If I were not concerned about fairness at all, I’d say that universities are a place to collect together a combination of people that are likely to succeed.

Maybe that’s a combination of intellectuals and engineers and scientists and rich people and connected people and business people.

“Legacy” is a good proxy for “connected”. Donors are rich. Test scores find the engineers and scientists. Essays try to identify intellectuals. Etc.

But that’s not fair, because you can’t make yourself rich or connected before you turn 18.

Athletics doesn’t fit into that formula, and quite frankly a lot of academic departments don’t, either. But it’s a form of excellence so I don’t see why it shouldn’t count. A lot of intellectuals seem to think it’s unfair to treat sports excellence on the same plane as intellectual excellence, but that’s a self-serving position to take.