October 24, 2013 - To those of you who may not know, Lane Kiffin was USC’s head football coach from January 12, 2010 until September 29, 2013 when he was fired at three o’clock in the morning after an embarrassing 62-41 loss to Arizona State hours earlier the previous day. His career has been marked with controversy from highly publicized disagreements while coaching the Oakland Raiders with the team’s late owner, Al Davis, to an abrupt departure from Tennessee’s football program to accept the job at USC, to allegations of cheating and misreporting information at USC, none of which even includes allegations of recruiting violations including enlisting attractive co-eds to essentially prostitute themselves to manipulate students into joining his football programs. But none of this particularly factored into his high profile termination, the reason USC fired Kiffin involved his lack of success on the field, leaving Defensive Line coach Ed Orgeron to take over Kiffin’s duties in the interim before the 2014-2015 season.
The history of USC involves a strong football legacy. Established in 1888, the football program has earned 11 national titles and its rivalry with Notre Dame, which began in 1926, is one of the largest and most historic sports rivalries in the country, receiving national coverage on NBC last week despite neither team being ranked among the top twenty-five teams in the nation according to the BCS. Most recently USC won the national title in the 2004-2005 season under the direction of head coach, Pete Carroll, but later had that victory vacated amid allegations against star running back, Reggie Bush, for the receipt of improper benefits. The investigation of Reggie Bush led the NCAA to impose severe sanctions on USC’s post-season play and the number of scholarships it could give to its athletes, but despite these restrictions it was still ranked number one in the nation for the beginning of the 2012-2013 season, possibly owing to its history and the strength of the recruits it was still able to attract because of its legacy. However, under Lane Kiffin, USC went unranked by the end of that season and finished with a 7-6 record including a loss in the Sun Bowl to Georgia Tech where the team’s behavior was harshly criticized by host city, El Paso, Texas.
However easy it may seem to criticize USC’s football program, especially within the last decade, several other programs fare no better. Penn State recently vacated 111 wins from 1998-2011 as part of the reaction to a high profile sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant coach, and of the top 25 football programs according to BCS standings this week, at least 12 have either admitted or been found guilty of an NCAA rules violations in the last decade (Alabama, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Auburn, Louisiana State, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Michigan, the University of Central Florida, and most recently Miami) with Texas A & M and Oklahoma State likely to face allegations in the very near future, the latter of which is accused of similar questionable recruiting tactics Lane Kiffin employed while at Tennessee involving female representatives. Meanwhile four more of these schools have admitted to or been found guilty of rule violations in other sports, including UCLA in tennis, Baylor and Fresno State in basketball, and Clemson in several unspecified sports. Only six of the current top twenty-five football programs don’t appear to have any violations in the past decade (Missouri, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, Nebraska, and Oregon State), or at least none one could find easily through a simple Google search for the information. Rule violations have become fairly commonplace, and as a culture the American people seem generally indifferent to the overwhelming number of infractions that have occurred. Fans of a particular team found to be involved in unethical activities rarely change their allegiances with many fans choosing to separate questionable practices off the field from team performance on the field.
Despite making claims of promoting sportsmanship, most sports teams do their best to compete on imbalanced playing fields, and this can be found at all levels of play. From college programs making exceptions for athletes academic abilities in favor of their physical prowess, or creating schedules that provide for easy wins rather than level competition, to professional leagues disparities between various teams’ financial resources, or luring star players to geographic regions where additional endorsement revenue is more likely, the goal of most competitive athletics is to win rather than to play fair. And it’s not that the idea of achieving victory is without merit. Many would probably argue that proving one’s self against another in some form of competition is simply human nature, and athletic competition is just one way in engaging in such behavior with limited consequences for both the victor and vanquished unlike military entanglements or political disputes where much more significant ramifications hang in the balance. But in an athletic conflict between two sports organizations, the participants rarely represent just themselves, they represent cities or colleges or in international competitions entire nations, even when the ties to whom these athletes represent is tenuous at best. Not everyone who plays for a city or a country is even necessarily a native or resident of that location, and athletes representing a school don’t necessarily embody the academic ambition and abilities of the rest of the students at that institution with many athletes, especially those in football and basketball, not even intending to graduate before accepting a job to become a professional athlete.
