The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

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I have long been disturbed, and very concerned, about the directions of athletics in academic institutions. That primarily has been with the athletic directions at institutions of higher education: universities and colleges. Some lesser things are also happening at high schools, however.

My concerns have been brought to where I am writing about them by two happenings. One is the big emphasis on institutions switching conferences. The other is on the recent publicity about the salaries involved.

Why were conferences established years ago? The idea was to put a group of neighboring schools together. Then, students and local followers could get to games with rival institutions. In essence, a conference formed a neighborhood.

That is all changed today. Conferences now are composed of schools hundreds of miles apart. The big impetus for jumping to another conference is money. There will be bigger games more attractive to TV and advertising money. The community aspect — the neighborliness — of conferences appears to be gone.

The other aspect of big time athletics which has caught my attention has to do with the salaries for coaches and athletic directors at universities. KU fired its football coach, but he will still get two million dollars a year for three years. That is because he was hired on a five year contract for a total of ten million.

The University of Mississippi football coach was fired for an unsuccessful season. His contract paid him $1.4 million for each win his team made. I wonder what his salary was in addition to that.

USA Today recently presented a “Special Report” on the pay to athletic directors. It wrote much about the situation but what really caught my eye was a list of the salaries in 120 institutions. No salary was under $100,000. Most of them were in the $350,000 to $500,000 range. A few were over a million dollars. That blows my mind when most academic professors do not make more than $100,000.

More about big time athletics. The NCAA has ruled that athletes are now eligible to receive up to $2,000 a year, above their scholarships, to pay for room, board, books, tuition. That may be deserved, but it is special for athletes.

Enough about big-time athletics. It seems to be much like corporations. Money from TV and advertising is so important that it influences conference shifts and the hiring and firing of athletic people. I wonder how much of the big money made by university athletic programs ever ends up in helping academic parts of the university. We would all consider academics the real components of the university, if I had my way.

Just a small comment about elementary and high school education. I read some time ago that a Kansas High School was putting archery into its physical education program. That is ridiculous, in my opinion.

I have no objection to archery, but it is not physical education. It is a recreational thing. Schools are doing away with too much physical education and young people are becoming more and more obese. They must be given more strong physical activity, not such things as archery. The physical activity in elementary schools and high schools would be increased, if I had my way.

Another area of considerable concern to me is this one. It could be called technical education, I suppose. There are now “For-profit Universities” operating. Phoenix University and Walden University are such, but there are several others. They give degrees — even graduate degrees — totally on the internet. As far as I know, they do not even have a campus. Is that a reasonable way to get a college education?

Established institutions also are doing much internet education. I have read that Fort Hays State University has gone from less than 5,000 students a few years ago to over 14,000. But some 9,000 are on the internet, with only about 4,000 on the campus. Other institutions are also doing that. I cannot believe that is good education. I still think a teacher and a student need to face each other, talk to each other and work together.

There is similar concern at other schools. I have read that some New York high schools provided laptop computers for all students, but are doing away with them now. That is because they are seeing no progress in them helping education. So it goes.

Enough about my educational concerns. After 40 years in academics, I have my negatives and positives. I will tell you about more of them, if I have my way.