A madness that suits U.S. universities
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:27 pmA madness that suits U.S. universities
By Albert R. Hunt - Bloomberg News - Sunday, April 1, 2007
The finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament are the culmination of a phenomenon strange to people elsewhere. Sixty-five college teams participated in the tournament, which brought in some $1 billion in revenue. Another $2.4 billion is wagered in omnipresent basketball pools each year, and the diversion costs employers, by some estimates, more than $3 billion because of distracted workers.
"March Madness has become very much a part of the lexicon of this country," says Scott Rosner, a professor and associate director of the Sports Business Initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
"For three weeks people across the country look to it as a tremendous diversion." Sports mania affects many countries around the world; sometimes it's a good thing, other times not. China invested huge resources and political capital to win the right to hold the 2008 Summer Olympics. Russia is trying to do likewise with the Winter Games in 2014.
Commerce in many countries comes to a halt during World Cup soccer matches; a dozen years ago, South Africa's victory in the Rugby World Cup was credited with playing a role in racial reconciliation. Even the laid-back Scandinavians get excited about their winter sports.
What is different in America is a craze that's university-centered.
College basketball and football are among the half-dozen most popular spectator sports in America.
"What distinguishes us from everyplace else is the extent to which competitive sports are imbedded in our institutions of higher learning," says William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University who has studied and written about college sports and educational values.
This is a bad thing "when college sports cuts itself off from the university life," says Bowen. "Some teams have their own culture." There are major universities where the jocks, as they're known, live in athletic dormitories with amenities few other students enjoy. They eat, sleep and socialize with few non-athletes.
At dozens of these schools there are dual academic standards; kids who can run fast or shoot basketballs well but aren't so hot at chemistry or history are given preferable treatment on admissions and courses. Many, especially African-Americans, don't graduate.
This culture is reinforced by wealthy alumni, some of whose allegiance to their alma mater seems to rest more on the football or basketball teams than any intellectual discipline. The billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens a year ago gave $165 million to his alma mater, Oklahoma State University, to be used only for athletics.
Pickens has given other money to the school, though not nearly as much as the athletic grant. It would seem that Oklahoma State, which has half the volumes in its library as its instate rival, the University of Oklahoma, could have used more of that largess for books or professors.
When teams win they bring in more bucks, which makes winning the sine qua non of a program's success. "Plenty of colleges have sold their souls to win," says Rosner. "There are strong incentives to cheat as the chances of getting caught are fairly slim."
Yet the biggest college athletic boosters cringe at the thought of paying these young men and women up front, letting them share in some of the booty that goes to coaches and others. That, they decry, is antithetical to the notion of a student-athlete or an amateur.
That is nonsense, as is the claim that winning athletic programs enhance a school's academic and financial success. One economist found that colleges that score successes in football and basketball reap a windfall in applications and donations but usually only for several years.
"Individual institutions that decide to invest more money in their sports programs in the hope of raising more funds or improving their applicant pools may be throwing good money after bad, and would be wiser to spend the money in other ways," the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reported several years ago.
No one has done better research on the role of intercollegiate athletics in America than the Knight Foundation. (My wife is a board member). There are more reforms needed: greater transparency, stricter scrutiny and tougher punishment of schools that cheat, and a rational stipend system for the athletes.
Those purists, however, who think sports ought to be professionalized and taken out of university life are whistling in the dark. There have been commissions dating back to a 1929 Carnegie Foundation report on this subject, and it's simply too ingrained in the American system to change. It's a lot easier for alums to rally around the basketball or football team than the classics department.
Moreover, there are virtues for the academy. One of the reasons American higher education is the envy of the world is its diversity. Having basketball as well as piano players makes for a more stimulating place. And sports at America's hundreds of smaller colleges, as well as at the elite Ivy League schools, really do feature student athletes and add to the culture of the institution.
That is also true for some of the big-time athletic programs - Duke University basketball, for example - that have enjoyed considerable success without violating the integrity of the institution.
Success lifts campus life. Georgetown University, which returned to the Final Four of the basketball tournament this year for the first time in 22 years, is celebrating a renaissance of school spirit and enthusiasm, dampened slightly by The New York Times revelation last week that one former basketball player was admitted with insufficient academic credentials.
Amid this principled posturing, I have several confessions: I have been a Georgetown basketball season-ticket holder for more than a quarter century, and have focused much more on athletic than academic achievements.