Despite actions including attempting to assault a referree, Charles Barkley claimed “I am not a role model,” yet by continuing to wear his uniform after some of his incidents and later going on to become an NBA commentator, it would appear he still serves as a representative of his team and the entire NBA. He may not be a role model, but the NBA certainly seems okay with him as a representative of its brand. Though in most other professions Barkley’s behavior would result in immediate termination, Barkley not only kept his job but even got rewarded later with a continuing television presence. And Barkley’s certainly not the only athlete to receive special consideration, as Jon Stewart pointed out amid Jason Collins public acknowledgment of his own homosexuality, there are numerous athletes of questionable character. This doesn’t mean every athlete is of questionable character or even that there are a higher percentage of athletes of questionable character than the ratio that exists among the general population (as Jason Collins attests to, but more on him in a bit). For example as this article points out, there’s simply not enough data suggesting athletes have higher incidence rates of domestic violence than the general population, what investigations of athletes accused of these crimes do find is a significantly higher incidence of not facing consequences.
Obviously the most high profile case of an athlete accused of violence and found not guilty involves a former NFL player who went to USC* accused of murdering his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Though now serving time for attempting to steal sports memorabilia and found liable for the murders in a civil suit, this player did not serve any time for the crime and even wrote a book seemingly confessing to the murders in an attempt to profit off his actions (a court ruled all proceeds instead now go to the estates of the victims). But there are certainly other incidents, including at least one incident involving at least one player on 21 of the current 32 NFL teams. At the collegiate level Navy, Vanderbilt, and UConn are all facing recent rape allegations involving student athletes. Additionally of the current top 25 football programs at least 15 have had at least one player or recruit accused of rape in the last 25 years (Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State, Miami, Baylor, Clemson, Auburn, LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Fresno State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, The University of Central Florida, and Nebraska**) while additionally a basketball athlete at Missouri and a water polo athlete at UCLA have also been accused. But sexual assault isn’t limited just to athletic teams and it’s probably important to note that current investigations at Amherst College, University of California Berkeley, University of Colorado Boulder, Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, University of Montana, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, Occidental College, Otterbein University, Princeton University, University of Southern California***, Swarthmore College, United States Naval Academy, University of Virginia, Wesleyan University, West Point, William and Mary, and Yale University for mishandling students’ sexual assault allegations, none of which are necessarily related to athletic programs. This issue doesn’t impact just athletics, but the inconsistency with which domestic violence is prosecuted when it involves athletes suggests that many regard athletic success to be more important than justice for victims’ experiences which may minimize the ability to properly investigate, litigate, and prevent such incidents while simultaneously increasing the number of incidents that occur as consequences seem minimal or inconsistent. The public outcry over incidents involving high school athletes in Steubenville and Maryville seem to have done little to acknowledge the impact sports have on society as a whole, both incidents seen as isolated events impacting only isolated areas and not examples of the potential larger negative consequences of the amount of influence sports have in shaping our behavior as a society.
And the influence athletics have over society doesn’t stop at the criminal justice system. Many owners of athletic organizations have strong political ties and use their influence to dictate state sponsored benefits and tax breaks for their teams and employees. Despite not being open to the public on a regular basis without admission, the public’s taxes have been used to build several NFL stadiums and other facilities even though owners of such franchises could likely privately raise the funds themselves, many of the cities sponsoring such projects taking on huge financial risk in the process that they don’t see returned. The NFL then sells broadcast rights and merchandise, none of which directly reimburses the host cities or their taxpayers and the NFL enjoys non-profit tax-exempt status despite this lack of direct contribution. Furthermore a recent PBS documentary shed light on the idea that the NFL has attempted to prevent and discredit research into the mental health risks of football, especially among young athletes who have several programs in partnership with the NFL encouraging the youth to play.
