Two weeks until graduation, and the end of the term. A lot of us are receiving advice from many different sources, whether or not we asked for it.
For my last column with the Oregon Daily Emerald, I’d like to offer a piece of advice of my own:
Never stop asking questions.
The best way for changes to take place at this school is to open a dialogue. A university cannot settle for the status quo because otherwise, true learning cannot take place. As athletic competition attains greater prominence in university operations, asking questions becomes as important as ever.
An offensive coordinator at the University of New Hampshire once asked himself where the greatest inefficiencies in football came from. He found his answer through the speed of the game and the time taken between plays. Now Chip Kelly is one of the hottest college coaches in the country, and one of the most revered among his profession.
A former Duck distance runner from Cleveland High School in Portland wondered if he could design a business around running shoes, quite innovative for the time, which his track coach was building for his athletes. Today, Nike is a multi-billion-dollar empire, one of two Fortune 500 companies in the state of Oregon, and Phil Knight has generously contributed to Oregon athletics in kind.@@http://www.ktvl.com/articles/make-1199827-ore-oregon.html@@
A journeyman golfer from Eugene with a rare disease once asked the PGA Tour if he could use a golf cart because walking around golf courses was a painful exercise. Casey Martin fought his case all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, where he was awarded the right to use a golf cart under the conditions of disability.@@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Martin@@
Questions can be answered in ways previously not thought of. Oregon athletic department officials asked the best college coaches in the country if they wanted to lead the Ducks’ men’s basketball program. After several rejections, they found Dana Altman, who has been an excellent coach and program ambassador in his short career thus far.
The NCAA is asking questions as to what has happened during the course of recruitment of several prominent student-athletes at Oregon (a couple of whom are no longer with their respective teams). Oregon fans, in turn, are asking questions of the NCAA. What should be permissible? What should be impermissible? Why us, when other, larger programs are complicit in more heinous acts?
Some questions are frivolous. Others may provoke thought. It is our job to ask those questions.
Ask about the importance of an efficiently run athletic department, and about who should make what decisions.
Ask about whether college coaches deserve the amount of compensation they presently receive — and whether student-athletes do as well.
Ask why we cheer for our teams, what makes us feel good and whether we are handling defeat — and success — with measures of respectability. Ask why we feel some outcomes are legitimate, and others aren’t.
Ask about our athletic facilities — is it fundamentally good for Oregon athletics to continue its building boom? Can the school pay for everything? What facilities do different programs need to truly become championship-caliber?
Ask about the athletic culture of Eugene — is it healthy for the community? The Columbus Dispatch recently wrote a searing editorial in the wake of Ohio State’s numerous football scandals, citing a popular willingness to enable, to look the other way, as an offensive act.
Ask about Title IX. Ask about how a law with the greatest of intentions — ending gender discrimination in the United States — can backfire on colleges with limited means. Ask why the mandate of athletic scholarship compliance is creating a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots, and what that means for the future.
Ask why student-athletes have trouble graduating on time, or at all. Ask why Academic Progress Rating is an imperfect measure, and why graduation rates are not as well-respected.
Ask why coaches can move from job to job without facing individual consequences. Ask why schools must pick up the pieces as coaches leave a trail of wreckage in their wake.
I have loved my time at the University of Oregon, and within the community of Eugene. I pledge to never stop asking questions about how I can make my community better.