One may be aware that I'm a bit of a broken record on this topic, but I just don't get this.
I would be a "supporter" of athletic competition among teams comprised of students from the various colleges and universities. As with high school sports, the bigger schools would have an advantage, but this could be dealt with through different classifications of schools, based on enrollment.
But NCAA sports are nothing like that, particularly in Division I (March Madness). Professional armies of coaches, recruiters, scouts, and others compete for high school athletes, many of whom have no business even being on a college campus, except in a janitorial position. Entrance standards are lowered or abandoned altogether, course content is watered down, and grading is compromised in order to keep these quasi-students eligible. In short, the school itself is compromised by the depraved campaign to field competitive teams while jettisoning any semblance of academic integrity.
Just as perverse is the support that the "real" students and alumni give to this pretense of student-athletes representing the schools. Not that this support is sufficient to make the athletic department pay for itself, which it manifestly does not in 90% of the institutions that play this game, so to speak.
I love athletic competition. At 71 years old I have competed all my life in the sports where it was possible, from Little League, HS sports, basketball, softball, tennis, bowling, golf, and running 10k's (I may have to move to pickle ball at some point). Spectator-wise, I've never been one to buy season tickets to any team's games, but I occasionally pay to see a game and enjoy the experience.
The fellows (girls are irrelevant to this discussion) who are playing Div I college sports and who should not actually be in college should be provided the opportunity to play in professional "minor leagues," as they do in baseball. THEY SHOULD GET PAID! People would pay to see them, obviously. It's up to the NFL and NBA owners need to "step up to the plate" and create those leagues, and stop relying on the Div I colleges for their player development. Sadly, I can't think of any easy way to force them to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that that is what needs to happen.
When this point is made - that NCAA Div I sports are bullshit - one always hears the whining about the thousands of "poor and Minority Yoots" who are able to "go to college" on athletic scholarships, and who wouldn't be able to go without such a benefit. But that "argument" doesn't wash. If the higher education industry is to provide opportunities to poor and minority Yoots, those opportunities should be dispensed on the basis of ACADEMIC MERIT, and not on [irrelevant] athletic ability.
And to be "real" for a moment, the percentage of those poor and minority students who graduate with a worthwhile degree (not "Ethnic Studies") is quite small. Most don't graduate, and those who do major in bullshit subjects.
March Madness indeed. I just don't get it.
I would be a "supporter" of athletic competition among teams comprised of students from the various colleges and universities. As with high school sports, the bigger schools would have an advantage, but this could be dealt with through different classifications of schools, based on enrollment.
But NCAA sports are nothing like that, particularly in Division I (March Madness). Professional armies of coaches, recruiters, scouts, and others compete for high school athletes, many of whom have no business even being on a college campus, except in a janitorial position. Entrance standards are lowered or abandoned altogether, course content is watered down, and grading is compromised in order to keep these quasi-students eligible. In short, the school itself is compromised by the depraved campaign to field competitive teams while jettisoning any semblance of academic integrity.
Just as perverse is the support that the "real" students and alumni give to this pretense of student-athletes representing the schools. Not that this support is sufficient to make the athletic department pay for itself, which it manifestly does not in 90% of the institutions that play this game, so to speak.
I love athletic competition. At 71 years old I have competed all my life in the sports where it was possible, from Little League, HS sports, basketball, softball, tennis, bowling, golf, and running 10k's (I may have to move to pickle ball at some point). Spectator-wise, I've never been one to buy season tickets to any team's games, but I occasionally pay to see a game and enjoy the experience.
The fellows (girls are irrelevant to this discussion) who are playing Div I college sports and who should not actually be in college should be provided the opportunity to play in professional "minor leagues," as they do in baseball. THEY SHOULD GET PAID! People would pay to see them, obviously. It's up to the NFL and NBA owners need to "step up to the plate" and create those leagues, and stop relying on the Div I colleges for their player development. Sadly, I can't think of any easy way to force them to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that that is what needs to happen.
When this point is made - that NCAA Div I sports are bullshit - one always hears the whining about the thousands of "poor and Minority Yoots" who are able to "go to college" on athletic scholarships, and who wouldn't be able to go without such a benefit. But that "argument" doesn't wash. If the higher education industry is to provide opportunities to poor and minority Yoots, those opportunities should be dispensed on the basis of ACADEMIC MERIT, and not on [irrelevant] athletic ability.
And to be "real" for a moment, the percentage of those poor and minority students who graduate with a worthwhile degree (not "Ethnic Studies") is quite small. Most don't graduate, and those who do major in bullshit subjects.
March Madness indeed. I just don't get it.
Do you think of yourself as an athlete? 