One shouldn’t say every way athletic organizations influence society is inherently bad. The justification for taking public funds for the construction of stadiums is based around logic that having such institutions in place will improve the economy of the areas where these facilities are built, and though evidence suggests this may be the case involving championship teams, economic analysis does not seem to have validated this idea. Likewise sports organizations potentially provide some of its athletes with ways of escaping poverty and increase exposure for minorities. Though the amount of media involving people of color doesn’t seem to reflect this idea, the marketing of the predominantly Black NBA to a predominantly White audience suggests that society has become more tolerant of racial differences and members of society will overcome their differences in light of the greater good (in this case having a winning sports franchise). This trend began with Jackie Robinson in 1947 and continued with other players and other minority groups up until today, including the aforementioned Jason Collins who became the first openly gay player in the NBA which may improve tolerance towards gay athletes and gay individuals both insides and outside the sporting world.
At the collegiate level athletics also seem to have an impact on academics. Some critics argue this impact is detrimental, but the evidence is inconclusive at best. For although as Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger notes that students at winning institutions perform worse academically than those at equivalent losing institutions or those without competitive athletic programs, having strong athletic programs improves the general quality and number of applicants and over time can actually improve a schools academic standing because of attracting more intelligent students. This idea has its detractors but there are examples that seem to refute such criticism. Take for example Gonzaga University who went from relative obscurity to becoming well known for its men’s basketball program or the public perceptions of Boston College and Holy Cross, two Massachusetts based schools whose football rivalry once produced the record for best attended college sporting event which were once roughly equal in academics****. At BC the increased focus on athletics, particularly football, seemingly allowed Boston College to pull ahead in terms of academics, while Holy Cross let its football program decline in the 91 years since setting a record in 1922 which has long since been surpassed, BC’s admissions slightly outscoring those at Holy Cross on the SAT, there seeming to be a decreased public awareness of Holy Cross as an educational institution (though it too is recently in the spotlight for mishandled allegations of abusive behavior from a coach, which along with its Patriot league’s decision to introduce athletic scholarships suggests a surging movement to attempt to increase the success of its athletic programs at the potential expense of student welfare), and a general perception in New England of Holy Cross as a “safety” school for BC. Although the Bloomberg article linked above indicates less than ten percent of students view athletics as “important” or “extremely important,” it’s entirely possible the students with such views’ presence on campus influences other students’ interest in attending. Consider many schools struggles to attract male applicants and maintain a balanced male-female ratio in spite of the increased ratio of women to men seeking degrees, for as according to the Atlantic “[i]f male enrollment falls to 40 percent or below, female students begin to flee.” It’s not that athletic programs will necessarily attract male students, but it’s potentially a justification to support such programs considering sports fans are predominantly male according to Gallup.
Attracting fans of a sport is a unique situation for colleges as potential students likely don’t have particularly strong allegiances beyond wanting to follow a particular sport. If given a choice of which team to root for, it seems common sense a potential fan would choose to root for a winning team over a losing team, and considering selecting an educational institution is one such situation where a fan may choose his or her loyalties, it makes sense that producing a winning team has some benefits. This is where many of the concerns over influencing a team to be better rather than necessarily representative come to play which have already been referenced, and lots of resources are invested to retain winning athletes as their allegiances are not towards particular institutions but easily bought, sold, and traded (which is perhaps why college athletic coaches are among the highest paid public employees in the majority of U.S. states). Unfortunately this strictly business approach towards athletics has dire consequences for players. They face consequences for not performing or underperforming which has led to a pending lawsuit by Grambling State’s opponents for their refusal to play, an increased use of performance enhancing drugs to maintain high level professional salaries, and an increased incidence of injury as players over exert themselves in the hopes of increased benefits*****. As already mentioned PBS recently exposed the NFL obstructing data about the mental health concerns affecting football players, and collegiate football programs routinely risk injury to their players by scheduling unbalanced matchups in the hopes of padding schedules with wins for the stronger team and providing money to the weaker team’s administration (but not its players) or vacating scholarships from programs as “punishment” to such organizations which really only seems to put players vulnerable to injury at greater risk as they’ll be less able to substitute or receive adequate support from teammates. None of this even begins to address the increasing debate over whether players should receive some form of compensation in lieu of or in addition to their education (considering many reject their education in favor of becoming a professional athlete anyway and participating in college basketball and football has become a necessity for any exposure that could lead to consideration for a professional team) which by scheduling games when classes are in session or with long road trips where classes will clearly be missed seem secondary to the athletic program anyway.
