Why I don't understand how admin could hate athletics

[chito_and_leon]

Great story of how athletics helps people improve their lives. Obviously not many TU athletes go pro, but there's a ton of research on how athletics helps people grow and develop - especially girls and young women and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. As TU moves to more of a social services model with a primary focus on improving the lives of disadvantaged communities, you'd think they'd actively embrace athletics as an important tool. It seems kind of like we're doing snobby paternalism - we want to help the poor but we only want to do it in highbrow, educated ways.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/h...cle_2b986dc9-bfcf-5b9f-b94d-43b656f3c853.html

 

[HuffyCane]

Great story of how athletics helps people improve their lives. Obviously not many TU athletes go pro, but there's a ton of research on how athletics helps people grow and develop - especially girls and young women and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. As TU moves to more of a social services model with a primary focus on improving the lives of disadvantaged communities, you'd think they'd actively embrace athletics as an important tool. It seems kind of like we're doing snobby paternalism - we want to help the poor but we only want to do it in highbrow, educated ways.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/sports/h...cle_2b986dc9-bfcf-5b9f-b94d-43b656f3c853.html

Dr Gragg would agree with you up until that last sentence.

 

[aTUfan]

Does having a winning football and basketball teams create an atmosphere where more students want to attend your school.

 

[TU_BLA]

Does having a winning football and basketball teams create an atmosphere where more students want to attend your school.

On the surface this is true. TU usually shows an increase in the number of applications after the football team has done well. Doesn’t necessarily mean more students matriculating because TU is expensive and kids don’t want to take out $20k in loans each yr.

As for Chito’s original question...the answer is that the academics don’t hate athletics until they are to,d they can’t buy a new piece of equipment or renovate a lab for lack of available budget funds. Or they hate athletics because they don’t understand it, they don’t believe the athletes are worthy of attending TU on their own merit, and most importantly, it’s an area they have no control over or say in.