College Football
Monday, January 15th, 2007Bruininks lobbied for an on-campus football stadium. Now, he faces soaring costs for the $288.5 million facility, while the NFL Vikings are seeking a second stadium that will likely wind up about one mile from the Gophers’. Minnesotans will have the unique privilege of walking 15 minutes between two facilities that will play host to about 20 football games a year at a cost of more than $1 billion. Hutchins would only shake his head.
Bruininks finds himself paying more than $3 million to one coach, Glen Mason, to leave, while needing to pay another coach probably more than $1 million to direct a football program that has shown it can’t succeed in the Big Ten.
Bruininks is fending off state legislators who wonder why he’s paying millions for sports matters out of one pocket while seeking funding for academic programs for his other pocket. It’s all the same pair of maroon-and-gold pants, of course.
Meanwhile, as the Star Tribune reported last fall, academics among the Gophers football team under Mason were at the bottom in the Big Ten, with more at-risk students admitted into the Minnesota program than just about any Big Ten school, and with graduation rates the lowest in the conference, especially among African-American athletes.
What are the benefits that college football brings to a school like the University of Minnesota? Are these benefits enough to offset the expense?
For a number of universities, the Division One program has been corrupted into nothing more than a professional sports farm league. Students struggle to balance their academic and athletic priorities and often graduate with a meaningless degree. Coaches are put under intense pressure to develop championship teams and are rewarded with salaries that are out of step with the rest of the university staff. An incredible amount of time and energy is spent by the university trying to figure out how to make their sports programs profitable while still adhering to the Title Nine requirements of offering programs for female as well as male students. Meanwhile the professional sports league have an highly developed system in place to provide them with ready made athletes for their draft while not investing a penny into the system.
It is time to seriously consider if Division One sports have a valid role in higher education. I believe that it does not.
Robert Hutchins, former president of the University of Chicago:
“A college racing stable makes as much sense as college football. The jockey could carry the college colors; the students could cheer; the alumni could bet; and the horse wouldn’t have to pass a history test.”
