I was just briefly on campus this afternoon, and it looks like there are already a bunch of students who have returned to campus. I love this time of year, and I love the energy that the students bring when they return. (Plus, returning students means the return of football!)
Welcome back, students! We missed you.
I missed my annual summer visit to Zorba's - darn it!
Yes, isn't it so kind of the students to subsidize the major sports entertainment for everybody in the community. How could we expect the community to actually pay its fair share?
"Yes, isn't it so kind of the students to subsidize the major sports entertainment for everybody in the community. How could we expect the community to actually pay its fair share?"
Well, I certainly do appreciate it!
Of course, the education they're receiving is also subsidized by local taxpayers, both in terms of property taxes not paid by UIUC and state revenues sent to UIUC.
Don't get so "hostile and abusive" Jay! The Chief is gone from the football games now.
Official move-in day for the residence halls is this THURSDAY - that's right, in the middle of the week.
People who drive to work down Lincoln Ave, beware.
My question is: Why should hard-working families who want to send their children to college for an education have to fund a multi-million dollar sports entertainment enterprise used primarily by non-students and community members? I think it is borderline extortion. The athletic department can make millionaires out of its coaches and director; it should pay its own way.
Not sure what the relationship is between my comments and the Chief.
Hey Jay, tell them to send their kids to Eastern or Western or Northern or even Southern. It's a lot cheaper tuition and room and board, they never sell out the seats, and the teams suck, as do the towns of Charleston, Macomb, DeKalb and Carbondale. Very little subsidy going on at EIU etc. You get what you pay for.
Or send them to Ohio State or Michigan, pay through the nose, and never get into a game.
Go Illini!!!
Students: Please deposit your money in the local businesses of your choice and leave Champaign as quickly as possible...
Jay,
The athletic department does pay its own way. It is a separate business entity from the University.
It *sometimes* pays its own way. Remember the "Athletic Service Fee", instituted because the DIA couldn't balance their checkbook? I seem to recall that the ASF is gone now.
But you make a variety of other assumptions that we don't subsidize DIA in indirect ways. Sure, the claim that people are coming down here for school and are really dumping money into the DIA is hyperbolic, but to say there aren't any ties and that the DIA hasn't dipped into the pockets of students in the past isn't exactly truthful either.
--
j
Part-Time Pundit
Does DIA pay property taxes on memorial stadium? I thought not.
"the teams suck, as do the towns of Charleston, Macomb, DeKalb and Carbondale."
Can't speak for Western, but I attended Eastern twice, and had friends at both Northern and Southern. I can assure you that the towns most definitely do not suck, and I could happily live in Charleston again or Carbondale, for that matter.
And although success in sports comes and goes, while I was at Eastern the football team won a national championship. I've seen some pretty long dry spells over the last thirty or forty years at U of I. Seems to me they've sucked more often than not.
"The athletic department does pay its own way. It is a separate business entity from the University."
Not quite - the DIA is a seperate entity, and I'd always been under the impression they paid their own way, but we discovered in a discussion on here last year that the DIA does indeed get a small percentage of its revenue (a few million bucks, IIRC) from the UI. I'll search for the thread when I have more time, but Jay and I discussed it at length some months ago.
I look forward to the start of football season, even if it means Ron Guenther is still the AD.
Jay did his part to get rid of the Chief and now he has a hard on for U of I athletics in general?
What's up with that!
I have not read the previous exchange between IP and Jay so the following might have been part of that thread. Nevertheless, it appears that there is reason to question whether any college varsity athletic program actually pays for itself fully. Murray Sperber's book, Bread and Circus, might lead one to ask more questions. http://www.bloomington.in.us/~sperber/
Sperber gave a talk on the UIUC campus a number of years ago when this topic was hot throughout the country. I was interested in the fact that the lecture attendance was not robust.
Pattsi Petrie
Here is the previous discussion.
A quote:
Those numbers are a few years old.
Maybe it's age catching me but I cannot think of any four year college or university in this country that does not have varsity sports? While I believe it is good to question activities based on cost/benefit are there non-varsity sport alternative colleges or universities to chose if you believe Sperber's reasoning?
