College Sports: Students Be Damned

The United States, as far as I know, is the only significant country in the world where intercollegiate athletics is an important part of campus life. There is a reason for that: colleges and universities were formed to further the creation and dispersal of knowledge and creative ideas, not to develop prowess in throwing balls, running or jumping. But when sports came to collegiate America late in the 19th century (Harvard and Yale played their first football game in 1875), it was viewed as a way to promote school spirit and healthy and entertaining extracurricular activities for both participating athletes and, more important, other students attending sporting events.

Fast forward to 2019. The collegiate athletic establishment, specifically the NCAA, probably would like people to believe that amateur athletes still perform largely for members of the campus community, primarily students. New polling data from College Pulse, however, reveals how completely ridiculous that is. It surveyed some 2,500 college students asking them “How often do you attend athletic events on your campus as a spectator?” More than two-thirds of the students responded “never” (top response) or “seldom.” This negative reaction held for nearly every demographic measured, with even more negative reactions among women, Asian and Hispanic students.

College Pulse further asked “How much should athletic ability be considered in your university’s admission process?” Again, two-thirds said “not too much” or “not at all.” On the other hand, students had strongly positive feelings towards athletes themselves, with some 77 % saying they either “favor” or “strongly favor” “allowing athletics to profit off their likeness (such as selling jerseys or posters).” A small majority even favored paying athletes. In short, students took precisely the opposite position of the NCAA on almost all relevant issues. They are indifferent to college sports, think it shouldn’t have much impact on college admissibility, and that student athletes should be able to make some money over their athletic success.

Moving from campuses to capitals, California almost certainly is going to tell the NCAA: go to hell. The Governor (Gavin Newsom) is expected to sign a bill passed with broad bipartisan support allowing students to profit off their name, image, and likeness. Mark Emmert, the head of the NCAA, who in an earlier life was president of the University of Washington, has fulminated aggressively, hinting that California schools could be shut out of national championship competition, a threat that I view as both unlikely to be approved even within the NCAA and almost certain would end that sports cartel in its current form, as it would finally lead Congress to act about this national scandal called college sports.

Meanwhile, Congress is starting to stir. Mark Walker, a Republican Congressman from North Carolina, wants to yank the NCAA’s tax-exempt status if it does not change its policy on athletes financially benefiting from their own name. My friend and colleague Dave Ridpath, president of the reformist Drake Group, tells me that there is growing interest on Capitol Hill among such Democratic stalwarts as Connecticut’s Senator Chris Murphy (who has been especially outspoken) and Florida Representative (and former university president) Donna Shalala, as well as such conservative Republicans as Ohio’s Steve Stivers, in federal intervention reducing the sleaze, anti-academic nature, and scandals miring contemporary intercollegiate athletics.

A National Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics consisting of prestigious Americans almost entirely directly unconnected with collegiate sports is one intriguing proposal. As a former member of a federal commission myself, I am abundantly aware of their limitations, and extreme care is needed in crafting one, not allowing it to be controlled by politicians or those in the collegiate sports industry. But at the worse a piddling amount of money is wasted, and at best some good ideas can come about that preserve the peculiar American institution of intercollegiate athletic competition and its entertainment value, while reducing the excesses and the corruption associated with it. Limits need to be placed on the use of athlete’s time, control needs to reside within academic areas of universities, the NCAA needs to be neutered, team practices, season length, and coaching staffs need trimming, etc. During the Cold War, international treaties were required to control the arms race; so perhaps a “treaty” is needed via the political process to contain the arms race in intercollegiate athletics.

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Kansas Schoolgirl Arrested, Charged with Felony for Brandishing Finger Gun

A 12-year-old Overland Park girl formed a gun with her fingers, pointed at four of her Westridge Middle School classmates one at a time, and then turned the pretend weapon toward herself.
Police hauled her out of school in handcuffs, arrested her and charged the child with a felony for threatening...

According to Johnson County District Court documents, on Sept. 18, the girl “unlawfully and feloniously communicated a threat to commit violence, with the intent to place another, in fear, or with the intent to cause the evacuation, lock down or disruption in regular, ongoing activities...”

A person familiar with a more detailed incident report spoke to The Star on condition of anonymity. The person said that during a class discussion, another student asked the girl, if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol — like the ones many children use playing cops and robbers.

That's a big no-no. The first rule of gun safety is to treat every gun like it's loaded, even the one that's literally just your thumb and forefinger.

