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  • A La Recherche du Boyfriends Perdu

    By UD January 11, 2008 5:51 pm

    The NCAA session on a recent big study about faculty attitudes toward campus athletics was deadly dull. There wasn't one comment or question afterwards from a very large audience. Some people were asleep, some engrossed in their Blackberries, some text messaging... Some, like UD, were gazing at the chandeliered ceiling and thinking about... UD was thinking about old boyfriends...

    The session began with an official sounding statement to the audience: "Keep in mind that members of the media may be here."

    Yeah, like UD, sitting there with a big orange necklace that said MEDIA... What was the point of the statement? Mind your tongue? The hyper-managed NCAA meeting feels Orwellian enough without this admonition. Maybe the admonition was part of the reason no one stood up to say anything after the presentation.

    ("We used to wear badges that looked like all the other attendees' badges," the veteran reporter tells UD as they chat about what they're writing. "Now they give us these big necklaces with MEDIA written in huge letters to distinguish us..."

    "Why?" asked UD. "Because we're evil?"

    "Yes," said another reporter nearby.)

    The presentation was a classic death-by-Powerpoint episode. In a low monotone, her head pointed down at the computer screen she read from, the speaker rendered verbally what the screen rendered graphically. "We need to move beyond stereotypes and anecdotes," she began -- true enough, but we don't need to move from them to robotically rendered statistics.

    PowerPoint creates an archaic, picaresque world in which one discrete event follows another. You don't really get anywhere; there's no plot because there's no humanity attached to the spectacle. You're moved narrowly and passively from this datum to that.

    At one point the woman to my right fell asleep. Then, hearing a cell phone, she jolted awake and rummaged through my bag.

    What's wild is that this is an incredibly important and interesting subject, and the basic results of the study were kind of neat -- faculty don't know shit about campus sports... UD, with her involvement in the subject, is a bizarre outlier... But you'd never know that from the Bataan Death March... A guy got up after the Powerpoint and offered concluding platitudes: "We need dialogue and mutual learning."

    He then took a swipe at faculty self-importance, professors' belief that they're more important to universities than coaches. The audience woke up and laughed in agreement.

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Comments on A La Recherche du Boyfriends Perdu

  • Posted by Peter on January 11, 2008 at 8:25pm EST

  • One is reminded of the classic exchange:
    MP to Churchill: "Must you fall asleep while I am speaking?"
    Churchill: "No, it is purely voluntary."

    Looking at the official NCAA website, it seems that the athletic establishment has decided that the way to the hearts of the professoriate is through "research", having failed at making a connection by being seen as fellow teachers. Being able to demonstrate that athletics is a valid subject for research (and the NCAA website uses the word "validate") appears to be a sad attempt to elevate the athletic machine to respectability in the eyes of the faculty.

  • Posted by NoDogintheHunt on January 11, 2008 at 9:35pm EST

  • UD,

    I must say I was pleased to find out that a pure academic type was selected to attend the NCAA convention.

    However, so far it appears you have approached this adventure in learning with a huge chip on your shoulder instead of an open mind.

    I hope that changes and people get to hear a little about the importance of a healthy body to a sound mind, the major philanthropy that athletics students provide to the communities in which they live, the time management skills they learn far better than other students, and the success stories of student athletes that may not be brainiacs but want a college education and this is their only ticket to get one.

    I hope you seek out and speak with people who have thes types of lessons to teach instead of aiming to "prove your own point" with limited observations that fit it.

    Maybe that's why the press is not regarded as well as they could be?

  • Posted by ud on January 12, 2008 at 8:25am EST

  • no dog:

    The press is not regarded as well as they should be because they don't -- some of them -- deal in the sort of cliches that make your comment pretty empty.

    The post you're complaining about was almost pure reportage -- I described what happened in a meeting -- and it included an appreciation of the importance of a study on faculty and sports that the Knight Commission produced.

    I'm certainly not about reporting all the good news in your comment -- how healthy minds go with healthy bodies, etc. -- because it's pretty vacuous, and certainly accords very little with the reality of bigtime athletics in many universities, which features for the most part pretty unhealthy bodies and distinctly inactive minds.

    Dropping out or flunking out of what's a rather bogus education to begin with; cheating; getting hazed; drinking too much; committing crimes; taking steroids; commercialization; out of control coaches' salaries; entire sports being taken over by tv interests... these are the realities the NCAA convention's sessions are often about. I don't think the NCAA has a chip on its shoulder because its serious communal business overwhelmingly features what's very wrong with university sports.

    It does your argument against me no good for you to tell me that university sports does some good - everyone knows this. The fact is, as now constituted, bigtime university sports is a national scandal. Start there. Not with chips.

