"societally important non-commercial objective" of" higher education."

When a college is sitting on a billion dollar endowment that is growing at 8% per year are they really non profit/non-commercial.
Somehow the greedy universities never get blamed for the cost of tuition or student debt.

Big Ten school guy here: "Mine" is $2.43B. Point being— There aren't that many billion-dollar endowments. (Wiki says 65 private ones, 46 public.) But I agree, taxpayers & tax collectors should be playing hardball with them.

Zappa used to say 'Tax the churches, because they're in all sorts of business that have nothing to do with getting you into Heaven.'

And so it is with the schools.

Higher Ed should get out of the sports business entirely. We should stop pretending there's something noble about antediluvian folklore of fit young bodies being required for intellectual virtuosity. College sports is grease, all the way down.

Won't this just mean richer schools can hire professional athletes and poor schools can't?

111 billionaire colleges. I consider that a significant number. Especially when they influence laws increasing grants to pay their ever increasing prices.
When Bernie complains about the billionaires not paying their fair share I doubt he includes those billionaires. Or when politicians complain about too much money influencing politicians.
So I don't feel bad asking/demanding these non-commercial to fork over some cash to student players.
Sure the NCAA covers 1100 colleges, only 8% ish are billionaires, but wondering how much of a nest egg the poorest one is? a couple hundred million? so poor, I still think they should pay up.

I predict this will bifurcate or trifurcate college sports.

The wealthy schools will hire the best and become a mini-NFL or mini-NBA, etc. With the money will come a host of the bad self-destructive behaviors we've come to associate with professional sports. Maybe worse, because the youngsters aren't going to be as savvy to the real world. Expect an uptick in student fatalities (drugs, car crashes, etc., petty criminal behavior).

Those schools that can't compete at this level will either do one of two things.

First, there will be a level of competition that continues that is mediocre by comparison, but perhaps equally entertaining, at least to alumni. If they at least break even, they will be kept for alumni fundraising purposes, if nothing else.

And those schools which come to the realization that it doesn't pay to maintain those sports at all, and drop their programs and focus back on true collegiate-level education. If the students want to play football, they can play intramurals.

Yes, it seems to me college sports should exist for the purpose of keeping students healthy, not as a separate entity.

Won't this just mean richer schools can hire professional athletes and poor schools can't? ~ NicoleK at June 24, 2021 1:06 AM

Without an NCAA rule, there will be competition / disparity in the amount each college pays its athletes. The big problems will come when those athletes no longer have to even pretend to be students.

I wonder if establishing minor leagues in every professional sport would take care of the issue. Baseball has a three-tier minor league and fewer problems with entitled brats on campus running amok. Baseball scouts, in fact, used to discourage prospects from signing with colleges, where the coaching was thought to be deficient in getting players ready for the majors.

Hockey has several minor leagues for non-college-bound players.

The NBA's developmental league failed to catch on because college coaches embraced the one-and-done mentality of players with hoop dreams. Wannabe NBA players do one year in the college limelight and declare for the draft.

The NFL, on the other hand, uses the college ranks as its minor leagues. It did pre-empt the one-and-done mentality with a rule that a player cannot play until three years after his high school class graduates. Very few NFL players move up from the non-college ranks, Kurt Warner and Johnny Unitas being two major exceptions. Both, however, played Division 1 (I-FCS) college ball.

> The big problems will come
> when those athletes no longer
> have to even pretend to
> be students.

This analysis is spot-on.

We should hasten the arrival of "big problems" by affirming a priori that higher ed and competitive sports are distinct flowerings of the human spirit such that the campus need never integrate them, either for class credit or financial enrichment.

That way, when some kid says "I can throw this basketball real good!" or "I can row the fuck out of this boat!," the academic environment can reply with "Hey, that's fantastic! You should drop out of school and turn pro!" And then the school can get back to readin' & writin'… Maybe with a puddle-splash of 'rithmetic.

If we accept the Big Problem into our hearts as a divine and guiding principle, all little issues go away.

The only grifter organization bigger than the NCAA is the IOC.

Semi-OT, since this is about high schools.

In Dec. 2006, there was a news item. Quote:

H.S. Halts Publication of Honor Roll
Needham High Cites Stress On Students As Major Reason

By Jim Boyd
Special Correspondent

NEEDHAM, Mass. -- "Needham High School has abandoned its long-standing practice of publishing the names of students who make the honor roll in the local newspaper.

