Athletics vs Academics

This weekend, I took part in a conversation that compared college sports to college level academics.

Friend: Do you believe college coaches get paid too much?

Me: No!

Friend: Well, don’t you think it puts too much emphasis on sports and not enough on academics?

Me: No.

The next question really caught my attention.

Friend: Why aren’t college professors paid like coaches then?

This question prompted me to ask a question of my own.

Me: If a $3 million dollar per year professor teaches, and the students don’t pass, should the teacher be fired?

Friend: Do you know how much studying, time and skills it takes to be a college professor?Apparently not, because if you did, you’d know there’s no need for a professor to be fired because the student(s) didn’t get the lesson!

Me: The reality is, it works that way in athletics! These coaches have to leverage their future and feed their families off the backs of 18-20 year olds. When it’s good, you ride the wave and get what you can. When it’s bad, you pack up and move on to the next coaching job

I will agree that change shouldn’t just end at the coaches. I wrote in an earlier blog that we put too much on college coaches in general when the real issue is with management, the people who hire the coaches and teachers. There were several coaches fired in the past week. There usually is around this time of year. It made me think about the real issue. If coaches are going to be fired, so should the management. If a change is in order, it should start at the top. Ultimately, the same old management will use the same old philosophy when it comes to hiring a new coach. I know some universities use a search committee. I know college coaching athletics in general is big business and this isn’t about changing the process, but rather about changing how you see things. What If management was held accountable for hires and had to live like the coaches do? What if the guy you hired was your meal ticket, and if he failed the university, so did the people who hired him. To quote my brother “It ain’t fun when the rabbit has the gun, is it?” The real question is how different would their approach be to hiring coaches?

According to salary.com the median salary for a professor of education is just over $92K. Most range from $78K to $160K annually depending on experience and other factors. I don’t know that you can put a value on professors/teachers or education, but I know they don’t generate millions of dollars annually thanks to big tv contracts.

In my next blog I’ll tell you about the 50k/year job you may not know exists at certain Power 5 conference schools. It’s enlightening.

#collegefootball #markedwards