Despite all this sports still unite us, they still remain popular, and there are a handful of social goods they perform. The relationship between sports and society at large is very complicated, and it’d be impossible to remove sports from our society without aversely affecting many other aspects of our culture. But clearly more could be done to ensure athletic events are conducted in the spirit of competition rather than larger business ventures. If major sporting organizations take money from the government to build their facilities and pay their athletes exorbitant amounts of money based on the sales of tv contracts and ad revenue that are equally astronomical, then these organizations perhaps shouldn’t also charge its fans exorbitant prices for tickets and merchandise as well. What many of these teams “give back” is inequitable. They take money that puts other people at risk for audiences’ amusement while also selling the same people who provided the money for this in the first place additional products and services that they don’t necessarily need or could even be harmful, with the most egregious example probably the NFL’s current “A Crucial Catch” Campaign. Ostensibly this campaign is about raising money for breast cancer awareness and research, yet the NFL’s financials have been heavily scrutinized and The American Cancer Society whom the NFL has partnered with for this campaign is not particularly well reviewed by Charity Watch and other similar organizations******. Additionally the NFL also partners with several companies for advertising ranging from Anhueser-Busch to General Motors, many of who produce products (such as Anhueser-Busch and General Motors) with links to cancer causing agents. On top of that, though many people in the organization may have family members with links to breast cancer, the male dominated organization doesn’t have many direct and obvious links to the issue. In fact, the most visible female employees of the NFL are probably its cheerleaders, women frequently voluntarily undergoing breast augmentation despite women suffering from cancer making painful and emotional decisions about similar procedures. Furthermore, in addition to October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, an issue the NFL has a history of mismanaging and potentially more appropriate, but the NFL’s “Crucial Catch” campaign seems much less interested in addressing an issue than raising money for itself, and it seems breast cancer is simply more marketable.
It’d certainly be nice if sports organizations were more willing to lead by example, doing what’s right instead of what gives them the best ability to win or make the most money, but to do so is a risky proposition potentially alienating its fanbase that already supports the organization in spite of any faults, most likely because of a winning record or long history of tradition or combination of the two. Several individuals have called out the Washington Redskins for insensitivity regarding its mascot, but it remains the eighth most valuable sports franchise in the world. Changing the mascot likely involves huge financial risk to its merchandise sales and brand which is doing well despite the insensitivity, and unfortunately sports organizations are in the business of making money, not affecting social change.
This isn’t to say athletics can’t affect social change. Overall much of this discussion has indicated the opposite. Athletic competition has a rich history of competitive fun and a way of promoting locations, educational institutions, people, and causes, but it’s possible that at a certain point their proliferation has become confused with their importance and overshadowed other issues or ways of working on such issues. Athletics remain fun, and the problem with them is not that they are bad, but that so much emphasis is placed on them that larger issues are potentially ignored and the ideas they promote are more often self-serving than necessarily in society’s best interest. In many aspects of society individuals express dissatisfaction over things being so competitive, from the job market, to relationships, to the competitive politics exhibited by the recent government shutdown, which may have indirect relationships to the emphasis our culture places on sporting events. It’s possible grater focus on other social activities might provide greater progress for our society, but a focus on the overall adequate performance of athletics has limited the ability to test such theories. Athletics probably are not as important as society seems to allow them to be, but the basic idea of them still provides entertainment, which in some cases can alleviate the stress of a crisis situation while other times it only magnifies some of society’s problems. Sports are supposed to be fun, and for the most part still are. But too often it seems they become a role model for society at large and enjoy the spotlight a bit too much to back down as a representative when it’s inappropriate for them to be anywhere close to such significance.
