In 2014, University of Maryland spent $155 million for athletic facilities upgrades, Baylor’s football stadium cost nearly $270 million. Most of the money came from bonds, so injuries, academics, common sense, mean nothing when debt has to be serviced.
Back in 1965, then 21 year old Mario Savio gave his famous “place our bodies on the gears of the machine” speech at UC Berkeley. He decried the transformation of the university into a corporate enterprise, in which the students become nothing more than raw material. Maryland football players are, in fact, raw material needed to maintain the corporate style governance evident at USAAmerican universities. Don’t expect anything to change…..
charlie: I’m afraid you’re right. We can expect things to change for a little while. That’s all.
The only way they really change is the SMU way – death penalty, which even 30 years later seems to have kept them from being competitive enough to kill any of their players.
Or UMD may decide to shut down its football program – temporarily.
UD, a few years ago, Northwestern University football players attempted to form a union. The reason was to have some say in their lives, that they had no time to actually be students and fulfill the student athlete advertising copy. The full weight of media, NCAA, and uni admins and boosters fell on those athletes, and the proposal was defeated. If scholarship okayers were unionized, it’s highly unlikely this young man would be dead….
that’s well said Charlie, the land grant (Ag, Tech, Mining,Forestry) schools were established to extract/exploit resources and we shouldn’t be surprised when crony-capitalists and their pet legislators continue down that path, all too predictable.
dmf, the second uni I attended was Oregon State, a land grant. Try getting them to make a stand against any big timber policy or scheme. Ain’t never gonna happen….
August 16th, 2018 at 9:59AM
In 2014, University of Maryland spent $155 million for athletic facilities upgrades, Baylor’s football stadium cost nearly $270 million. Most of the money came from bonds, so injuries, academics, common sense, mean nothing when debt has to be serviced.
Back in 1965, then 21 year old Mario Savio gave his famous “place our bodies on the gears of the machine” speech at UC Berkeley. He decried the transformation of the university into a corporate enterprise, in which the students become nothing more than raw material. Maryland football players are, in fact, raw material needed to maintain the corporate style governance evident at USAAmerican universities. Don’t expect anything to change…..
August 16th, 2018 at 10:18AM
charlie: I’m afraid you’re right. We can expect things to change for a little while. That’s all.
The only way they really change is the SMU way – death penalty, which even 30 years later seems to have kept them from being competitive enough to kill any of their players.
Or UMD may decide to shut down its football program – temporarily.
August 16th, 2018 at 10:46AM
UD, a few years ago, Northwestern University football players attempted to form a union. The reason was to have some say in their lives, that they had no time to actually be students and fulfill the student athlete advertising copy. The full weight of media, NCAA, and uni admins and boosters fell on those athletes, and the proposal was defeated. If scholarship okayers were unionized, it’s highly unlikely this young man would be dead….
August 16th, 2018 at 11:04AM
Or, as you say, don’t allow football teams to be good enough to kill people. That would be hilarious if it weren’t so god damn tragic….
August 16th, 2018 at 1:33PM
that’s well said Charlie, the land grant (Ag, Tech, Mining,Forestry) schools were established to extract/exploit resources and we shouldn’t be surprised when crony-capitalists and their pet legislators continue down that path, all too predictable.
August 17th, 2018 at 8:14AM
dmf, the second uni I attended was Oregon State, a land grant. Try getting them to make a stand against any big timber policy or scheme. Ain’t never gonna happen….