By Albert R. Hunt - Bloomberg News - Sunday, April 1, 2007
The finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association men's basketball tournament are the culmination of a phenomenon strange to people elsewhere. Sixty-five college teams participated in the tournament, which brought in some $1 billion in revenue. Another $2.4 billion is wagered in omnipresent basketball pools each year, and the diversion costs employers, by some estimates, more than $3 billion because of distracted workers.
"March Madness has become very much a part of the lexicon of this country," says Scott Rosner, a professor and associate director of the Sports Business Initiative at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
"For three weeks people across the country look to it as a tremendous diversion." Sports mania affects many countries around the world; sometimes it's a good thing, other times not. China invested huge resources and political capital to win the right to hold the 2008 Summer Olympics. Russia is trying to do likewise with the Winter Games in 2014.
Commerce in many countries comes to a halt during World Cup soccer matches; a dozen years ago, South Africa's victory in the Rugby World Cup was credited with playing a role in racial reconciliation. Even the laid-back Scandinavians get excited about their winter sports.
What is different in America is a craze that's university-centered.
College basketball and football are among the half-dozen most popular spectator sports in America.
"What distinguishes us from everyplace else is the extent to which competitive sports are imbedded in our institutions of higher learning," says William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University who has studied and written about college sports and educational values.
This is a bad thing "when college sports cuts itself off from the university life," says Bowen. "Some teams have their own culture." There are major universities where the jocks, as they're known, live in athletic dormitories with amenities few other students enjoy. They eat, sleep and socialize with few non-athletes.
At dozens of these schools there are dual academic standards; kids who can run fast or shoot basketballs well but aren't so hot at chemistry or history are given preferable treatment on admissions and courses. Many, especially African-Americans, don't graduate.
This culture is reinforced by wealthy alumni, some of whose allegiance to their alma mater seems to rest more on the football or basketball teams than any intellectual discipline. The billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens a year ago gave $165 million to his alma mater, Oklahoma State University, to be used only for athletics.
Pickens has given other money to the school, though not nearly as much as the athletic grant. It would seem that Oklahoma State, which has half the volumes in its library as its instate rival, the University of Oklahoma, could have used more of that largess for books or professors.
When teams win they bring in more bucks, which makes winning the sine qua non of a program's success. "Plenty of colleges have sold their souls to win," says Rosner. "There are strong incentives to cheat as the chances of getting caught are fairly slim."
Yet the biggest college athletic boosters cringe at the thought of paying these young men and women up front, letting them share in some of the booty that goes to coaches and others. That, they decry, is antithetical to the notion of a student-athlete or an amateur.
That is nonsense, as is the claim that winning athletic programs enhance a school's academic and financial success. One economist found that colleges that score successes in football and basketball reap a windfall in applications and donations but usually only for several years.
"Individual institutions that decide to invest more money in their sports programs in the hope of raising more funds or improving their applicant pools may be throwing good money after bad, and would be wiser to spend the money in other ways," the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reported several years ago.
No one has done better research on the role of intercollegiate athletics in America than the Knight Foundation. (My wife is a board member). There are more reforms needed: greater transparency, stricter scrutiny and tougher punishment of schools that cheat, and a rational stipend system for the athletes.
Those purists, however, who think sports ought to be professionalized and taken out of university life are whistling in the dark. There have been commissions dating back to a 1929 Carnegie Foundation report on this subject, and it's simply too ingrained in the American system to change. It's a lot easier for alums to rally around the basketball or football team than the classics department.
Moreover, there are virtues for the academy. One of the reasons American higher education is the envy of the world is its diversity. Having basketball as well as piano players makes for a more stimulating place. And sports at America's hundreds of smaller colleges, as well as at the elite Ivy League schools, really do feature student athletes and add to the culture of the institution.
That is also true for some of the big-time athletic programs - Duke University basketball, for example - that have enjoyed considerable success without violating the integrity of the institution.
Success lifts campus life. Georgetown University, which returned to the Final Four of the basketball tournament this year for the first time in 22 years, is celebrating a renaissance of school spirit and enthusiasm, dampened slightly by The New York Times revelation last week that one former basketball player was admitted with insufficient academic credentials.
Amid this principled posturing, I have several confessions: I have been a Georgetown basketball season-ticket holder for more than a quarter century, and have focused much more on athletic than academic achievements.