"Principal Paul Richards said a key reason for stopping the practice is its contribution to students' stress level in 'This high expectations-high-achievement culture.'

"The proposal to stop publishing the honor roll came from a parent. Richards took the issue before the school council, which approved it. Parents were notified of the decision last month. Richards said he received about 60 responses from both parents and students and the feedback has been evenly split for and against.

"Richards said one parent with three children attending Needham High told him publishing the honor roll is a constant cause of stress in her family. According to that parent, one of the three students routinely made the honor roll while the other two did not."
_____________________________________

So, my reaction at the time was: "Well, GOOD. They shouldn't HAVE the honor roll in the newspaper. Don't straight-A students get enough sugary praise for doing what they can?"

(As I've mentioned, one thing I'm grateful for is that I never went to a school where sports or athletes got worshipped by either teachers or students. So I grew up blissfully unaware of how awful, shallow, and socially unfair such schools can be toward students who actually care about grades and learning - and I still was, in 2006.)

I'm sure a few decades ago, at least, it was pretty common NOT to publish such a thing for strangers everywhere to see, just as many - if not most - parents would have been just a little too modest to put honor-roll bumper stickers on their cars.

Bottom line: Even if the school's intentions are all wrong (and not every smart person thinks so) maybe this sort of thing should never have been in practise in the first place.

Responses, from a newsgroup, in 2006:

The Rocket Scientist:
"I respectfully disagree.

"Our public indoctrination centers, err, schools, are far more concerned with athletics and mediocrity. While academic achievement is given lip service, the bulk of the attention goes to the sports teams. Just follow the money trail. Whenever the schools run out of money (confiscated from the public) the first thing they cut is academics. Nobody cares if the music program, the art program, or the science club gets eliminated. But wait and see how the parents howl if you even suggest that the football team or (Got help us!) the cheerleaders get
eliminated!

"Do they ever have a pep rally for the best artist? How about the chess club? Of course not! But I'll bet dollars to donuts that the school has some sort of sports stadium, paid for by tax money.

"And do we give scholarships to the best and brightest? Hell no! They go to football players and beauty queens! At least the NBA has finally dispensed with the polite fiction of waiting for players to 'graduate.'

"Our schools stopped emphasizing excellence long ago. They stress mediocrity. Politicians like it better (less voters actually thinking about the issues) Parents like it better (no nasty report cards to diminish my widdle Snotleigh's self-esteem) and slacker sprogs like it better (hey, no homework, no studying, no stress)!

"Is it any wonder that third-world nations are beating us in every way?

"This is the future, folks. Be afraid. Be very afraid."
-Bill Sullivan

"Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not" - Frank Zappa

Me:

"Yes, well, I still have to wonder where all those stories of over-praise (from individual parents and teachers) for studying and staying out of trouble are coming from. Surely the bumper stickers are not merely a way to fight the over-emphasis on sports. Not to mention those parents who may not care about sports, but who yell at the teacher every time the kid starts doing badly - as in the Feb. 2005 TIME story, 'What Teachers Hate About Parents.' "

Meb: "I'll respectfully agree and disagree!

"I grew up near the town in question, so I'm familiar with some of the demographics of the area. The public schools are academically competitive because the parents are [name brand] college grads. A lot of Boston [name brand] professors live in my home town. If they have spawned, the bratz usually manage to do well from an academic standpoint.

"So 25 years ago or so when I was in HS, I experienced ridicule for being on the "regular" AP track rather than the "super" AP track. I had great SAT scores, but not perfect 800's, so was picked on by a couple of 800-scorers for that. Anyone who had some athletic aptitude or industrial-shop talents was ridiculed by the AP crowd.

"Granted, it's *very* uncommon to have the AP (advanced placement) track k1dz put on the pedestal rather than the the sports k1dz. But once there, the APs can be just as nasty and bullying a**holes as the football and cheerleaders from other schools systems.

"So, while my public HS alma mater is known as a good school, in reality the programs for the regular-track students have been gutted in favor of the AP-track. So, pick something to be snobby about, and watch as funding gets skewed towards what the snobs prefer."

Mix Daisy Cutter: "Teenage suicides in rich towns aren't caused by publishing the honor roll. They're caused by ******* yuppies who breed so they can live vicariously through their kids.

