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 Are Universities to Educate or Entertain Us?
by Tom Campbell
November 30, 2006
Within the past two weeks, two university football coaches have been fired from their jobs. They didn’t win enough football games and high-dollar supporters demanded their replacement.
One could feel sorry for the coaches but for the fact that they earn salaries greater than anyone else on campus. The new UNC Coach will reportedly get .8 million per year. That’s more than anyone else on campus, more than the Governor, or most corporate execs. It is a commentary on what we value today.
The hypocrisy evident in college athletics today is overwhelming. Sadly, our universities have lost control of athletics and some of them don’t even seem to know it.
Coaches require ten year contracts because recruits want to be assured that the coach will be around the entire time the athlete is enrolled. Wait a minute; aren’t more and more athletes opting out to go pro after only one or two seasons?
The new UNC Coach gets hefty bonuses just for hanging around for the length of the contract. In a classic Catch 22, if the coach wins enough games we want him or her to stay on the job, so we pay bonuses to stay. If he or she doesn’t win enough games we want to get rid of them, in which case we fire them and have to buy them out of the contracts which we signed that gives them bonuses to just show up.
Big dollars dominate the money sports of football and basketball. It doesn’t matter what the fans want; whatever time or day a television network wants the game to be played is a fait accompli, regardless of the inconvenience. Multi-million dollar apparel contracts and TV payouts feed the cancerous growth of what were once genteel games of sport.
Those sane observers of this process, like former UNC President William Friday, are tilting at proverbial windmills when they caution us about the “arms race” taking place in college athletics. Friday scoffs at the chairman of the UNC Trustees who said that “the marketplace is telling us what to do.”
One wonders if this same “marketplace” is demanding that undergraduate professors who teach students who receive Rhodes Scholarships get rewarded for their efforts. Is that same marketplace ready, willing and able to compensate those universities that excel in educating our children? Is this marketplace willing to similarly reward elected officials who are outstanding public servants and “fire” those who aren’t?
Friday questions what price our universities are willing to pay in order to win. How far are we willing to let this arms race go? In what business are our universities engaged? Is it education or entertainment? The answers to these questions are far too obvious today. They deserve serious contemplation and debate before answering for the future.
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