Seriously, though, how is this a police matter? It's a 12-year-old girl, armed with nothing but her finger. Are we going to force kids to wear mittens year-round so they don't accidentally shoot somebody?

Hat tip to Cam Edwards, who points out that a couple of kids recently brought real guns to school in the same district but weren't charged with a felony. If finger guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have finger guns.

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Provocative chief executive Matt Barrie says Australia’s education system is a “basket case” and is the main contributor to the country’s “completely cactus” economy

There is much truth in the comments below but how do we turn the system around?  Getting into the professions will always be aspired to so courses leading to that will always be sought out.  And the other high-paid sector -- IT -- requires high levels of mental ability that only a small minority can rise to. In computer programming you have to be able to think like a machine.

That leaves the trades -- which can also be highly paid.  So the provision of trade courses plus heavy information campaigns about their earning potential would seem to be the only practical way forward

The tech entrepreneur and multi-millionaire blames the deterioration of Australian manufacturing output on what he calls an ancient education system where overachieving students are pushed into medicine and law while participation in electrical engineering and computer science dwindles.

“That’s why there’s no productivity because we’re producing people to serve cups of coffee and serve avocado on toast to each other,” Mr Barrie said.

Gross domestic product grew by just 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, dragging year-on-year growth to 1.4 per cent as Australians struggle with stagnant wage growth and a crippling debt-to-income ratio.

Mr Barrie, boss of ASX-listed freelancing marketplace Freelancer.com, says the fastest way to turn this around is to encourage youngsters to be leaders in more practical, high-skilled industries.

“If you get enough people into the right jobs, then four years later they go into the workforce, they get high-paying jobs, they start companies, they create income tax, and benefits flow from that,” he told news.com.au at a Yahoo Finance conference recently.

“Plus they also increase the skills level because when they start these companies, they train all the employees they hire.”

The entrepreneur said year 10 students needed access to pathways to jobs with a greater ability to stimulate the economy.

“We’ve created this insane leaderboard in the HSC, which is basically medicine and law; they’re the best subjects.

“Everything else doesn’t really matter and every parent, every teacher and then every kid thinks, ‘I’ve got to do medicine or law’.

“We don’t need any more lawyers in the world. There are plenty of other jobs that are far more important to the economy right now.

“We’ve got to fix the secondary school system, which is an 18th century relic training people for jobs that don’t exist.”

Mr Barrie told news.com.au a more productive population would bump-up wage growth.

“If you’re going to have high wages you need to be high value producing in the value chain. You can’t be serving people a couple of cups of coffee and expect high wages.

“You’ve got to be doing advanced manufacturing like robotics or sophisticated products and services with a high margin.

“And that’s what we’ve let fall apart. We need to have very sophisticated trade schools in the country so people can learn advanced skills, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering in order to produce these products and services and infrastructure.

“We don’t do that. It’s basically you’re a doctor or you’re a lawyer, otherwise you’re a failure and that’s pretty much it.”

Shadow minister for innovation, technology and the future of work, Clare O’Neil, agreed improving the education sector was the best way to correcting Australia’s anaemic economy.

She told the same finance conference that federal funding wasn’t translating to better results.

“We haven’t had a really good conversation in Canberra about why, even though we’re spending more money on schools all the time. Our performance is pretty static or in some instances declining,” Ms O’Neil said.

“Wherever I go around Australia there’s a big disconnect between that pointy end of the education system and the needs of business.

“And it just amazes me that after knowing that’s been a problem, for probably 40 years, we haven’t found a solution.”

Mr Barrie said Australian skills had fallen behind because of the inaction of politicians and uninspired workers within the sector.

“It’s a complete basket case because education is the remit of state governments and you’ve got a lot of teachers who are frightened of technology because their job is threatened,” the entrepreneur said.

“It’s the teachers that are holding things back, and because it’s all controlled by the state governments you have all this duplication, bureaucracy, glacial movement of the system and all these entrenched people in positions that you just need to reinvent it.”

He said this had created fiscal issues for a country too reliant on commodity exports and a bloated housing market.

“The Australian economy is completely cactus,” Mr Barrie told news.com.au.

“We’ve let manufacturing completely fall apart and we’re just deluding ourselves thinking we’re a wealthy country just because we’ve got inflated house prices and because we’ve got an immigration program to prop up tax receipts and prop up the housing market.

“It’s going to end in tears — households are already at capacity in terms of their ability to pay rent and buy houses.”

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