Speaking of offensive names, drop "The Civil War"

Now that the Oregon Board of Education has demonstrated ethnic sensitivity by ordering the dropping of high school sports mascots variously representing stereotypes of Native Americans, isn't it time the Oregon Board of (allegedly) Higher Education showed the same sensitivity about "The Civil War," the pathetic name of the overheated and much hyped rivalry between Oregon State and the University of Oregon.

If we can mandate the end of the 'Braves," the "Warriors" and the "Indians," we can certainly end "The Civil War," a name which celebrates death, destruction and internal strife without regard to skin color, ethnicity, gender or combat status.

It should offend us all.

Consider the view of Tom Ball, an assistant vice president at the University of Oregon’s Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, regarding the Native American names.

In a March 8 Oregonian article, Ball, who is a member of the Klamath Tribes, recalled a 1978 incident at Siletz Valley High School, whose mascot is the Warrior. A coach loudly yelled to his players to “kill” their opponents, using an expletive and a pejorative term for Native Americans.

“That’s what this kind of stuff allows,” Ball said. “It builds up over time. Little cuts and big ones. They build up and build up.”

Likewise, this is the kind of "stuff" "Civil Wars" allow. And they too build over time.

When winning produces losers

Recently, The Oregonian ran a front-page story about how the grades of male university students in Eugene declined as the fortunes of the Ducks’ football team improved.

Of the male students, one of the researchers said: “They drink more when the team wins, they party more when the team wins, and they study less when the team wins.”

You can tell where this might lead. Note that the study was done by economists. The obvious question is whether the same phenomenon might be at work in the economy. Could the findings about students be applied to sports-crazed Duck alumni?

“They drink more when the team wins, they party more when the team wins, and they WORK less when the team wins.”

The study also raises questions about professional sports. Consider Green Bay, Wisconsin, whose Packers are on a tear. How’s the economy in Green Bay and its surroundings? Could "Cheeseheadedness" explain Wisconsin's political problems?

And more generally, could there be a feminist interpretation to all this. The researchers found that women at the University of Oregon were unaffected by the fortunes of the Duck football team. Generally females do better in school at all levels than males do. Could this have something to do with the male obsession with/addiction to all things sports?

Finally, if winning on the field produces losers in the classroom, do losing athletic teams produce academic winners?

And, getting back to the economy and civic life, could Chicago's grit have something to do with its hapless Cubs?

Oh, THAT Civil War....

A note to Oregonian sports fans:

All this talk about the 150th anniversary of The Civil War must seem confusing.

It may come as a surprise, but the press attention to The Civil War is not to the intra-state rivalry between Oregon State and the University of Oregon.

There was this other Civil War. It was an actual WAR. You can read about it here.

More than half million Americans died in The Civil War. There were no "bragging rights" in front of TV cameras. No trophy to display. There was nothing to brag about.

Brothers butchered brothers.

There were no coaches and so-called "scholar-athletes" seeking fame and multi-million dollar NFL and NBA contracts; just generals and soldiers set upon slaughtering each other.

The Civil War now getting fleeting attention was, in fact, a blood-drenched, body-breaking national tragedy.

Oregonians (and sports writers and editors) who trivialize the carnage and destruction by naming petty and passing sports rivalries "The Civil War" dishonor this nation's history and horror.

That this good state's citizenry can't end the disrespect astounds me.

Phil's Folly wags the Ducks

Phil Knight is at it again, this time with a $41.7 million over-the-top, luxury clubhouse for University of Oregon athletes.

UO officials continue to let the feathered tail (Knight, Nike’s billionaire founder) wag the ducks (the university's image and perceived mission). In the past I’ve suggested that “big sports” campuses spin off their athletic programs into amateur leagues that bear no relationship to the campuses and their academics except for traditional names (Ducks, Beavers, Vikings, Slugs, Earthworms or whatever. . . .)

Knight’s most recent duck-wagging may prove I have it backwards. How about the campuses keeping the athletes (and their clubhouses, stadiums, perks, overpaid coaches, television contracts, sponsor endorsements, and publicity machines) and transporting students and faculty to off-campus independent universities?

Sounds as though that’s where things are headed in Eugene, thanks to the sport-obsessed Knight and thousands of season-ticketed alumni seeking nostalgic pride in all the wrong places.

Mystery and ignorance reign in Knight's Duckdom

The Oregon’s public system of higher education is fomenting a mystery.

Billionaire Phil Knight is writing the plot and has no desire for the mystery to be solved — which is a mystery within a mystery.

Worse, the president of the University of Oregon, Richard Lariviere, considers Knight's machinations a mystery too.

Does Lariviere, who is supposed to know what's happening, care?

Not a bit.

It gets worse, as a front page story in today’s Oregonian describes. The entire state board of higher education is equally clueless.

