The problem with elite college sports

This latest sad college football scandal at Penn State is a prime example of what happens when an elite university athletic program becomes so enamored of its own mystique and so addicted to the money they attract that their moral compass goes awry. Hardly a year goes by anymore that you don't hear of yet another elite college athletic program being caught up in yet another scandal, whether it's the coach doing something stupid or some players accepting cash and gifts from boosters and alumni or some other such sorry affair. It's time to sit down and have a conversation about whether or not professional sports teams are taking advantage of college teams by using them as free farm teams from which to recruit their players. It's time for universities, alumni, boosters and concerned citizens to sit down and have a serious discussion about what the meaning and mission of a university really is. True, university presidents are under great pressure to rake in enormous amounts of cash for endowed chairs, scholarships and athletic programs as well as having cash on hand for whatever purpose they may need it, so in essence, college presidents become professional fundraisers and are paid quite handsomely to do so. Professors are no longer expected to teach. Rather, they are expected to do groundbreaking research in order to haul in yet more cash to university coffers. Money seems to be the prime motivating factor anymore behind universities, not education, but money, plain and simple. So I say, what is the point of a university anymore if it has become one big cash cow? So little emphasis is put on the quality of education, especially at these elite schools that have enjoyed such wild success in their athletic programs. They can bring in top notch athletes and then command top dollar to attend their games and pitch their memorabilia like shirts, jackets, scarves and more. That, in turn, generates big bucks for the universities. But the problem here is that when an elite athletic program becomes so wrapped up in its own mystique that coaches and athletic directors feel compelled to cover their butts when something wrong happens, eventually the cover is pulled off, the wrongdoing is exposed, there is much hand wringing and sincere sounding apologies are tendered, and eventually the person who is fired is the head coach because he or she represents what the team is all about, and as a result, they are ultimately culpable because they are the ones who usually fail to say anything about one of their coaches or players engaging in wrongdoing because they know darn well how much money is involved in a consistenly winning team. So rather than come right out and expose the dastardly deed, they work their rear ends off to cover it up, hoping against all hope that it doesn't see the light of day and that they can handle it internally. Well, guess what, it doesn't work that way. Silence implies consent, so typically the coach is the one who pays the ultimate price by being asked to fall on his or her sword and either resign under pressure or get fired. It's such a sad spectacle and it's time to do some serious national soul searching about what we expect when we send young men and women off to college. Ideally, it should be in pursuit of an education that will serve them in good stead for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, universities get caught up in the glamor of having nationally recognized teams and everyone, from the president to the freshmen pay the price in a tarnished reputation for the school. That's not fair to anyone, not the students, not the faculty and not the alumni. It's time to examine the role and mission of universities and to de-emphasize the athletics in favor of the academics. After all, what does the ability to catch a ball and run serve you in the long run in your life? Once you are too old to do that anymore, you have to consider your options, and if you don't make the most out of your college education, you could find yourself one very frustrated, lonely and very unemployable person. So it's time for us to understand that if we're going to write our future as a country, we have to encourage young men and women entering college to put education first and foremost. The rest, as they say, is just gravy.