Friday, December 2, 2011

College is more than football


College football enthralls. Grand traditions, bands, mascots and intense and sometimes vicious rivalries are its hallmarks. College football is a big-money sport getting bigger.

Some stadiums hold more than 114,000 spectators. Some athletic budgets have soared to more than $100 million. And it seems to be getting even bigger, with bigger conferences, bigger television contracts on bigger networks and conference championships benefiting the universities and their athletic departments.

With so much money and so many people, what we have is just another institution that claims that it is "too big to fail." But football, and sports in general, should never be given that kind of immunity.

No educational institution should make it a prime responsibility to win the national championship or a BCS bowl. As President Obama said, "We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair."

Fans of both sports and education find it difficult to admit that they would rather watch Boise State's amazing quarterback, Kellen Moore, than listen to one of the several Nobel laureates who have given lectures on the campus. That's OK as long as the university doesn't give up the laureates in order to keep the quarterback.

Universities do not need to have a football team to be a university. If no one asks, and measures how the hullabaloo surrounding big-time football is affecting the goals and purposes of the university in all its other aspects, then their leadership has already failed, and so have those of us who are fans of both football and universities.




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.