Getting the Best into College is All About...

 

Getting the Best into College is All About…

Impressing Recruiters from Major League Sports?

According to BestColleges.com (August 24th), the top 25 U.S. universities at generating income from their sports programs (admissions, television rights, merchandising, etc.) are all public and heavily into football. While these programs are financially secure, most college sports programs never make it to breakeven or better. For those universities that can generate significant commercial revenue, and concomitant alumni donor support, college sports are truly big business. The major conferences aggregate billions of dollars for television rights, one of the major factors prompting the move of UCLA and USC from the Pac12 to the Big Ten, expected next season. Big Ten money is so much greater.

Of those top 25 earners, looking at the 2018/19 season, number one was the University of Texas at $223,879,781, and the bottom, Indiana University, pulled in a massive $127,832,628. BestColleges.com. Wow! For many states, college sports are all they have. What do Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming have in common? None of the above has a single major league sports team. No, the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals play in Missouri, and even though it has 8.5 million residents and several training facilities and corporate offices, Virginia draws a zero here.

For major league professional sports, U.S. colleges are effectively “free” (at least to them) farm teams for big, for-profit major league teams. Many of the best student athletes even drop out before graduating to turn pro. Their focus is usually on their chosen sport, sometimes spending 40 or more hours a week in preparation, practice and competition. Academics for many of these players are at best an afterthought.

For the fewer than one percent of such student athletes who make it into professional sports, the reality is that the U.S. faces an academic shortfall of students preparing for careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The University of California (Davis) tells us that “there are 2.5 entry-level job postings for each new 4-year graduate in STEM fields, compared to 1.1 postings for each new BA graduate in non-STEM fields.” For those recruited athletes who don’t make it into the pros (almost all of them), many later struggle to find careers that can support them. We are fading fast in global technological superiority.

The United States is unique among nations when it comes to the importance of university sports. Foreign universities focus almost exclusively on academics. Many colleges and universities overseas do not even have major sports programs. Where such programs exist, “they choose to make sports accessible to all students - similar to intramural sports in the U.S. There is no outright divisional or even conference structure that is worth taking into account when it comes to competition between schools. Also, not all sports are sanctioned at the national competition level, which shows the initiative to create a national platform for sports. but not yet on par with the U.S. Ultimately, there are no distinct requirements or regulations for recruitment or academics when it comes to competitive sport play, as all students in Great Britain, [for example,] are judged solely on their academic merits alone.” The SportsEdge.com, June 22, 2020. Some foreign admissions offices take athletic prowess into consideration as one of many factors used to evaluate applicants. And we are competing with their graduates.

Then there are the scandals that often follow U.S. college sports programs, from sexual assault in women’s gymnastics by trainers and medical professionals to bribing coaches and athletic directors to fake admissions standards. Like "Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.” Under the guise of providing a college admissions counselling service, William “Rick” Singer, funneled rich parents’ money to college athletic coaches and directors to get academically and athletically unqualified students into universities across the land.

Based on faked athletic credentials, from 2011 to 2019, families nationwide paid Singer a total of $25 million to guarantee their children admission to top-tier schools such as Stanford University, Yale University, the University of Southern California, and Georgetown University. Parents who paid the bribes, their enablers (like Singer) and recipients at the local college athletic programs were serially arrested, tried and usually convicted in connection with those bribes.

Nevertheless, recruiting athletes, particularly into men’s football and basketball programs, is brutal. Winning seasons create more cash for the university; losing seasons have very much the opposite effect. Although there is a move to have star athletes share in NIL income (name, image, likeness), those making the big bucks in college sports are clearly the coaches, who win and whose cachet attracts top talent. “Alabama and Clemson gave head coaches Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney more than $11 million per season, while Georgia head coach Kirby Smart makes more than $10 million per season. Not to mention Texas gave head coach Steve Sarkisian a six-year, $34.2 million in 2021 as well as $21 million in contracts for his staff…

“The Texas Longhorns spared no expense in their pursuit of No. 1 overall recruit Arch Manning this summer… During Manning's official recruitment visit to Austin in June, the university spent close to $280,000, according to The Athletic, which obtained receipts and expense invoices with open records requests. Texas rolled out the red carpet for Manning and eight other recruits that included airfare, 5-star hotels, food, desserts, entertainment and an open bar for parents.” Tyler Greenwalt writing for the September 16th Yahoo!finance.

Obviously, college sports are big business… especially where the relevant university is not known as an academic powerhouse. Too many American youth focus on that elusive golden sports ring, deprioritizing academic subjects. They are local heroes… until they fail to achieve that fame and fortune in the real world of making a living. Have we betrayed them… and the millions of qualified academic students who were not admitted, making room for athletic competitors? Are state legislatures’ efforts to save money, in failing sufficiently to support their local colleges and universities, simply fostering sports over academics… which in the long run hurts America’s competitive ability in the global marketplace? There’s nothing wrong with college sports… but lifting athletic competitive performance over academic excellence is one American habit that costs us dearly.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you look at the economic marvel that America has built, it is clear that was built by great minds in STEM and finance… academic fields… not by star athletes in professional sports.