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3.1. Sports at colleges
3.1.1. College and sport
Youth is synonymous with energy — mental and physical. Organized and informal sports provide teens with an opportunity to expend some of that energy and, more importantly, to learn the value of fair play, to achieve goals, and to just have fun.
In 2003, 58 percent of boys and 51 percent of girls in high school played on a sports team. The most popular sports for boys are American football, basketball, track and field, baseball, and soccer (international football). For girls, the most popular are basketball, track and field, volleyball, softball, and soccer. As a result of a U.S. law that encourages women to take part in athletics, girls' participation in high school athletics has increased by 800 percent over the past 30 years. Other organized high school sports often include gymnastics, wrestling, swimming, tennis, and golf. Away from school, teenagers participate year-round in community-sponsored sports leagues. In addition, particularly in the summer, they engage in informal "pick up" games of one sport or another in the streets and parks of their neighborhoods.
In 2001, a higher percentage of high school seniors reported participating in athletic teams (39 percent) and music/performing arts activities (25 percent) than academic clubs (15 percent), student council/government (11 percent), and newspaper/yearbook (10 percent). Females were more likely to participate in newspaper/yearbook, music/performing arts, academic clubs, student council or government, and other school clubs or activities than males. Males, however, were more likely to participate in athletics.
Sports also play an important role in the everyday social scene at American colleges and universities. University sports programs are offered at the intercollegiate (organized competition) and the intramural (club-like, less competitive) levels. Many universities offer sports scholarships at the intercollegiate level to students who are both academically qualified and skilled in a particular sport. Athletic scholarships are awarded for everything from archery to wrestling, with an eye on gender equality to achieve a balance between men’s and women’s scholarships.
Playing for a college team on scholarship is one way students help pay for the cost of earning an undergraduate degree. About $1 billion in athletic scholarships are awarded through the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) each year. Over 126,000 student-athletes receive either a partial or a full athletic scholarship. These scholarships are awarded and administered directly by each academic institution, not the NCAA. Award amounts vary from a few thousand dollars to nearly $30,000 for one academic year and do not necessarily cover the full cost of tuition and living expenses. Scholarships are offered on a percentage basis, and universities have strict limits on the total amount they can award each year [18, www.usa.usembassy.de/sports-youth.htm].
3.1.2. Sport and money
Intercollegiate sports and money have always been a hotly debated topic. Rules prevent any college athlete from accepting money. Whenever some basketball player is found to have accepted “a gift”, the sports pages are full of the scandal. As a result, some college teams whose members have violated the rules are forbidden to take part in competitions. Several universities like the highly respected University of Chicago do not take part in any intercollegiate sports whatsoever. Many other restrict sports to those played among their own students, so-called intramural sports and activities.
Those who defend college sports point out that there are no separate institutions or “universities” for sports in the U.S. as there are in other countries. They also note that many sports programs pay their own way, that is, what they earn from tickets and so on for football or basketball or baseball games often supports less popular sports and intramural games at the university. At some universities, a large portion of the income from sports, say from TV rights, goes back to the university and is used also for academic purposes. Generally, however, sports and academics are separated from one another. You cannot judge whether a university is excellent or poor from whether its teams win or lose.
In the United States, however, there are attitudes towards the mixing of commercialism, money, and sports, or professionals and amateurs which often differ from those of other nations. The U.S. was, for example, one of only 13 countries to vote in 1989 against allowing professional basketball players to compete in the Olympics. Similarly, American professionals in football, baseball, and basketball are not allowed to wear jerseys and uniforms with advertising, brand names, etc. on them. The National Football League does not allow any team to be owned by a corporation or company.
Most Americans think that government should be kept separate from sports, both amateur and professional. They are especially concerned when their tax money is involved. The citizens of Denver, Colorado, for example, decided that they did not want the 1976 Winter Olympics there, no matter what the city government and businessmen thought. They voted “no” and the Olympics had to be held elsewhere. The residents of Los Angeles, on the other hand, voted to allow the (Summer) Olympics in 1984 to be held in their city, but they declared that not one dollar of city funds could be spent on them. Because the federal government doesn’t give any money either, all of the support had to come from private sources. As it turned out, the L.A. Olympics actually made a profit, some $100 million, which was distributed to national organizations in the U.S. and abroad [10, p.196-197].
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