[TheMaskedCoder]

The sports side of college is bizarre. I think it is descended from British upper class amateur athletics, but it makes no sense in modern times. Athletics has nothing to do with education. Nothing at all. Star athletes are there only so they can get noticed by scouts. Universities keep teams around for the money. They ought to stop pretending there's any connection to education and replace it all with minor leagues and farm teams. But since there's a hundred years of tradition, I doubt anything will change.

[vasco]

They have something to do with it in the sense that many people practice them and they need to practice them growing up in order to be able to do it as a job. You also cannot discount the impact of athletics programs on national defense and the programs that were done by multiple presidents to keep people active and healthy. Sports have this quality among cultural activities that they tend to improve your body and reduce healthcare costs in the overall population the more active it is, while at the same time ensuring you have at least some people that could go to war if needed. This explains why there's more legislative support and allowances for sports programs than say music or theater.

[Ekaros]

But why connect it to education? Why not make it general program for all ages? Why not encourage community run programs for teams consisting for example company workers, or local neighbourhood teams? The education ends very quickly and it is the older than that people who could really benefit from these activities.

[lotsofpulp]

They serve as a decent socioeconomic filter since many sports require the parents of the player to be of at least certain economic means.

[ragtete]

I don't know why folks put down college sports. If you do 4 years on a D1 team, you can certainly call yourself an expert in that sport. They're not just messing around, they're learning and developing their skills.

They may not go pro or use that knowledge directly later in life, but neither do a lot of degree holders in their field.

[Forgeties79]

> They're not just messing around, they're learning and developing their skills.

Yes, but almost universally at the expense of the education they are allegedly there to get. Especially D1 programs. That is why many of us don’t think it makes sense to tie it to education. To play at the level they are required to, they have to sacrifice their education. I think we all know how there are “football player classes” and curriculums designed to minimize school/education time and maximize their time for football.

Hell how many times have we seen scandals involving completely fake courses for athletes? UNC got in trouble for this in 2015 or so after decades of doing it. They were hardly the first and we all know it hasn’t stopped.

They can’t have both unless they lower the quality of the education received (which is pretty silly, considering they are at institution primarily designed around education) or lower the standards of competition for sports, which is never going to happen as long as one team wants a competitive advantage.

[whateverman23]

I'm guess asking: Why is 4 years of dedication to a sport (in at least the D1 context) not considered an education on its own?

List the degrees achievable from a typical college, and rank them in terms of usefulness outside college. Then fit 4 years of a D1 sport into that list. I have a hard time believing the usefulness of 4 years of a D1 sport would be at the bottom of the list.

[Forgeties79]

I think the forms of education here are pretty darn distinct. Didn’t say it wasn’t worth it/wasn’t valuable. Same reason we have conservatories like with ballet.

[harvey9]

Lots of places do all of those things. It does not need to be just one or the other.