“... how to they do one damned thing to further the education process?”
Sorry, but I learned to compete,to improvise and to win in sports. Classrooms? Not so much. Overeducated fairies run schools. My participation in sports came through the schools I was attending. It’s the only thing of merit I ever got from public funding.
“I never let school interfere with my education.”
-Mark Twain
Then I’d say you are the exception. Wwhen I was at Berkeley, many years ago, we had a terrible football team because the athletes were unable to keep up their academic standing, and back then if you didn’t, you were out! To equate athletics with academic endeavor is just nonsense. Maybe trade schools need to have athletic programs, but to suggest that college athletics are comparable to the physical science, etc., just makes no sense. College athletics today is just a way to justify giving people who don’t really have the intellect to go to college a way for the taxpayers to support them there while they learn nothing of any real importance.