-D
*USC really comes off poorly in this blog.
**though the article seems to indicate some effort from Nebraska since the incident to address the situation.
***See first footnote.
****Or maybe not as my grandfather, a Holy Cross alum, would often say “I knew guys who flunked out of Holy Cross and went to BC.”
*****also touched on in the previous link.
******Though at least they're honest about ripping you off.
The history of USC involves a strong football legacy. Established in 1888, the football program has earned 11 national titles and its rivalry with Notre Dame, which began in 1926, is one of the largest and most historic sports rivalries in the country, receiving national coverage on NBC last week despite neither team being ranked among the top twenty-five teams in the nation according to the BCS. Most recently USC won the national title in the 2004-2005 season under the direction of head coach, Pete Carroll, but later had that victory vacated amid allegations against star running back, Reggie Bush, for the receipt of improper benefits. The investigation of Reggie Bush led the NCAA to impose severe sanctions on USC’s post-season play and the number of scholarships it could give to its athletes, but despite these restrictions it was still ranked number one in the nation for the beginning of the 2012-2013 season, possibly owing to its history and the strength of the recruits it was still able to attract because of its legacy. However, under Lane Kiffin, USC went unranked by the end of that season and finished with a 7-6 record including a loss in the Sun Bowl to Georgia Tech where the team’s behavior was harshly criticized by host city, El Paso, Texas.
However easy it may seem to criticize USC’s football program, especially within the last decade, several other programs fare no better. Penn State recently vacated 111 wins from 1998-2011 as part of the reaction to a high profile sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant coach, and of the top 25 football programs according to BCS standings this week, at least 12 have either admitted or been found guilty of an NCAA rules violations in the last decade (Alabama, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas Tech, Auburn, Louisiana State, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Michigan, the University of Central Florida, and most recently Miami) with Texas A & M and Oklahoma State likely to face allegations in the very near future, the latter of which is accused of similar questionable recruiting tactics Lane Kiffin employed while at Tennessee involving female representatives. Meanwhile four more of these schools have admitted to or been found guilty of rule violations in other sports, including UCLA in tennis, Baylor and Fresno State in basketball, and Clemson in several unspecified sports. Only six of the current top twenty-five football programs don’t appear to have any violations in the past decade (Missouri, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, Nebraska, and Oregon State), or at least none one could find easily through a simple Google search for the information. Rule violations have become fairly commonplace, and as a culture the American people seem generally indifferent to the overwhelming number of infractions that have occurred. Fans of a particular team found to be involved in unethical activities rarely change their allegiances with many fans choosing to separate questionable practices off the field from team performance on the field.
Despite making claims of promoting sportsmanship, most sports teams do their best to compete on imbalanced playing fields, and this can be found at all levels of play. From college programs making exceptions for athletes academic abilities in favor of their physical prowess, or creating schedules that provide for easy wins rather than level competition, to professional leagues disparities between various teams’ financial resources, or luring star players to geographic regions where additional endorsement revenue is more likely, the goal of most competitive athletics is to win rather than to play fair. And it’s not that the idea of achieving victory is without merit. Many would probably argue that proving one’s self against another in some form of competition is simply human nature, and athletic competition is just one way in engaging in such behavior with limited consequences for both the victor and vanquished unlike military entanglements or political disputes where much more significant ramifications hang in the balance. But in an athletic conflict between two sports organizations, the participants rarely represent just themselves, they represent cities or colleges or in international competitions entire nations, even when the ties to whom these athletes represent is tenuous at best. Not everyone who plays for a city or a country is even necessarily a native or resident of that location, and athletes representing a school don’t necessarily embody the academic ambition and abilities of the rest of the students at that institution with many athletes, especially those in football and basketball, not even intending to graduate before accepting a job to become a professional athlete.
