schools move into big time athletics. I don't know anything about the prof, but I tend to agree with him. I don't think he is a racist and I don't think big time athletics does much to help the individual athlete who wouldn't normally get into the school and doesn't make it to the pros. For society as a a whole, there are more cost effective solutions, but for individuals schools a big time athletic programs seems to mean big time donations.

The disagreement is about the mission of the school and the athletic dept and upper administration is making it about race. Of, the cereal box comment didn't really help:

A longtime critic of Rutgers University's drive into big-time sports is being criticized over a newspaper article comment that university officials have branded as racist.

At the end of a New York Times article Wednesday about William C. Dowling's failed efforts to get Rutgers to turn away from high-stakes athletics, the tenured English professor responded to arguments that athletic scholarships provide opportunity to low-income, minority students.

"If you were giving the scholarship to an intellectually brilliant kid who happens to play a sport, that's fine," Dowling said. "But they give it to a functional illiterate who can't read a cereal box, and then make him spend 50 hours a week on physical skills. That's not opportunity. If you want to give financial help to minorities, go find the ones who are at the library after school."

Rutgers Athletic Director Bob Mulcahy told local newspapers that Dowling's comment was "a blatantly racist statement."

In a statement released by the university, Rutgers President Richard McCormick called it "inaccurate and inhumane."

It is almost comical so soon after the Imus fiasco. From [link|http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3040343|ESPN] 

[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/education/26education.html?_r=1&oref=slogin|NYT] 

And in the bread-and-circuses department, the number of undergraduate applications has risen along with Rutgers\ufffds sporting fortunes, as have annual donations to the university. Of course, some of the recent crop of students distinguished themselves recently by shouting obscenities at the Navy football team as it was being trounced by Rutgers a few weeks ago.

Such an episode is a vivid reminder that given the tawdry history of corruption and compromise at Division I-A schools, something will happen soon enough either at Rutgers or somewhere else to make the critique in \ufffdConfessions of a Spoilsport\ufffd into prophecy.

DR. DOWLING\ufffdS disenchantment began well before he came to Rutgers. As an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico in the 1970s, he saw firsthand how top basketball players were recruited and enrolled based on forged transcripts. Just to underscore the public support for victory at all costs, Norm Ellenberger, the coach who admitted the scams under oath, was acquitted by a New Mexico jury of criminal charges.

If the donations are increasing by big enough margins, there is no going back for Rutgers. I think it is ridiculous that they are branding him a racist when there is no chance of his crusading actually succeeding. But the stakes are too big for them to take any chances, I guess.

He is a bit of a anachronism:

Dartmouth also instilled in Dr. Dowling an appreciation for what he calls now \ufffdparticipatory sports\ufffd \ufffd sports without scholarships, separate dorms, team tutors, product endorsements, television contracts, reduced admissions standards, easy classes and so many other tropes of Division I-A sports.

Rutgers, in turn, provided a striking example of before and after. For more than 100 years after playing Princeton in the first intercollegiate football game in 1869, Rutgers had competed against schools like Lafayette and Colgate with which it shared academic standards. Then, in 1991, Rutgers joined the Big East Conference, making it a peer of ethically challenged football factories like Miami.

Dr. Dowling grew convinced that the shift was degrading the caliber of students, indeed the entire communal culture. A self-proclaimed \ufffdacademic traditionalist\ufffd who doesn\ufffdt drive and still thinks Bob Dylan betrayed folk music by going electric, he became the hub of RU1000. And while he enjoyed teaching many members of the track, swimming and crew teams in his courses, he vociferously resisted the notion that athletic scholarships offered opportunity to low-income, minority students.

\ufffdIf you were giving the scholarship to an intellectually brilliant kid who happens to play a sport, that\ufffds fine,\ufffd he said. \ufffdBut they give it to a functional illiterate who can\ufffdt read a cereal box, and then make him spend 50 hours a week on physical skills. That\ufffds not opportunity. If you want to give financial help to minorities, go find the ones who are at the library after school.\ufffd