Comment by aspir | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aspir | Hacker News Reader

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I've personally seen more 1 generation college attendees in my athletics career circle than not; they're not ignorant jocks trying to skate into the pros, they're trying to better their standing by any means necessary. Most athletes also understand that they "go pro in something other than sports," to steal the NCAA tagline.

Ask your alma mater's department heads, deans and development officers if sports matters. Research (even tech transfer) doesn't raise enough cash to fund our current university system. Tuition doesn't either; and state support (if applicable) doesn't get far either.

Donors provide the rest. The best way to butter up a donor is through university brand prominence. A non Ivy League school can't compete in the same fields as an MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc. You have to increase your university brand through any respectable means necessary. Sports is often that angle.

Go ask your endowed profs if sports matters in any factor to their compensation. It's likely they'll admit that it helps, at minimum.

This is and always has been a terrible argument. Academic scholarships will always be a better use of money. There is no reason those first generation students can't get the attention of schools with academic excellence instead of sports, particularly if they are generally as bright as you claim.

Not every lesson or piece of information can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Good luck getting soft skills there.

Real learning occurs while playing sports. Soft skills, discipline, teamwork, personal fitness, and long-time dedication are just a few areas where sports help the whole person.

If real learning occurs while playing sports, then why isn't every student at a university allowed on a sports team? If it's so essential to education, then it should be part of the curriculum.

And are soft skills, discipline, teamwork, and long-term dedication not things that people learn running clubs, competing at quiz bowl, going hiking, hacking software in their free time? Then why is there such disproportionate funding for sports vs all of these other activities?

Having been involved in several clubs and club sports in college, you're treated like shit compared to varsity athletes. I'll be damned if the juggling club could reserve a room in the gym once a week to practice. The Tang Soo Do club had to fight to get enough funding from the college to buy pads and gloves for practicing and sparring with, and that's mostly because it actually brought in money as people outside the college paid to be able to take classes. And yet the football team, which was notorious for losing almost every game it played, had several full-time coaches and staff, its own building and stadium reserved only for their use, got bussed or flown all over the east coast for games and so on. Most other club activities were lucky if they could wrangle a hundred bucks a semester from the college for support.

Not everyone can be on the 12 person, premier D-I basketball team. However, I am unaware of any university that doesn't allow pickup games or club teams by all people.

No one in this entire thread has advocated disproportionate funding for sports. No one. Not once. So that argument is just grasping at something that doesn't exist.

Yes, soft skills + the other skills can be learned with running, quiz bowl, hiking, etc., but not everyone wants to do those things. Why should a swimmer be denied enjoyment because his favorite activity involves physical activity?

I am not denying that clubs get the short end of the straw regarding funding. I was on both sides of the table, playing on large teams and being in small clubs. Once again, no one is advocating this.

This whole thread is about the disproportionate funding that varsity sports get (especially football) compared to other things on campus, such as clubs, club sports, and academics.

You were replying to someone who said that academic scholarships would probably be a better investment than sports scholarships by saying "Not every lesson or piece of information can be learned from a book or in a classroom. Good luck getting soft skills there." That implies to me that you disagree with the comment you're replying to, and think that varsity sports deserve the disproportionate funding that they are getting.

If that was not your intent, I apologize for misconstruing you, but you could be clearer in your comment.

I think that we're actually in agreement here. I think that varsity sports get too much time and attention paid to them; I think that clubs and club sports get less support as a consequence. I don't think that athletics should exist at a college, but I do think that it should be in the same category as any other extra curricular, not some semi-pro thing that drains so many resources at the expense of all other extra-curricular activities.

You forget that their home infrastructure if low quality. For example: most low income students that I knew didn't know that the FAFSA was important until it was too late for their freshman year.

Also, they usually had average grades and test scores as well. They just worked hard in college to try to get a good job.

Many still had to take out college loans as well -- athletes aren't all 100% scholarshipped. Most are luck to get books covered. I know this potentially still applies to your argument, but I respectfully feel that your arguments are based on distanced observation alone.

You're ignoring the fact some of the money is only given FOR sports. Plus the prominence sports brings in can help drive donations. I seem to recall the University of Arkansas getting some serious donations recently to fund giving their football head coach a nice raise, so that money could not go anywhere else even if the university wanted to, because it was the condition of the donation.

Yes, but now you have a qualified lead for your endowment fund and also, if you raise money for the coach that frees up an equal amount in your budget for doing whatever the heck you want with. You can't give money exclusively FOR something. This is similar to how when the US requested troops for Iraq from Canada we sent troops to Afghanistan. We couldn't go to Iraq but a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan frees up a US solider to go to Iraq.

So basically if your school does not provide a great education then rely on sports to keep things going.

Exactly -- keep things going.

The money has to come from somewhere. It's the equivalent of state school's MVP. My alma mater, Oklahoma, did the very thing. Their engineering's growing by leaps and bounds, and has had the #1 meteorological research program in the world, and also secured the National Weather Center. CS hasn't grown as aggressively, but it is still growing.

To the downvoter -- universities have to keep their doors open before they can improve. If sports didn't assist with the donations and revenue process in a net positive, they wouldn't spend in their current manner.

While I cannot argue on any point of your post, I distinctly remember that sometime ago on HN there was a post how essentially Stanford and MIT "live" on military grants. The story was about Stanfrod being US-Army stronghold, while the Navy "sponsors" MIT (Just searched: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416348.)

I have no data, but I think that those DARPA grants are at least substantial, some concrete figures would be nice though.

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