Despite actions including attempting to assault a referree, Charles Barkley claimed “I am not a role model,” yet by continuing to wear his uniform after some of his incidents and later going on to become an NBA commentator, it would appear he still serves as a representative of his team and the entire NBA. He may not be a role model, but the NBA certainly seems okay with him as a representative of its brand. Though in most other professions Barkley’s behavior would result in immediate termination, Barkley not only kept his job but even got rewarded later with a continuing television presence. And Barkley’s certainly not the only athlete to receive special consideration, as Jon Stewart pointed out amid Jason Collins public acknowledgment of his own homosexuality, there are numerous athletes of questionable character. This doesn’t mean every athlete is of questionable character or even that there are a higher percentage of athletes of questionable character than the ratio that exists among the general population (as Jason Collins attests to, but more on him in a bit). For example as this article points out, there’s simply not enough data suggesting athletes have higher incidence rates of domestic violence than the general population, what investigations of athletes accused of these crimes do find is a significantly higher incidence of not facing consequences.
Obviously the most high profile case of an athlete accused of violence and found not guilty involves a former NFL player who went to USC* accused of murdering his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Though now serving time for attempting to steal sports memorabilia and found liable for the murders in a civil suit, this player did not serve any time for the crime and even wrote a book seemingly confessing to the murders in an attempt to profit off his actions (a court ruled all proceeds instead now go to the estates of the victims). But there are certainly other incidents, including at least one incident involving at least one player on 21 of the current 32 NFL teams. At the collegiate level Navy, Vanderbilt, and UConn are all facing recent rape allegations involving student athletes. Additionally of the current top 25 football programs at least 15 have had at least one player or recruit accused of rape in the last 25 years (Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State, Miami, Baylor, Clemson, Auburn, LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Fresno State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, The University of Central Florida, and Nebraska**) while additionally a basketball athlete at Missouri and a water polo athlete at UCLA have also been accused. But sexual assault isn’t limited just to athletic teams and it’s probably important to note that current investigations at Amherst College, University of California Berkeley, University of Colorado Boulder, Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, University of Montana, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, Occidental College, Otterbein University, Princeton University, University of Southern California***, Swarthmore College, United States Naval Academy, University of Virginia, Wesleyan University, West Point, William and Mary, and Yale University for mishandling students’ sexual assault allegations, none of which are necessarily related to athletic programs. This issue doesn’t impact just athletics, but the inconsistency with which domestic violence is prosecuted when it involves athletes suggests that many regard athletic success to be more important than justice for victims’ experiences which may minimize the ability to properly investigate, litigate, and prevent such incidents while simultaneously increasing the number of incidents that occur as consequences seem minimal or inconsistent. The public outcry over incidents involving high school athletes in Steubenville and Maryville seem to have done little to acknowledge the impact sports have on society as a whole, both incidents seen as isolated events impacting only isolated areas and not examples of the potential larger negative consequences of the amount of influence sports have in shaping our behavior as a society.
And the influence athletics have over society doesn’t stop at the criminal justice system. Many owners of athletic organizations have strong political ties and use their influence to dictate state sponsored benefits and tax breaks for their teams and employees. Despite not being open to the public on a regular basis without admission, the public’s taxes have been used to build several NFL stadiums and other facilities even though owners of such franchises could likely privately raise the funds themselves, many of the cities sponsoring such projects taking on huge financial risk in the process that they don’t see returned. The NFL then sells broadcast rights and merchandise, none of which directly reimburses the host cities or their taxpayers and the NFL enjoys non-profit tax-exempt status despite this lack of direct contribution. Furthermore a recent PBS documentary shed light on the idea that the NFL has attempted to prevent and discredit research into the mental health risks of football, especially among young athletes who have several programs in partnership with the NFL encouraging the youth to play.
One shouldn’t say every way athletic organizations influence society is inherently bad. The justification for taking public funds for the construction of stadiums is based around logic that having such institutions in place will improve the economy of the areas where these facilities are built, and though evidence suggests this may be the case involving championship teams, economic analysis does not seem to have validated this idea. Likewise sports organizations potentially provide some of its athletes with ways of escaping poverty and increase exposure for minorities. Though the amount of media involving people of color doesn’t seem to reflect this idea, the marketing of the predominantly Black NBA to a predominantly White audience suggests that society has become more tolerant of racial differences and members of society will overcome their differences in light of the greater good (in this case having a winning sports franchise). This trend began with Jackie Robinson in 1947 and continued with other players and other minority groups up until today, including the aforementioned Jason Collins who became the first openly gay player in the NBA which may improve tolerance towards gay athletes and gay individuals both insides and outside the sporting world.
