Posted on 01/12/2007 12:43:16 PM PST by sbMKE
Why West Michigan should de-emphasize sports
West Michigan Business Beat
By Ben Rudolph, Professor of Marketing Grand Valley State University rudolphb@gvsu.edu
“I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.” — H. L. Mencken
As anyone who has lived here for long knows, West Michigan is sports crazy. That is pretty much all people want to talk about. If you tell local people that you are not interested in sports they assume you are some type of strange subversive or malcontent.
I freely admit that I detest sports. I could not think of anything less interesting. It is simply the old, neverending struggle for power and dominance played out in a field. Who really gives a damn which team or individual is temporarily dominant? We all know that time will take its toll and the temporarily dominant athlete or team will eventually lose out to a new contender. It is as old as life on earth. It is endless and endlessly boring. Read Darwin and Nietzsche and you will quickly understand all there is to gain from watching sports.
The television sports interview is especially loathsome. ... A person would have to have a lobotomy to enjoy such interviews.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to either exercise or entertainment. ... It is specifically sports that I hate.Why? I hate sports because it is such a low level of entertainment. It makes the circus seem sophisticated and intellectually challenging.
Sports — an ugly and primitive tradition Anthropologists tell us that organized sports developed as a type of military training that took place in preparation for deadly battle. Early hunter-gatherer tribes had to regularly defend themselves from other tribes who wanted to hunt the same land. Young people had to defend the tribe and had to develop tactics and strategies to defend “the home turf” and attack and kill opposing tribes. Hence, we had the development of sports as practice for war and killing.
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In any case, in today’s world, sports are a colossal waste of time, money and effort. We can mass murder people in wars with a touch of a button and firing a machine gun requires none of the traditional athletic skills. Running ability and skills with a stick will not get you very far in Iraq. Isn’t it time we therefore put sports in the dustbin of primitive human history where it so clearly belongs?
The negatives associated with sports Yes, I know, sports are big business. The narcotics business is also big, but we have a tradition of outlawing businesses which damage society.
What damage do sports do? Talk to my undergraduate students. Many have no knowledge of anything going on in the world, yet they know all about sports. It is hard to have a globally competitive economy if most people spend almost all their free time watching or talking about sports. While the people in Singapore get Ph.D.s in biochemical engineering our students know all of the football scores. Which society is better adjusted to the world economy as it now exists? Sports are truly the opiate of the American masses.
There is certainly big money in sports ... So the money in sports is very bi-modal, with a very few people making a lot and everyone else not able to support themselves.
Are sports good for schools and universities? That is a complex question which is not easy to answer. Almost all universities lose a vast amount of money on their athletic programs, especially football. There are only a handful of exceptions. Athletic programs do greatly assist with donations. Unfortunately, almost all of these donations are directly tied to use in the athletic program itself. Most of the research indicates that athletics represent a net loss to the academic programs of the vast majority of universities. On the other hand, athletic programs also attract a lot of students to the universities. Unfortunately, some students know almost nothing about the university they choose to attend except that they are familiar with the athletic program. It is pathetic, but true. Thus, determining whether or not an athletic program helps or hurts a given university is a complex issue.
In any case, I am convinced that sports greatly damages society by dumbing down entertainment, intellectual life and public discourse. While sports are not evil enough to ban, they are worth making a conscious effort to de-emphasize, deflate and ignore.
For all you sports fans who may be offended by my comments, I now present the latest scores:
10 to 3 6 to 9 24 to 45
OK, are you happy now? You can talk over the scores while waiting in the unemployment line.
This girly-boy pantywaist is just jealous. Must suck being a wuss.
The word is "antillectual". but beyond this, he has a point.
Why do I get the feeling Professor Rudolph was always "the last kid picked" back in gym class? ;)
I lived there, and I know what he means. Way too many of my classmates knew all the sports stars, but didn't know the two sides of the Civil War, nor who our current president is, nor how to do simple arithmetic without a calculator and so on. I think sports are fine overall, however it becomes too much when sports are emphasized over your job, or your academic performance in high school, or over current events.
I can't say that sports are overall horrible. I mean, I enjoy playing racquetball and tennis. I like watching hockey.
But I don't like being hit up for my homework by an athlete. And I don't like students failing out of college or high school, but somehow graduating because he's the football star.
If he wanted to be prointellectual, then he should be a professor of mathematics than spending his life in a non-discipline like marketing.
I, for one, don't have money-sport athletes in my classes, even though the best student last semester was a women's soccer player.
Reminds me of the old saying my ex-CEO was so fond of, "Them that can, DO. Those that can't TEACH".
Nevertheless, it's easy to be mistaken when you're sneering. I recall lecturing a nephew of mine that the ability to score well at Nintendo combat games wouldn't help him in the real army. So what is it they're controlling Predators with these days? Sheesh.
Athletics are a form of human achievement, and we admire great athletes for the same reason we admire achievement in art, literature, business, and scholarship. Like anything love of sports can be taken too far, but Chaminade upsetting Ralph Sampson's Virginia, or Roger Federer playing tennis like a maestro, or Bob Beamon absolutely shattering the long-jump record is an extraordinary human accomplishment. And unlike art, literature or scholarship (but like business), athletic achievement has the added drama of competition and suspense.
Wow. I hope he kinows more about marketing than he knows about sports. Or war. Or people.
and those that can't teach, teach gym (or marketing, apparently)
I'd like to hear him make that claim after spending a day humping 50 pounds of gear in 120-degree heat, wearing full body armor.
Note to self: never take a marketing class from this fellow, except to learn what not to do.
He's also dishonest.
Football programs also do not lose money for their schools. Men's basketball is also profitable.
Most programs in schools are not profitable.
Should we close the English department because it's not profitable? How about the History department?
This guy is an arrogant fool. This should be a clear notice to the administration at the university that they need to take a careful look at his competence as a professor in the marketing department.
Well, he certainly can't market his stupid ideas worth a damn... So your hope would be in vain.
Was it not the eggheads who invented the atomic bomb? I doubt it was a linebacker.
The Iraq mess demonstrates this is not so. Our soldiers are tactically the best that ever walked the face of Earth. The occupation strategy and execution are where we are deficient. We should be studying how legendary sports coaches work their magic leading average people to excellence and put it to use in Iraq.
American masses? Apparently the good professor clown has never heard of World Cup Soccer...
"On the fields of friendly strife are borne the seeds, that on other days and other fields, will bear the fruits of victory." - General Douglas MacArthur
I've never been a big fan of watching sports and there only a few sports that I really like, but there is no denying the positive effects that PLAYING sports have upon children and adults.
To deny this is to admit an inability to handle competition and rejection/defeat.
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