  • Posted by Dave Stone on January 12, 2008 at 1:05pm EST

  • No dog--I'd ask you to take your logic further. No doubt that participation in athletics can have the benefits you describe. But it seems to me that the natural conclusion is that resources should be spent on more teams, more intramurals, more club sports, not spending millions of dollars on picaresque coaches, athletic tutors, etc.

  • For Dave Stone
  • Posted by No DogintheHunt on January 13, 2008 at 11:55pm EST

  • Well, Dave, here's the logic you asked for.

    You hire a coach. You give them a contract with tons of goals they have to achieve, and ask them to spend oh, about 90% of their time with 85-90 student athletes and hardly any with their own families.

    Not only do you have to coach them in a sport, you are required to make leaders out of them as they represent their University to the public.

    You have to make sure they attend classes and get an acceptable GPA, even when they are on the road, or they do not play in the game until they do, no matter how much they are needed to "win the game". Academics comes first.

    You have to teach them how to manage their time, because there "ain't" much time for these young persons to have any social life at all, and most likely not much time to spend with their own families, even on holidays.

    And, you have to punish them if they mess up because the press will POUNCE on these indcidents only and blow them up beyond proportion, forgetting that there are 99% of the other ones on the team that are doing all the right things.

    Other students do dumb things too, but they are not held to a separate code of conduct like the athletes are and no one seems to notice what they do, unless it's murder or something like that!

    It becomes a family unto itself, one that is bent on creating excellence at three things: Academics first, community service and other representations for the University as required, and oh by the way, make sure you win those games.

    In short, these kids are much more prepared for life when they are finished than the average joe who only has to study and attend classes and pretty much has alot of other free time to do what they want, (unless they have to work for their education because their parents can't afford it.)

    I think these coaches who sacrifice way more time than you or I do on molding young people to succeed in all walks of life deserve to get paid more than you or I do.

  • Back to No Dog
  • Posted by Dave Stone on January 16, 2008 at 8:50am EST

  • No Dog--I don't think you've addressed my point. Let me clarify what I mean.

    Let's say that athletics have enormous benefits for the participants. Then why focus those benefits on a small, expensive coterie of athletes, when those same resources might benefit a much broader range of students through intramurals, club teams, etc., etc? One place that's done this is BYU-Idaho (formerly Ricks College)--intercollegiate athletics have been discontinued and replaced with a huge and formal system of sports within the school.

    Let's say that constant monitoring, vigilant discipline, intensive tutoring, overloaded schedules and the like produce very good results in student-athletes. Then why not use the resources required to do all that on students chosen for the academic potential, not their athletic potential?

  • Dave
  • Posted by NoDogintheHunt on January 16, 2008 at 1:00pm EST

  • One of the biggest misconceptions is that a disproportional amount of a school's resources is spent on athletics.

    This is simply not true. Sports get a very minimal allocation of funds from the public universities as compared to academics, as it should be.

    The lion's share of the money comes from alumni, boosters, and philanthropic donations as well as ticket revenues to cover their costs, including facilities, scholarships, academic support, travel, COACHES SALARIES etc. Local advertising is also exchanged for scoreboards and all the other flashy things to make the venues attractive.

    As far as I know, tutors are also available on every campus for students to avail themselves of, so I see no further point in addressing that issue, as it is a moot point.

    As far as BYU-Idaho, this is like comparing apples and oranges. You are mistakenly lumping Private College practices with those of Public Universities.

    Private colleges are basically the only ones that have gone the route of consolidating intercollegiate sports with recreation.

    I hope this clears up some very common misconceptions for you that are usually why academicians complain about sports, because they are uneducated as to how they are actually funded.

  • reason not the funding
  • Posted by UD on January 17, 2008 at 10:35am EST

  • It's not a matter of how it's funded -- although the method of funding you describe is RIFE with corruption -- those local merchants and boosters often want something back by way of contracts and other goodies from the universities. It's about the intrinsic nature of bigtime sports on university campuses. They represent, in many cases, a profound corruption of the academic values that constitute a university.

  • UD
  • Posted by NoDogintheHunt on January 18, 2008 at 6:05am EST

  • Hello, UD,

    I was responding to DAVE's question on resources. I believe I answered a question on resources.

    If, however, you want to talk about this supposed "academic corruption" and change the subject, fine with me!

    A California senator today in a State Sentate hearing presented scholarly evidence that participation in sports produces the most successful and productive people.

    Maybe you can do some more research and back up your "corruption" theory with some facts.
    To me, research means not just seeking out newspaper "scandals" which are mostly created in the minds of news reporters that want to grab headlines, and really digging at materials on both sides of the issue and then coming to a conclusion based on the preponderance of evidence.

    This was taught to me at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels, and recently reiterated to myself and about one hundred other researchers by a professor emeritus. We do these discussions on a daily basis to keep our focus.

    His recommendation was a reminder that if you start out with a particular conclusion in mind, then you have already failed.

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