March Madness ( Sort of)

It’s that time of year again- March Madness. Perhaps you have a pool going in your teachers lounge or you and your friends and completed your brackets. From where I sit, the madness is palpable. The local college basketball team, Florida Gulf Coast University, a virtual unknown, has made it to the “Sweet Sixteen.” In one of the myriad of local television interviews, one college official stated that this national exposure would attract a higher caliber of student in the future. Personally, I don’t get the connection. This is the same institution that fielded a study two years ago about the feasibility of commencing an NCAA Division I football program. The cost of such a venture, as reported by the consulting firm, would be about $100 million. This prompted me to revisit the 2010 Knight Commission Report on Intercollegiate Athletics.  One of the statistics that jumped out at me was the per student expenditure.  On average a Division I school funded an athlete in the football program to the tune of $19138 per student. Conversely, a similar institution spent $13628 per student on academics. This brings me to a discussion of what is the purpose of a college education. I have stated this before. In my opinion a college is an academic institution first and a training ground for professional sports somewhere down the ladder. If we are ever to move toward a more permanent low unemployment rate and a higher personal savings rate, we need more educated college graduates who are prepared to enter many of the fields needed for our society to thrive and prosper. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal six Division I college basketball teams graduated less than half of their players on average during the past four years! The average anticipated graduation rate for this year’s male student basketball players is expected to be 70%.

Good luck to all of the remaining teams in the tournament. I hope that somewhere in that group is the next great teacher, Nobel Prize winner, or a skilled negotiator to bring peace in the Middle East.

c. 2013 J. Margolis