I remember when.....

[LizzieMaine]

And it goes far beyond television revenue, gate receipts and team merchandise sales.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/co...cord-740-million-almost-doubles-longhorns.ece

Which would be fine if we didn't live in a country where millions of kids with no football skills whatever are compelled to go into hock until they're fifty to get a college education. Spend all the money you want on sports, but don't dress it up in an academic gown and pretend you're serving the purpose of what a university is supposed to be. Admit that it's nothing more than a minor league development program for the NFL, let the NFL fund it the way major league baseball subsidizes the minor leagues, and divorce it completely from the education system.

 

[Harp]

Which would be fine if we didn't live in a country where millions of kids with no football skills whatever are compelled to go into hock until they're fifty to get a college education. Spend all the money you want on sports, but don't dress it up in an academic gown and pretend you're serving the purpose of what a university is supposed to be.

I attended college after the war on Vietnam's GI Bill, had some tough times-like most students-
but the University of Southern California tendered an academic scholarship, which I declined so "sports revenue"
does get spread around campus.

 

[sheeplady]

Is this really a question?

You're the one who brought up title IX and suggested that it was a major problem contributing to this issue because it requires similar athletic scholarship investment between the sexes... so it really IS a question.

What's your solution to this problem?

 

[HudsonHawk]

Roster size is dictated by the personnel requirements of the particular sport. Football requires more players to field a team than the other sports. Therefore more scholarships are needed.

A player is not required to be on scholarship to play any particular sport. Furthermore, football is not required to have an 85-man roster while baseball is required to have an 11.7-man roster. The number of scholarships available for each sport is not proportionate to the number required to field a team. Football gets more because it generates the most revenue. Period.

 

[Tomasso]

You're the one who brought up title IX and suggested that it was a major problem contributing to this issue because it requires similar athletic scholarship investment between the sexes... so it really IS a question.

What's your solution to this problem?

I made no comments or insinuations in regard to my views of Title IX. I simply noted its impact on collegiate athletics. Seems that you're itching to brand me a sexist for merely pointing to the elephant in the room.

 

[Tomasso]

The number of scholarships available for each sport is not proportionate to the number required to field a team.

Sure it is. Period.

 

[Leading Edge]

Which would be fine if we didn't live in a country where millions of kids with no football skills whatever are compelled to go into hock until they're fifty to get a college education. Spend all the money you want on sports, but don't dress it up in an academic gown and pretend you're serving the purpose of what a university is supposed to be. Admit that it's nothing more than a minor league development program for the NFL, let the NFL fund it the way major league baseball subsidizes the minor leagues, and divorce it completely from the education system.

Ditto what she said.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Sure it is. Period.

A typical football roster has 50-60 players. NCAA Div I FBS is allowed 85 scholarships. For FCS, they're only allowed 63. Divisioin II schools are only allowed 36. So you need twice as many players to field a football team at Div I as you do at Div II? On the other hand, baseball typically has a roster of 20-25 players, yet at Div I you're allowed 11.7 scholarships and at Div II you're allowed 9. The math isn't hard.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Basically you are restating my point- I don't understand where we disagree.

You suggested that schools don't provide scholarships to all athletes because they don't want to spend the money. I'm saying it's not the money, it's that they have way more men then women and have to make it equal, so they have to cut the number of scholarships they give to make the math work. Schools are dropping men's programs like baseball and wrestling because they can't find enough women's sports to offset. Which is what Tomasso is getting at, though that's not what we're talking about.

 

[Tomasso]

and divorce it completely from the education system.

Yes, let us rid academia of the nuisance that is football.:lever:

 

[sheeplady]

You suggested that schools don't provide scholarships to all athletes because they don't want to spend the money. I'm saying it's not the money, it's that they have way more men then women and have to make it equal, so they have to cut the number of scholarships they give to make the math work. Schools are dropping men's programs like baseball and wrestling because they can't find enough women's sports to offset. Which is what Tomasso is getting at, though that's not what we're talking about.

I didn't suggest that was the only reason, but one of the reasons. Universities tend to only offer scholarships for the sports that are money draws, and they do not tend to spend most of the money they receive in scholarships. With university sports, like everything else, they are not in the business of being charities. They have a balance sheet like every other business, and the are loathe to spend any more of their big pot of sport money than they have to. If they weren't loathe to do it, we wouldn't have basketball and football stars on food stamps.

