Duke can eat me.
Can we stop pretending that Duke is a University and just admit that it is a minor league feeder for the NBA? For that matter can we just stop pretending that Division I athletes are students and not employees? While we are at it, let’s tax these extremely wealthy corporations.
In the meantime, I endorse this Claire McCaskill tweet:
“Congrats to Duke, but I was rooting for team who had stars that are actually going to college & not just doing semester tryout for NBA,” tweeted McCaskill.
Had Wisconsin winning it all in your pool, did we?
Duke has 10,000+ students and top flight educational and research facilities (Duke Hospital, Duke Lemur Center, etc.), and yet you’re going to whine that Duke isn’t a university because 12 of its students play on the men’s basketball team? Grow up.
And if you don’t like the one-and-done system, take it up with Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA hierarchy. Some schools and coaches have adapted better to the “new normal” – so what?
You made mention of it, but let’s not forget the real winners, Mark Emmert and the ‘non-for-profit” National Collegiate Athletic Association. The NCAA makes a bit over $500 million on the D1 basketball tournament. It’s the biggest moneymaking enterprise the NCAA has. And on the backs of guys whose only compensation is a scholarship of questionable value.
If players do graduate what work have they done to make the degree useful when they have courses and programs talored just for them (see, also, UNC Chapel Hill ghostwriters, Syracuse, the entire SEC, Swahili as a language requirements, &c…)?
http://www.athleticbusiness.com/Governing-Bodies/record-ncaa-graduation-rates-don-t-tell-the-whole-story.html
Now athletes in smaller sports do get an opportunity to go to scholl on the backs of basketball and football programs. But the schools and the NCAA will screw them too if the opportunity arises.
Did you know the term ‘student-athelete’ was created by an NCAA legal team to ensure the players injured were not covered by workers’ compensation insurance. They use it like some honorific title, but it’s just a way to keep the players down.
http://www.hbo.com/real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel#/real-sports-with-bryant-gumbel/episodes/0/216-episode/video/ep-216-web-extra-the-wreckage-1.html/eNrjcmbOUM-PSXHMS8ypLMlMDkhMT-VLzE1lzmcu1CzLTEnNh8k45+eVpFaUsDFyMjKySSeWluQX5CRW2pYUlaayMQIAUmYXOA==
I personally haven’t watched a college sporting event in three tears and I hope to continue the boycott.
Hoo boy. Worse than the actual Duke alum, are the band wagon jumping dogs who wished they went there. I forgot to mention that.
The first commenter has the typical knee-jerk reaction… FYI – Jason didn’t say Duke wasn’t a top-notch university. He was making a point about college athletics. Somebody does have some growing up to do. Guess who it is?
The sycophantic adoration for any university in general is creepy and stupid anyway. If you wait in a tent in one of the four-color coded sections outside the gym for a full week to watch a basketball game, you’re a fucking clown, whether you attend Duke or Harvard or Goldey Beacom.
That the NCAA is regarded as a non-profit is a sick joke. I think we can all agree on that much.
The biggest problem is the misplaced priorities. Sports scholarships place the sport over academics. Struggling in a class? Don’t miss sport’s practice or you’ll lose your scholarship. Get cut from the team sophomore year? Good-by scholarship – even if you’re excelling academically. Sorry, they didn’t bring you to college for academics.
Not to mention that the odds of college athletes going pro and getting paid is astronomical. And given those BS courses colleges create for them most leave with a unusable degree. In the university’s eyes, these kids served their purpose.
Sports has a lot in common with religion. It’s tribal. It’s fans can be fanatical (and hysterical) and will smite anyone who doesn’t worship the same team. And it constantly needs validation – how can you not like my team? How can you think that other team is better? The number of arguments (and countless riots. Riots!) about a game the people arguing about aren’t even playing is mind boggling. Oh yeah, it’s delusional.
Pay the college athletes. Seriously, if these schools can’t be bothered to educate them, then pay them.
All right-thinking people hate Duke — its basketball team, not the university.
Dorian:
You are absolutely right. Jason didn’t say Duke wasn’t a top-notch university, he said it isn’t a university at all.
