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By Bill Press
How's this for an opening line? I want to write this week on something I know nothing about: college football.
Seriously, I don't know which teams are members of which division, which teams are hot, or which teams are headed for bowl games. And I could not care less. But I do know this: the importance of college football is way overrated and the prominence of football on most college campuses is way out of proportion to what a university's supposed to be all about. Just look at
Buckeyes fans were absolutely giddy this week with the hiring of new coach Urban Meyer. And, no doubt, Meyer exudes the aura of a winning coach. Before coming to
Of course,
I'm sorry, but no football coach, no matter how successful, is worth that much. Team player President Gee, who makes less than a third of his new coach's take-home, defended
This is hardly the year, by the way, to be glorifying college sports. Americans were still reeling from disgusting details about Jerry Sandusky's behavior at
In light of those scandals, sports columnist Christine Brennan has called this a "watershed moment" for college football. And she's right. Instead of continuing to pump ever more money into sports, this is a time for college officials to step back and do some serious soul-searching about the true purpose of the university -- and what role, if any, college sports should play.
Sure, football and basketball bring in tons of revenue to college campuses, especially from TV broadcast deals, but to what end? Do they help the university, which exists primarily as a center of learning, to turn out more and better researchers and scientists whose work might someday change the world? Or do they further confirm the reputation of the university as a big-time sports entertainment center?
Unfortunately, I think we already know the answer to that question. Just this week, the
Yes, we just relaxed our immigration laws in order to allow companies to import more engineers and scientists from overseas. Why? Because we're not producing enough of them out of our own universities. We're turning out pampered football players and coaches, instead.
Finally, just in case you're wondering:
According to
Copyright © Tribune Media Services
Football Factories or Learning Centers?