - surprisingly strong track/xc teams the last few years (top 10 DII finishes for both men's and women's teams) cons - - the 'strong academics' are all in engineering, which is essentially the only type of degree you can get here - the location might be a bit far afield for you

I'm not disagreeing with that point. I'm saying that the revenue generated from football and basketball help fund the other financial sinkholes that are collegiate sports. As an advocate of student-athletes in very low revenue-generating sports, to make an enemy of football and basketball is to bite the hand that feeds you. You seemed to imply that track scholarships should have a ratio consistent with football scholarships and I don't think that makes much sense. But I'm not an expert in the budgeting process of universities so I could benefit from some education.

Football and basketball are not the hand that feeds track and cross country. That is a twisted view of college athletics, fed to you by ESPN. The hand that feeds track and cross country is the school budget. Most of the schools that have been mentioned in this thread see sports as integrated with the function of building a school community. None of these sports programs exist to make profits, and to justify them them in that way is to pervert the whole notion of what a school is and what it is for. Schools earn money based on their ability to prepare their graduates for the world so they can give money back. They also receive money from federal and state governments so that they can carry out their mission of educating the people. Schools are non-profit organizations. MTA: I'm not trying to make an enemy of football and basketball, by the way. I'm not sure why you think I am doing that. Though I do wonder what a 4th string football player has done to earn a full free ride to college.

This is an argument that rumbles on in higher education and cannot be easily answered with data since many of the 'advantages' of a strong football program are hard to quantify - the theory is that alumni donate more to the school when there is a strong football program. Some, but not all, of these donations may benefit other sports. The UC system makes it's top earners salary information public. http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/ucpay/ Search on the top ten earners and in the # 1 spot you'll find not the Chancellor, not a Nobel prize winner or leading doctor but, at $2.8 MILLION a year, Jeff Tedford the UC Berkeley football coach. Enthusiastic football supporters claim that such a salary is justified because Tedford has rejuvenated the team and that has brought in alumni support and donations. (Of course the University also needs to spend a lot of money on the football program, including the stadium, which sits, believe it or not, literally right on top of the Hayward Fault). John - glad to have moved from UCB to UCSB, where the students voted to cut all funds from the football program in 1992

Football and basketball are not the hand that feeds track and cross country. That is a twisted view of college athletics, fed to you by ESPN. The hand that feeds track and cross country is the school budget. Most of the schools that have been mentioned in this thread see sports as integrated with the function of building a school community. None of these sports programs exist to make profits, and to justify them them in that way is to pervert the whole notion of what a school is and what it is for.

The school budget is also made up of the revenue generated from the other sports which, as you say, helps fund all the other sports. I also agreed with you that these programs do not exist to make profits and in no way did I state that the athletic program was the school's justification for existence. I'm not sure how you concluded that. So, to overly simplify, $$$$ from ESPN = ++++ to school budget = +++ to revenue generating sports = + non-revenue generating sports.

Interesting red x.

Strange - I changed to a different source.