EDUsports focuses on stories news and issues related to sports on college campuses.   We had a show on July 28th.  We talked about

• Longhorns Network broadcasting HS games. We think this is lunacy.  What if other schools start doing HS games to make money.  How is this not a recruiting violation?
• NCAA needs to change their rules to fit 2011 with regards to Twitter, Facebook and texting.  They also are trying to outlaw Cam Newton’s dad, but we think that’s not going to work.
• NCAA and North Dakota are at odds over mascots in one of the most bizarre cases of government getting involved in sport that we’ve ever heard.  Does the legislature need to be picking mascots for college teams?
• And of course, a very full edition of “who’s bad”

The newest Breakdrink podcast will be on the air tomorrow.  The podcast will be centered around discussing college athletics, with the first show being about the hot topic of paying athletes.  Discussion has been rampant in recent months, given the controversy surrounding Cam Newton, AJ Green and the Ohio State athletes.  We’ve created a collaborative doc to share information on these issues and you can visit it here.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kh3IWoH9M2GqM-GEouoamO_R0fIMtsp1CKzrt06qGgs/edit?hl=en#

We’ll be live at 7pm Eastern Time at http://breakdrink.com/live.  If you’re interested in joining us on the air, you can either call at 646-652-2342 or call the “breakdrink” account on Skype.  We’ll be using the hashtag #edusports on Twitter.  We’re looking forward to talking to it.

#freeterrellepryor

Thank you to Jeff Lail for contributing to this post.

Fellow BreakDrinker @jefflail posted this tweet on Tuesday morning:

Another tweet posted by Jeff linked to this article, which alleges that Notre Dame edited the videos seen by OSHA investigators following the tragic death of student videographer Declan Sullivan on October 27th, 2010. The article states that when viewing video footage in December of 2010, OSHA investigators made notes that footage was missing and that “videos had been doctored”. Notre Dame lawyers said they could not turn over the footage because “it contained highly proprietary, trade secret information related to the business of college sports”.

After reading this article, this was my reply to Jeff:

I do not doubt that the Notre Dame football team, led by coach Brian Kelly, was hit hard by the sudden loss of a member from their football family. However, what cannot be ignored is that this loss was completely preventable. Notre Dame’s own lawyers say it best — in “the business of college sports”, it seems that institutions are continually putting the welfare of students in a second place position behind the maximization of profits. Our college athletic systems are taking the skills and talents of our students and exploiting these individuals for money. Take a second and read that sentence again — it’s a hard truth that is considered taboo to discuss.

The video from October 27th shows pant legs of coaches vigorously blowing in the wind. Declan Sullivan was also tweeting and texting about how scared he was of the high winds that were rocking the tower from which he was filming.  Bryan Kelly, by extension Notre Dame athletics and Notre Dame University, were charged with the responsibility of protecting this young man from injury, just like any of the athletes and the students.  While we cannot completely protect the students on our campuses from all dangers, taking reasonable precautions with regard to safety is a no-brainer. As student affairs practitioners, safety is an ever-present thought with our programs, activities, and residential communities.

When I asked for Jeff’s thoughts he said, “The disgusting part of this entire case to me is that while Notre Dame has settled with the family, Bryan Kelly has retained his job at Notre Dame; near as I can tell, the only person in the media that has called for Kelly’s removal was Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports. As Julie alluded to above, it seems this is yet another incident in the athletic-economic complex of college sports (think football) where money and winning precludes logic, good sense and justice for the most vulnerable populations involved, the students and student athletes. Generally, players and students don’t die due to coach negligence.  Generally, coaches just get fired for blatant NCAA violations and negligence.  The system moves on and just like The Wire teaches us, the system perpetuates itself where the coaches get new jobs and a new gangster and a cheater takes over a program with the knowledge that they just need to win and all will be forgiven.  But where does it stop? Brian Kelly took a sorry Notre Dame team to an 8-5 record and a Sun Bowl victory, with promise of more victories to come based on his past success; apparently this means that you aren’t responsible for causing STUDENT DEATHS.  Give me a break.  It’s time to let Kelly go, and stop selling our souls to win a few freakin games.”

