These are troubling times for higher education. With budgets tightening, hiring and salary freezes, and the possibility of cuts looming, many are looking for ways to save our institutions.
It may not be surprising that some are calling for cuts to athletics before other departments.
“All cuts at universities should start with sports programs,” tweeted one academic recently.
In other institutions, entire sports teams are being cut to save money, and the Group of Five (G5) NCAA Division I Commissioners are proposing allowing schools to drop certain teams and still remain at D1 competition levels.
All of this adds up to the long-standing view that athletics are simply an adjunct to college and university’s actual mission and purpose. At best a moneymaking set of extracurricular activities, at worst a distraction from serious academics.
In situations in which coaches make a significant salary, it makes sense to ask them to take voluntary pay-cuts, as has been done in some places like Iowa State, Eastern Washington, the University of Kansas, among other schools.
Asking athletics staff to join in sacrifices is well and good; arguing that cuts should be made in athletics first suggests that athletics are not part of the educational work colleges do. This, I argue, is misguided. Athletics are absolutely a part—a core part even—of the student education experience.