While Title IX is blamed for all sorts of ills, I do not seriously believe that it is the sole cause of dropping men's sports but rather misplaced priorities are. When you have athletic departments that are spending the vast majority of their sport's budget on their football and basketball teams, it is a case of misplaced priorities. If schools didn't need to have the football coach make as much as the university president, we wouldn't have the problem of schools having to drop lesser male sports- they have to drop them because they do not want to spend the small amount on these male programs (other than the Big Two). You can't blame Title IX for the fact that universities put so much into the Big Two that they have nothing left to spend on the other men's programs. We've got institutions who are spend 80% of their sports budgets on the Big Two.

Universities have taken a major hit since 2008 (and even earlier), and their budgets have suffered. Continuing to spend money on programs the way they did isn't possible. Many schools have lost 10% of their employees, 20% of their endowments. But yet they continue to spend money on football and basketball. This money has to come from someplace, so the teams that are cut are those that are not a priority- i.e. not basketball or baseball. Your sports budget shrinks but you still want the best football team? Well that money has to come from someplace- and it comes from elsewhere in the sports budget.

The number of men's college sports teams has increased since Title IX was passed. There is no requirement that schools spend equal money on men's and women's teams.

Blaming Title IX for problems it hasn't created- but have been created by misplaced priorities and budgetary woes- is a bit unbalanced.

I made no comments or insinuations in regard to my views of Title IX. I simply noted its impact on collegiate athletics. Seems that you're itching to brand me a sexist for merely pointing to the elephant in the room.

Nope. The only one who's throwing around the term sexist is you. Although, I admit, I am always leery of anyone who immediately brings any of the terms "sexist," racist," or "classist" into an argument.

 

[Tomasso]

Please don't tell me you support doing away with Title IX purely so you can give scholarships to every male athlete, while not providing scholarships to female athletes?

This is a bogus question. You do realize this, don't you?

 

[sheeplady]

This is a bogus question. You do realize this, don't you?

Let it go.

 

[green papaya]

I remember when America was more fit & trim and people were not covered in tattoos

no "All you Can Eat Buffets" seems like all you can eat buffets are the norm these days? every casino has them

they didnt have the COLOSSAL Super sized foods

and people didnt die from eating peanuts, it was very rare back then

seems like more people are allergic to something or have some type of mental disroder like "Bi Polar"

more people depend on medications for something? today everybody needs pain killers, everybody need to smoke marijuana because of a pain or a bad back, everybody has a bad back or bad knees?

what happened? are people getting weaker?

seems like the side effects of all these new medications cause more problems than the original problem? side effects may cause suicidal thoughts, may cause depression, liver faillure, stroke, hallucinations, etc

 

[jamespowers]

I remember when America was more fit & trim and people were not covered in tattoos

no "All you Can Eat Buffets" seems like all you can eat buffets are the norm these days? every casino has them

they didnt have the COLOSSAL Super sized foods

and people didnt die from eating peanuts, it was very rare back then

seems like more people are allergic to something or have some type of mental disroder like "Bi Polar"

more people depend on medications for something? today everybody needs pain killers, everybody need to smoke marijuana because of a pain or a bad back, everybody has a bad back or bad knees?

what happened? are people getting weaker?

seems like the side effects of all these new medications cause more problems than the original problem? side effects may cause suicidal thoughts, may cause depression, liver faillure, stroke, hallucinations, etc

You had all you can eat places back then but people didn't make pigs out of themselves.

Yes, people are getting weaker.

 

[Tomasso]

Yes, people are getting weaker.

Well, at least the ones who aren't juicing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You also didn't have internet hypochondriacs, who self-diagnose themselves with every trendy ailment that's going around.

 

[Gregg Axley]

You had all you can eat places back then but people didn't make pigs out of themselves.

Yes, people are getting weaker.

A buffet used to be a place where you could get variety, not gluttony.
Now?
It's just the opposite.
Actually some buffet chains have food that all tastes the same.
Bland, greasy, and awful.
As I get older, I find myself eating for quality not quantity, sometimes despite the cost.

 

[jamespowers]

A buffet used to be a place where you could get variety, not gluttony.
Now?
It's just the opposite.
Actually some buffet chains have food that all tastes the same.
Bland, greasy, and awful.
As I get older, I find myself eating for quality not quantity, sometimes despite the cost.

Exactly what I was saying.

If you go to a buffet and the people there look like the cast of Honey Boo Boo then you are in the wrong place.

I don't think they even taste the food as it goes down.

And they don't have all you can eat Cauliflower buffets for you.......

 

[HudsonHawk]

and people didnt die from eating peanuts, it was very rare back then

An actual peanut allergy is still very rare. There is mass hysteria of people worried that they have a peanut allergy, but the percentage of people who have actually have a true allergy hasn't changed much.