At the collegiate level athletics also seem to have an impact on academics. Some critics argue this impact is detrimental, but the evidence is inconclusive at best. For although as Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger notes that students at winning institutions perform worse academically than those at equivalent losing institutions or those without competitive athletic programs, having strong athletic programs improves the general quality and number of applicants and over time can actually improve a schools academic standing because of attracting more intelligent students. This idea has its detractors but there are examples that seem to refute such criticism. Take for example Gonzaga University who went from relative obscurity to becoming well known for its men’s basketball program or the public perceptions of Boston College and Holy Cross, two Massachusetts based schools whose football rivalry once produced the record for best attended college sporting event which were once roughly equal in academics****. At BC the increased focus on athletics, particularly football, seemingly allowed Boston College to pull ahead in terms of academics, while Holy Cross let its football program decline in the 91 years since setting a record in 1922 which has long since been surpassed, BC’s admissions slightly outscoring those at Holy Cross on the SAT, there seeming to be a decreased public awareness of Holy Cross as an educational institution (though it too is recently in the spotlight for mishandled allegations of abusive behavior from a coach, which along with its Patriot league’s decision to introduce athletic scholarships suggests a surging movement to attempt to increase the success of its athletic programs at the potential expense of student welfare), and a general perception in New England of Holy Cross as a “safety” school for BC. Although the Bloomberg article linked above indicates less than ten percent of students view athletics as “important” or “extremely important,” it’s entirely possible the students with such views’ presence on campus influences other students’ interest in attending. Consider many schools struggles to attract male applicants and maintain a balanced male-female ratio in spite of the increased ratio of women to men seeking degrees, for as according to the Atlantic “[i]f male enrollment falls to 40 percent or below, female students begin to flee.” It’s not that athletic programs will necessarily attract male students, but it’s potentially a justification to support such programs considering sports fans are predominantly male according to Gallup.
Attracting fans of a sport is a unique situation for colleges as potential students likely don’t have particularly strong allegiances beyond wanting to follow a particular sport. If given a choice of which team to root for, it seems common sense a potential fan would choose to root for a winning team over a losing team, and considering selecting an educational institution is one such situation where a fan may choose his or her loyalties, it makes sense that producing a winning team has some benefits. This is where many of the concerns over influencing a team to be better rather than necessarily representative come to play which have already been referenced, and lots of resources are invested to retain winning athletes as their allegiances are not towards particular institutions but easily bought, sold, and traded (which is perhaps why college athletic coaches are among the highest paid public employees in the majority of U.S. states). Unfortunately this strictly business approach towards athletics has dire consequences for players. They face consequences for not performing or underperforming which has led to a pending lawsuit by Grambling State’s opponents for their refusal to play, an increased use of performance enhancing drugs to maintain high level professional salaries, and an increased incidence of injury as players over exert themselves in the hopes of increased benefits*****. As already mentioned PBS recently exposed the NFL obstructing data about the mental health concerns affecting football players, and collegiate football programs routinely risk injury to their players by scheduling unbalanced matchups in the hopes of padding schedules with wins for the stronger team and providing money to the weaker team’s administration (but not its players) or vacating scholarships from programs as “punishment” to such organizations which really only seems to put players vulnerable to injury at greater risk as they’ll be less able to substitute or receive adequate support from teammates. None of this even begins to address the increasing debate over whether players should receive some form of compensation in lieu of or in addition to their education (considering many reject their education in favor of becoming a professional athlete anyway and participating in college basketball and football has become a necessity for any exposure that could lead to consideration for a professional team) which by scheduling games when classes are in session or with long road trips where classes will clearly be missed seem secondary to the athletic program anyway.