"And check out the message thread on this....(from Boston dot com)":

Message #15]
> "My town publishes the honor roll in the paper and it is a complete joke. It has to be 60% of the kids in the school. Whenever I see it I think they should just save a lot of space and print the kids who are NOT on the honor roll. The list is HUGE. To be on the honor roll you have to have a B- or above in all classes. How hard is that? To be on the high honor roll you have to have an A- or above in all classes, but it doesn't matter what classes. So the kid taking all honors classes who gets all A+'s and one B+ is on the honor roll, but the kid taking lower level classes who gets all B-'s is also on the honor roll. In our town there is no weighting of classes for honor roll so it is meaningless."

(Back to the first thread):

Johanna: "I'm so embarrassed. I just found out yesterday that in the last two or three years, TWO researchers at my local state college have won the Nobel Prize for Science! And yet, what does the little sign coming into town say? "Home of Miss America". Eeek, like who cares that some princess won a plastic crown for having the most plastic surgery.

"I said in another thread, this country's in trouble... people only like to talk about personal responsibility. I also found out that twice in the last ten years the SAT scoring has been "revised", another more optimistic term for "lowering" the grading system so that it's not obvious that the kids are dumber. Easier to talk 'em into becoming cannon fodder, I guess."

> I'm sure a few decades ago, at least, it was pretty common NOT to publish such a thing for strangers everywhere to see,

You may be sure, but I know for a fact that our small town newspaper published those names in June; along with the valedictorian and the salutatorian. Back when we weren't afraid of each other and and strangers better be careful. Kids got a boost out of it and parents were proud.

You're right about the bumper stickers.

To clarify: I wasn't referring to "stranger danger," but rather, to the fact that since people don't want to be bored with the accomplishments of ADULTS they don't know, what makes it any more polite or civilized when they're forced to hear about the accomplishments of TEENAGERS they've never met?

Football and cheerleaders were not big in my hometown. Never could relate to all the movies. I mean we had football players and cheerleaders...but it didn't correlate to popularity. And no one really went to the games, maybe the bigger ones, but it wasn't a big social event. School plays had higher audience turnout.

I think most of the popular girls played soccer or field hockey. Even so, being on those teams was no guarantee...

Am I the last one to notice that NicoleK can be pronounced as a single, three-syllable word which rhymes with pickle-peck?

I added the K a few years back when someone else posted messages as Nicole. I probably shouldn't have because she never posted again.

There is much money to be made in this confusion - all the colleges have to do is divest themselves of each team through a shell company. Coaches can be paid through team income, not as a State employee, where they often have the highest pay of any goernment official.

"Now taking the field, the Ann Arbor Wolverines! Sponsored by the University of Michigan, {insert campus ad video here}!"

Remember: the NFL is a non-profit organization!

As long as the kid's got a scholarship — I mean just one credit hours — then the school, or whatever athletic organization they choose, should be permitted to regulate commercial exploitation of their talents.

Throw the punks outta school, everyone benefits.

"I mean we had football players and cheerleaders...but it didn't correlate to popularity. And no one really went to the games, maybe the bigger ones, but it wasn't a big social event."

Hello, diversity!
State football champs, games sold out continually such that the FD and Sheriff had to have "a serious talk" with the Quarterback Club about overselling a STADIUM... football teams' leadership by example, with a gifted coach, meant zero race issues for years. The "enemy" was always another school, not somebody else's color.
For away games, businesses at the edge of town would put up a sign, "Last one off the Island please turn off the lights".

Since we were an unincorporated area of the county, such thuggery as occurred outside the school was even met by deputies with the question, "Hey, why can't you be like {running backs} and quit wasting your life?"

Umm - what cheerleading squad doesn't select for popularity?

In our little town, the place to be on Friday nights- for both kids and adults- is the football stadium.

So, does this ruling mean that the colleges might start paying the athletes, or simply that NCAA can't prohibit the kids from making money from endorsements or appearances and whatnot?

I'm hoping that at least one of my girls will end up at a D1 school so Husband and I can actually have fun when we go visit.

#soybeanwind

Dabo Swinney, exactly what they're talking about, and worse - to the tune of his $93 million contract while he complains about greedy student athletes.

Oh, and racism is over, because interracial marriages.

He's a peach, he is.