Blah blah siss boom blah
October 18, 2006
As a Rutgers University alumnus, I guess I should be thrilled that the Scarlet Knights football team is actually winning games after umpteen years of serving as a ready source of laugh lines for The Sopranos. Time to get my raccoon-skin coat out of storage, break out some pennants and yell boolah boolah fom the stands alongside Mister Magoo — right?
Wrong. The university may finally be winning on the football field, but it’s still punting its responsiblities to its students. A season of gold-plated pigskin doesn’t make up for the tens of millions of dollars squandered in the pursuit of gridiron glory. The fact that some glandular cases get to do the funky chicken in the endzone doesn’t make up for the funding cuts, the tuition hikes, the sloughing off of teaching duties onto grad students, and all the other symptoms of McDonaldization that have followed in the train of the university’s quest to become a big-time player in college sports.
The notion that big-time collegiate sports brings any benefits more concrete than a chance for drunken alumni to strut around on the bleachers has been soundly thrashed by exposes in Sports Illustrated and elsewhere. The wildest blue-sky fancies of the dot.com era are all hard-headed realism when compared with the daydreams of university governing boards. Big-time football isn’t going to generate any real revenue for Rutgers. Quite the opposite.
If sports nuts want to have another team to cheer for, that’s fine, but let’s not kid ourselves about the price tag. Rutgers has saddled itself with a great big overmuscled baby, a baby that’s always hungry and doesn’t take no for an answer. Feeding him is going to be an expensive proposition, and the funds have to come from somewhere — and I don’t mean revenues from the sale of Scarlet Knights beer mugs.
In a way, I preferred those halcyon days when the team couldn’t find its collective butt with a map and a flashlight. Every losing season stripped away a few more layers of illusion, and left no room for doubt about the delusional nature of the venture launched two decades ago by university president Edward Bloustein and promoter Sonny Werblin. Now . . . well, read this piece in City Belt and ask yourself if the whole thing has been at all worthwhile.
October 19, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Princeton is undefeated in 1-AA play, so no increased prestige for you Tigers! Nyah nyah, Rutgers gets to play in a meaningless bowl game.
October 19, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Geez, I couldn’t get excited about Rutgers football even when I went there. I think I went to a total of 1 football game in 4 years; Army, I think. That was before the “big-time football” campaign began, back when they played teams like Princeton.
October 24, 2006 at 5:50 am
One thing Steve didn’t mention is that Rutgers is cutting sports – men’s crew, men’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis and fencing for both genders – that comprise 22% of the athletes in the athletic program, but only 3% of its budget. These are sports that have a long tradition at Rutgers – I think crew has been around even longer than football – and a number of Olympic athletes have come out of the program, which is certainly a hell of a lot more than you can say for the football program
October 25, 2006 at 3:09 pm
a sellout stadium doesn’t bring in anymore revenue for the school than a mere 10,000 person crowd? add the ridiculous parking costs and that doesn’t add anything to the school’s finances? How about a ticket shortage that can be leveraged for alumni donations? And what about nationally televised games that brings in big bucks to the school? As an alumni who believes academics should be first, I can certainly see the financial potential to the school that has a great football and basketball program. Hell, it even can trickle down to the students with fair text book prices. Maybe the bookstores can be more profitable selling more RU “junk” and not have to rely on raping the students when they buy their books. This is a wealthy state with wealthy alumni. Go ask Notre Dame just how much their football program helps the school.