At present there is a drive for equity in sports scholarships. Women should receive equal funding to men in those scholarships. I don’t understand. What does sport have to do with scholarship? If people want to play games let them. Why should competitive sport have anything to do with universities? The University of Chicago is a first-class respected United States educational institution. Unlike many US universities it does not have a football team. The president of the university decided that the university did not need a football team, and its presence would detract from the university’s mission.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1954/10/18/college-football-is-an-infernal-nuisance

“The University of Chicago abandoned intercollegiate football in 1939 because the game hampered the university's efforts to become the kind of institution it aspired to be. The university believed that it should devote itself to education, research and scholarship. Intercollegiate football has little to-do with any of these things and an institution that is to do well in them will have to concentrate upon them and rid itself of irrelevancies, no matter how attractive or profitable. Football has no place in the kind of institution Chicago aspires to be.”

I don’t believe any university needs competitive sporting teams. Physical training and athletics promote health so educational institutions can have that as part of their program, but sports scholarships and competitive athletics are unnecessary

Sport in university?

Sport has played an important role in American higher
education for the past decades.
Winning teams make the name of their university well
known - and this encourages more student applications.
It also encourages endorsements, sponsorships, and giving
talented sporting athletes a chance to get their foot in the door
of a prestigious university that they may not otherwise
be able to do.

Ticket sales, and the sale of merchandise, brings in cash
to the university. Sport also encourages student involvement,
community spirit, and leadership.

Making the name of the university known throughout the
country - through sporting competitions -
is to the university's advantage.

Of course many academics
maintain that inter-collegiate sports are given
a disproportionate importance, resources, power,
and attention that harms student performance,
academic programs, and the academic and
research missions of American Institutions of Higher Learning.
However, universities do need the cash to fulfill their
academic roles - and sport is one way of getting it and it
has been proven to be successful for decades.

Few American universities would turn back the cash
flow that sport brings into their institution - especially
during these financially difficult times.

I was privileged to work at the University of Southern
California (USC) for close to five years. The USC
Trojan football team was one of the best college
football teams ever. I attended quite a few games at
the Los Angeles Coliseum where they played against
UCLA, Notre Dame, Stanford, to name just a few. It
was exciting. I still have my cap and scarf.

I attended Syracuse University. The star player on our football team was 'Slivers' Slovenski. Slivers ran a hotdog stand to pay for his tuition. There was big excitement when Syracuse played Colgate, its traditional rival.

Then Syracuse got into big time football. It was a money maker. They hired Biggie Munn, a renowned football coach. They gave out athletic athletic scholarships. They no longer played Colgate. The football players were no longer students. I no longer attended sporting events.

I felt the university had degraded itself.

I agree David. Universities are supposed to be about scholarship, thinking, learning, and producing people who are of some use to society. However, as they no longer worry about such things, we shouldn't be surprised by anything they do. They should be defunded; students should pay their way - up front: none of this pay later, or never because your crappy degree will never get you a decent job - with limited scholarships for the few poor people who take education seriously.

Hi David,

Thank You for raising this topic.

It's an interesting one - Sport in University.
Especially in the US.

Perhaps more should be done to ensure that money
is spent prudently and expenses kept in check,
especially at a time when rising tuition costs
add to the burden of student debt and many
departments face budget squeezes.

It is therefore fair to ask - Are high level sports
teams an investment or an indulgence?

There are pros and cons for both sides of this
issue. I can only speak on my own limited experience
in the US. But it is fair to ask whether the
trappings of professionalism divorce athletics from
universities' core educational mission, or are sports
like football and basketball so embedded in American
college culture that they are fundamental to the
identity of the institution?