Despite all this sports still unite us, they still remain popular, and there are a handful of social goods they perform. The relationship between sports and society at large is very complicated, and it’d be impossible to remove sports from our society without aversely affecting many other aspects of our culture. But clearly more could be done to ensure athletic events are conducted in the spirit of competition rather than larger business ventures. If major sporting organizations take money from the government to build their facilities and pay their athletes exorbitant amounts of money based on the sales of tv contracts and ad revenue that are equally astronomical, then these organizations perhaps shouldn’t also charge its fans exorbitant prices for tickets and merchandise as well. What many of these teams “give back” is inequitable. They take money that puts other people at risk for audiences’ amusement while also selling the same people who provided the money for this in the first place additional products and services that they don’t necessarily need or could even be harmful, with the most egregious example probably the NFL’s current “A Crucial Catch” Campaign. Ostensibly this campaign is about raising money for breast cancer awareness and research, yet the NFL’s financials have been heavily scrutinized and The American Cancer Society whom the NFL has partnered with for this campaign is not particularly well reviewed by Charity Watch and other similar organizations******. Additionally the NFL also partners with several companies for advertising ranging from Anhueser-Busch to General Motors, many of who produce products (such as Anhueser-Busch and General Motors) with links to cancer causing agents. On top of that, though many people in the organization may have family members with links to breast cancer, the male dominated organization doesn’t have many direct and obvious links to the issue. In fact, the most visible female employees of the NFL are probably its cheerleaders, women frequently voluntarily undergoing breast augmentation despite women suffering from cancer making painful and emotional decisions about similar procedures. Furthermore, in addition to October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, an issue the NFL has a history of mismanaging and potentially more appropriate, but the NFL’s “Crucial Catch” campaign seems much less interested in addressing an issue than raising money for itself, and it seems breast cancer is simply more marketable.
It’d certainly be nice if sports organizations were more willing to lead by example, doing what’s right instead of what gives them the best ability to win or make the most money, but to do so is a risky proposition potentially alienating its fanbase that already supports the organization in spite of any faults, most likely because of a winning record or long history of tradition or combination of the two. Several individuals have called out the Washington Redskins for insensitivity regarding its mascot, but it remains the eighth most valuable sports franchise in the world. Changing the mascot likely involves huge financial risk to its merchandise sales and brand which is doing well despite the insensitivity, and unfortunately sports organizations are in the business of making money, not affecting social change.
This isn’t to say athletics can’t affect social change. Overall much of this discussion has indicated the opposite. Athletic competition has a rich history of competitive fun and a way of promoting locations, educational institutions, people, and causes, but it’s possible that at a certain point their proliferation has become confused with their importance and overshadowed other issues or ways of working on such issues. Athletics remain fun, and the problem with them is not that they are bad, but that so much emphasis is placed on them that larger issues are potentially ignored and the ideas they promote are more often self-serving than necessarily in society’s best interest. In many aspects of society individuals express dissatisfaction over things being so competitive, from the job market, to relationships, to the competitive politics exhibited by the recent government shutdown, which may have indirect relationships to the emphasis our culture places on sporting events. It’s possible grater focus on other social activities might provide greater progress for our society, but a focus on the overall adequate performance of athletics has limited the ability to test such theories. Athletics probably are not as important as society seems to allow them to be, but the basic idea of them still provides entertainment, which in some cases can alleviate the stress of a crisis situation while other times it only magnifies some of society’s problems. Sports are supposed to be fun, and for the most part still are. But too often it seems they become a role model for society at large and enjoy the spotlight a bit too much to back down as a representative when it’s inappropriate for them to be anywhere close to such significance.
-D
*USC really comes off poorly in this blog.
**though the article seems to indicate some effort from Nebraska since the incident to address the situation.
***See first footnote.
****Or maybe not as my grandfather, a Holy Cross alum, would often say “I knew guys who flunked out of Holy Cross and went to BC.”
*****also touched on in the previous link.
******Though at least they're honest about ripping you off.
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