A little part of my childhood died last Dec. 13. On that day the Mitchell Report listed the names of famous (and not-so-famous) baseball players who had used performance-enhancing drugs. While I may be a geek through and through, with as much ability to hit a curveball as I have to eat with my elbows, I still had my favorites on the diamond.
And on that day many of them vanished. Even though I had mostly outgrown all my sporting memorabilia, I knew not everyone had. I wanted to take those whose names appeared on the list by the ear and shout, “You are someone’s hero; you cannot betray their trust like this!”
So it was when I read that Jonathan Stewart would bypass his final year to enter the NFL draft, I cannot say I was betrayed – I do not know him well enough for that – but I did feel let down. Perhaps he made the right decision for himself, but I saw that once again sports trumped academics.
Fans argue that sports bring benefits, namely money and fame, back to the University. That would be a good point, if the money and fame benefited the whole school equally.
First, money: While games and events do generate revenue for the University, upkeep and maintenance also drain it away. While sports alumni donate a significant amount to help keep the University going, a similarly significant amount of donated money is put into the athletic department.
Second, fame: Let us consider a random person trying to decide where to attend college. If that person already knows what field they wish to go into, they will research the top schools in that field, applying to various locations depending on their means. If that person doesn’t know what they want to study, then sports notoriety will not make any more impact on the decision than where teachers or counselors suggest, where family members went, or where friends are going. The only exceptions are rabid fans, and every school, no matter its size or prowess, has them in equal measure.
Athletics, in the end, mostly benefit athletics. That’s fine, but in trying to grab the brass ring, the University fails to give attention to other problems that need to be fixed first. Why are we so focused on the basketball arena right now when some of the problems noted last year are still around? We still have problems with GTF housing, we still have problems with teacher salaries, and we still have problems with students not going into the sciences. Why are we not asking for help solving those problems?
This infatuation with athletics perpetuates itself: More and more resources and attention are given to athletics in the hope of gleaning more and more money and fame in return. Right now, sports in schools seem to (just barely) tolerate academics. The UO student-athlete handbook reads as if all athletes have no interest in academics at all, but by gosh they had better get a degree anyway, because that is what you come to college to do.
That is not the way it should be. Sports should have the same consideration as art and music, activities vital to who we are as human beings, but not the focus of all our lives. We should treat athletics as another aspect of learning, instead of the separate institution it is now. I would love to see the same concern and cash flow currently shown to the athletic department going toward the journalism department, or to a new concert hall, or to a larger museum, or to supporting students through an architecture or political science degree.
Pardon me, dear reader, I must sound bitter, but I do not begrudge Stewart for living his dream. I hope that some day kids will look up to him as a hero, that they will don his number and colors and cheer him on because he inspires their own dreams, whatever they may be.
But I can only hope that his dream does not deny theirs.
[email protected]