To Oil Man--it is a bit of time since I read the book so I many have a rusty memory. Sperber's major focus is the sports that are the financially big drain/big money generators, such as basketball, football, maybe volleyball and baseball. So one can easily find outstanding schools that excel in cross country skiing, crewing, archery, as varsity sports, but do not drain the treasury. We can all think of many such eastern schools. When Hanna Gray reinstituted football at the U of Chicago, she, tongue in cheek, promised that there would not be championship teams. And in the history of colleges and university, football has had a long history of killing players on the field, paying players to play a certain game and not necessarily attend the particular institution for which they were playing on a particular Saturday, alums who insist that football exist, etc. In fact, Theodore Roosevelt, when he was president, called the presidents of the then eminent higher education institutions that had football teams and were doing all I described to a meeting at the Oval Office. He told them if they did not clean up the sport, meaning not using shills and killing players through roughness during a game, that he, as President of the USA, was going to outlaw the sport. [I am so glad I took the course in the History of American Colleges and Universities. I just knew it would come in handy some day. :-) ]
Pattsi Petrie
On the local front, it appears the U of I is not taking a big hit ($650,000) for all the advertisement they get through their varsity big sports. Yes, there are definitely programs which treat their players a commodities but I am not seeing it here or my other college, Wisconsin. I see a lot of Alumni giving a lot of money to the U of I and U of W, not just to the DIAs. I also see the DIAs spreading the money around to many sports which economicly are not viable.
Not sure what the relationship is between my comments and the Chief.
Well considering the name "Jay Rosenstein" is associated with the documentary "In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports" there is a logic to posters making the connection between your comments and the Chief. For many individuals the former mascot is synonymous with the "Fighting Illini" and this area has a very strong booster culture comprised of community members, students, and alumni. For anyone who has an established reputation for being "Anti-Chief" it would be a challenge to be critical of how the athletic department manages it's finances without it being perceived as a slam against the former mascot.
Now in evaluating the criticism as a separate issue I have to ask this question: Is it possible for the athletic department to be completely self-supporting and still be able to claim affiliation with the U of I? It strikes me that it would become a privately owned enterprise separate from the university and I'm not certain that privatization is a good thing in college sports.
I think a better question would be: Why do hard-working families send their children to college when the tuition only funds a small portion of the education and services that students receive? Corporate grants, private donations, and alumni contributions carry a great deal of influence on what is being taught to students which makes the term 'academic freedom' increasingly an oxymoron. How many letters to the editor came from angry alumni threatening to withhold donations when the University of Illinois formally retired the Chief?
Just my not so humble opinion:)
I love this time of year, and I love the energy that the students bring when they return
I find it wise to avoid shopping when students are moving to town. I don't love the crowded checkout lines.
Of course on Monday we will see the revenue that the City generated this weekend from bar checks and licquor violations....... ahhhh that MC/VISA charge on Mom and Dads charge that says...........city of champaign..............................265+..............
Your first illegal drinking ticket from the city..........265.....
Memories you have getting it.............
priceless
Welcome back students!
our first illegal drinking ticket from the city..........265.....
Memories you have getting it.............priceless
Shouldn't that be more like, "memories you have getting it........somewhat hazy"
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At some point we have to trust the government. - redstatewannabe on 2008-06-12 at 1:14pm
Corporate grants, private donations, and alumni contributions carry a great deal of influence on what is being taught to students which makes the term 'academic freedom' increasingly an oxymoron. How many letters to the editor came from angry alumni threatening to withhold donations when the University of Illinois formally retired the Chief?
Yeah, and look at how powerful they turned out to be, how they saved the Chief, how they...oh wait. Never mind.
and so it begins................
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2008/08/25/men_accused_of_hitting_cars_people_with_eggs_in_campustown
I suspect the choice between alumni donations and losing $$$ due to NCAA sanctions was a balance which tipped in favor of pissing off alumni.
Actually, didn't the University report an increase in donations the 1st year the Chief was gone?
I may be totally wrong on that...perhaps someone has time to do some Googling, digging, etc.?