But you seem to have completely missed (or, more likely, ignored) the point of my comment, so let me make it clear for you: My comment was not a defense of Duke, which doesn’t need defending here because nobody is going to take Jason’s screed as a serious factual assertion that Duke is not a university. It was, rather, a criticism of Jason for attempting to pass off his sophomoric “Duke can eat me” rant as actual analysis, by pointing out the absurdity of his assertion.
I happen to believe that schools should be allowed to compensate athletes beyond just room and board (Jay Bilas has one of the better proposals IMO), and that athletes who are capable of playing in the pros right out of high school should be allowed to do so. I mentioned none of that because whether I’m with Jason on the substance of his message wasn’t the point, but rather my disagreement with how he delivered it.
Have a nice day.
I agree that Claire McCaskill was more eloquent. “Congrats to Duke, but I was rooting for team who had stars that are actually going to college & not just doing semester tryout for NBA,”
Duke is obviously a university (that can still eat me). Duke Basketball needs to stop pretending that it is a part of Duke – the university.
I took the first sentence to mean the basket squad not the school – the way Jason explained it in the comment. Maybe I just knew what he meant… or maybe I just assumed everyone knows Duke as a very prestigious university. But I take your point. Duly noted.
I pray these stupid kids figure out they are being used and abused and somehow collectively bargain for a better deal than the one they get. It’s disgusting. I imagine the NCAA has the advantage given the turnover in college athletics. The time it will take to battle, the kids will be well into their 20’s and have moved on from college
But hey, I guess if you get on ESPN’s top 10….you’ve made your nut in life
By now, everyone knows that college sports in general (especially basketball and football) is a business with significant rewards for both the schools (which are also businesses – see Cooper Union issues). It’s a business for the athletes who invest their time and effort for the chance of reaping great rewards after leaving college; schools which get more money so they do whatever it is they are doing these days; NCAA because well, salaries, jobs, etc I guess; pro sports because they get a robust farm system at little to no cost; the public because they get entertainment; merchandizers selling jerseys and cheese heads; EA Sports so they can sell software; and finally broadcasters so they can sell ads. And let’s not forget Gatorade.
It’s all a business that invests with the expectation of an ROI. Winners all. So who are the losers? Well, probably the education system and the students who wish to learn something but can’t because the tuition has become unaffordable (see Cooper Union again) and the institution itself whose mission has evolved into finding ways to get research dollars and sports dollars so they can do more of whatever it is that they are doing these days.
Both higher and lower education in general has lost its way. Once upon a time people would give up their first born to go to college. Now, many are questioning the need to spend four or five years of their life for what amounts to a piece of paper that may or may not buy you access to the future.
Is the lack of opportunity for college graduates the culprit? Probably not totally but yeah that is one of the causes. Another are educators who would rather do research than teach, because research leads to greater financial rewards. I’m glad I went to college. I’m glad my children did. Would I recommend that path to my grand kids. Yes but it’s no longer unequivocal. It depends on what alternatives are available.
Big-time college sports [football and boys basketball] have the net effect of reducing the opportunities for degree candidates to participate in intercollegiate sports. Exhibit A: Temple. Exhibit B: University of Maryland. Exhibit C: University of Delaware.
The net losses require subsidy from the tuition-paying parents, disguised as ‘student activity fees,’ that now approach $1,000/year.
Duke is among the few big-time institutions rich enough to field as many varsity teams as the average Delaware high school. Princeton, Stanford, Harvard are others.
Mitt Romney ncaa bracket in top 1/10th of 1 percent out of 11 million espn brackets. The evidence just keeps pouring in that america elected the wrong president in 2012. I think obama was around 47 percent, what a coincidence. Evander hollyfield’s managers say evander may have under estimated romney’s sports intellect and is now shaking in his boots
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, I hate to tell you Evander, but its Romney in Three
Lee Wiley explains why Romney’s so knowledgeable about semipro basketball:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VOVlfcDV-Y
Maybe Pat Goodhope can spin it on Wednesday night.
How do you know Romney didn’t outsource his picks? You conservatives are such saps…
Romney may pull out a kayfabe win against Holyfield.
In honor of her centenary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z935jE8TdTg
I want jason seated when he finds out the NFL is a non-profit also. NBA never was, so I guess you better git while the gittin’s good.
Oh my, Pat’s playing Lee right now.