Jeff and I do not want to give the impression that we do not support college athletics. I believe that being an collegiate athlete can greatly enhance the student experience. I was a student athlete myself — swimming and playing water polo for four years at Knox College. But, at a Division III school the experience is very different, we were encouraged to be student athletes. Our coaches understood if we needed to miss practice to study for an important test, and our faculty was also flexible when meets and tournaments conflicted with class. And while gifted athletes need the opportunity to compete at a high level that can be provided by Division I athletics, that experience should not occur at the detriment to themselves or other students.

Does your campus offer support systems for your student athletes? What about student trainers and support staff?

Finally a facebook game for Student Affairs professionals. ESPN released a new facebook application called College Town. I gives you the ability to build and build and run your own college campus, and of course you guessed it…challenge other campuses in football and basketball.

If you previously ran your own mafia or farm I would love to hear how this compares.

On the podcast yesterday we were giving our higher ed predictions for 2010. My prediction was around college athletics; predicting we will see a bigger push to slow athletic spending especially around coach’s salaries.

Today Inside Higher Ed published an article today titled Curbing Athletic Spending that discusses a group trying to change the culture of athletic spending.

Arguing that current athletics spending is unsustainable, a group of scholars urged the National Collegiate Athletic Association at its annual convention Tuesday to seek a federal antitrust exemption to limit skyrocketing coaches’ salaries, slash the number of athletic scholarships offered to football players, and ditch postseason bowl games in favor of a football playoff system.

I would love to see a global study of the benefits of collage athletics to a campus. Does it help in marketing, admissions, providing a rallying point for the campus community? Sure it does, but when do we go too far and cripple the entire campus to keep up in the athletic arms race? There is a balance we need to find quickly.

UPDATE: After this was published I found an article by USA TODAY titled Big-time college athletics: Are they worth the big-time costs? It is a good article, but I did not want to create an additional post for it. I think it shows the increasing interest in this topic.

Hofstra Pride

Last week I reported Northeastern‘s decision to discontinue their football program, and yesterday fellow Colonial Athletic Association school Hofstra University announces it’s decision follow suit and end their football program.

In a open letter to the community they say:
After a comprehensive review, the Board of Trustees has, at my recommendation, voted unanimously to eliminate our intercollegiate football program in order to redirect those resources toward academic initiatives and need-based scholarships.

This decision is not a budget reduction, but rather a strategically driven reallocation of resources. We have no plans for any further major changes to our Division I athletics program, which we believe is an integral part of a fully textured university experience

Hofstra will honor their scholarship commitments to players that choose to say and complete their degree. To read more about this decision you can view their news announcement.

Northeastern Huskies

Northeastern announced today it will discontinue their football program.  In a letter from Athletic Director Peter Roby to the Northwestern community, Roby outlines the decision as financial.

Elevating and sustaining a competitive Division 1 football program would require additional multimillion dollar investments on an ongoing basis.  A broad consensus developed behind discontinuing football and focusing future resources on programs—both academic and non-academic—where the university can achieve and sustain leadership.

Northeastern has played their final game of the season and the timing of the announcement gives players and coaching staff time to make plans for next year. The institution will honor its commitment to scholarship athletes who choose to stay at Northeastern and earn their degree.

The letter closes by saying…

As I have said many times before, athletics should contribute to the life of the university and positively impact those who participate.  I want athletics to serve as a source of pride for our community, while fielding teams that we feel can compete every time they take the field, ice, track, pool, or court.

Recently my friend and student affairs colleague Jeff Lail started a blog series about The College Sports Cash Cow. Jeff is a big sports fan, so his posts are not coming from a higher-education elitist and biased position.

The Academic Senate at University of California Berkeley must have read Jeff’s blog.  Last week The Daily Californian reported,  “The UC Berkeley division of the Academic Senate approved a resolution Thursday urging Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to act immediately to end central campus financial support for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.”

This could be the first punch thrown in the fight of priorities between academics and athletics during a time when monetary resources are limited.  I don’t believe the debate between athletics and academics is a black and white issue, so I look forward to seeing how this will unfold at Berkeley.