Recently I took a survey sponsored by the Cougar Club. The last question was:
What is your main reason for not donating to BYU Athletics?
Here’s my response:
We donate to BYU regularly, to various departments and special projects. And I love BYU football, and have since I was a kid and Gary Sheide was the quarterback. Still, I don’t think athletics is the most needy nor the most important department on campus and so my limited funds go elsewhere.
Athletes, frankly, get more accolades than they deserve. Academic recognition, for example, for “scholar athletes” is well below the level required for other students to get noticed. This is true even though many other groups on campus spend many, uncredited, long hours, lots of travel, and reap fame and ginormous contracts upon graduation. OK, not the last part.
As a former member of a BYU musical touring group (A Cappella Choir, under the direction of the amazing, late Ralph Woodward), I can tell you that we spent hours and hours (year round not just seasonally) on extra rehearsals and performances. Yet we were still expected to keep our grades incredibly high to earn any academic recognition. Ever heard of a “Scholar Musician” with only a 3.5 GPA? Ha!
So, “rise all loyal cougars!” I’ll buy the tickets and mounds of overpriced popcorn. But I’m sending my scholarship contributions to the scholarly scholars.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I really wanted to call this “Student Athletes at BYU and Others Who Don’t Have a Clue,” but I’m trying to be better!
I really like your response, Alison, but I think the alternate title might have generated more comments. (OK, perhaps you made the correct choice.)
Fwiw, it *always* bugs me when college presidents and the NCAA use how much time athletes are required to spend in athletic activities as an excuse for the lower standards they meet to attend. If you need to lower your standards to have an athletic program of any kind, then drop the hypocrisy of the “student athlete” title and simply make that athletic program a minor league professional farm system with paid players. The NCAA could do what the NFL does – establish a “salary cap” so all teams would have an equal shot at the eventual championship in that sport.
Of course, since greed and pride aren’t primary motivators in major college athletics, this proposal should be easy to pass and implement.
Amen to what you’ve said Alison. I’ve always felt this way about athletics in school. When I was at BYU the model UN class had to pay for everything ourselves (the trip to the model UN convention in NYC, all of our room and board out of pocket. the school offered nothing–even though the Kennedy Center had a mulit-million dollar endowment to work with). I suspect had we been a tsports eam, we would have had everything taken care of by the school.
I used to tutor athletes at BYU (2001 to 2003). What bothered me most was that many of the athletes I knew made a mockery of BYU standards. I learned about several MAJOR honor code violations, including word of wisdom and sexual ones. It was quite depressing for my previously idealistic self.
Hi John, welcome to Mormon Momma!
You tutored them, eh? And did THEY pay you to tutor them or did the SCHOOL? Who else on campus gets paid tutors in their “tuition perks pack”?
Anyway, that is sad. When Crowton was the coach, yikes! The stuff going on was really harmful.
OTOH, I am impressed with how many of our football players are now RMs. Did you hear the constant commentary during the bowl game? It was awesome! Anyway, I do think that must come, to some extent, from the coaches being supportive of the missions. It used to drive me BONKERS when I was a kid that we’d get all these firesides from the BYU athletes, who chose not to serve missions because of the all-important SPORT. Now they can actually hear from athletes who put the service ahead of the sport. Yea! Bring ‘em on!
FWIW, however, I DID see the same thing in music/theater/dance. There were, for example, some known, practicing homosexuals in multiple touring/performing groups that were allowed to stay at BYU and stay in their groups because the directors, from what I heard, they “needed” them. One gay man, in particular, not only stayed in the group but made efforts at “recruiting” while on tour. This was well-known.
Again, too bad.
Alison
Ah, Ray, I think you’re right about traffic!