In this know-nothing atmosphere, according to the story, Lariviere Friday browbeat the board into approving, on a day’s notice, a Knight donation (for an undisclosed, mysterious amount) to build a 80,000 square-foot operations center for ... what?

The Duck football team, of course.

How refreshing that Phil, the Beaverton sneaker mogul, has his priorities straight. His OWN priorities.

Oh, and the board agreed that Knight decides who gets the design and construction contracts for the facility, which will be built on public land.

Lariviere’s cudgel with the state board was this: If you don’t accept this gift, Knight may confer his bounty elsewhere.

Say it isn’t so.

Meanwhile, a story immediately above this one on the front page informs the mystified reader that students going to the seven Oregon University system schools next fall will be paying, on average, 6.2 percent more for tuition. That brings the cost of public higher education (including room, board, books and tuition) to about $20,000 a year per student.

And while the increase isn’t the highest in the nation, deep down in the story we learn that the Oregon University system has been judged as failing because it “skimps” on aid to low-income students.

Unless, apparently, they happen to play football.

And to think that all this is happening in the middle of a collapsed economy where intellectual breakthroughs are needed just a tad more than touchdowns and conference titles.

Inquiring minds might ask why the university is building grandiose football facilities while students, with fewer and fewer resources, are being forced to pick up more and more of the education tab and being saddled with greater and greater debt?

The answer and the values behind it remain mysteries, unless you happen to be one Phil Knight.

Campus culture clash: Scholarship and Athletics

Be careful of the metaphor you choose. It can put a lock on your mind.

Take the case of NCAA Division I college sports and how the University of Oregon’s athletic program was described in a New York Times story today.

The story displays a parade of useless metaphors all trying to address a serious problem.

At UO they have a star quarterback, Jeremiah Masoli who has been suspended from the football program after pleading guilty to burglary. (He stole a computer, even though the football program lends laptops to players free. Steal a computer when you can have one for free? And this guy's on a SCHOLARship?)

Then we have the handshake agreement to pay the departing athletic director Mike Bellotti a cool $2.3 million to leave. This sounds like something that might happen at a high-stakes poker game or in golf match between very rich executives. But on a college campus?

There’s more. The University must make bond payments on a new $227 million basketball pavilion. Here a little context is in order: The University of Oregon’s faculty is grossly underpaid and tuition is skyrocketing.

Go figure.

And somewhere lurking in the background is one Phil Knight, NIKE gazillionaire. The story doesn’t delve into the NIKE influence, but clearly Phil lives by his own rules — and he applies them to UO.

Back to the push and pull in the Times story. The quotes from critics of UO athletics frame the issue in metaphors that lock out solutions.

“It’s time for the athletic department to do a little soul searching on how they can serve the university,” said one professor. “The athletic department is out of control here.”

Implied answer: search your soul, serve the university and get things under control.

Also, take three aspirin and go to bed.

A sports psychologist, tipsy on metaphors, says, “We have reached a tipping point. You have to have this homeostatic balance — you can’t just run athletics as an entity by itself. What I think is important is that the University of Oregon is a unique place — most alums and most donors want to see a healthy balance. They want to see a school jump up in the academic rankings and not just see a top-five football team. We are really at a crossroads. I would hope the new administration would see this as a new opportunity and not a Band-Aide.”

Band-Aides, tipping points, homeostasis, healthy balance, crossroads. Got that?

Let me try a straight-forward metaphor.

What we have on this campus — and all NCAA Division I campuses to some degree — is a clash of cultures.

The cultures don’t belong in the same place. They are at odds. They have utterly different goals and values.

Football is mass entertainment, not education. Education is learning, not spectator entertainment. Sure one can, and should, have elements of the other, but that’s where it ends.

Wide receivers “learn” how to run pass routes; physicists and lit majors should get a some entertaining exercise. A little Frisbee perhaps? A jog through an academic glen?

But that’s about it.

Let's stop pretending that high-profile, televised, hyper-commercial, monetized athletics as anything to do with higher education.

Just note the tension in the term “athletic scholarship.” Note the absurdity of calling a collegiate sports rivalry “The Civil War,” which, as students of history know, was a great national tragedy. Note how supposedly educated adults behave like buffoons at athletic events.

Note that this weekend we have headlines screaming that a Portland high school backetball star, Terrence Jones, has chosen to go to the University of Washington, where he will receive a full ride “scholarship.” We all know he will use the Seattle campus/stage as a stepping stone to the professional sports fame. Call me crazy but my guess is that he will not leave the great University of Washington versed in history, literature or philosophy.

Where are the best high school students going? And why don’t we, the general spectator public, care? Why isn’t it news? And will these scholars receive full-ride scholarships? And why will they stay and graduate? And what are their chances for employment out of college? Will they command the same seven-digit salaries that the likes of Terrence Jones will?

Two cultures. Different values. Worlds apart.

The universities, their administrations and their alumni need to choose one. They can’t live in both at once.

The answer is a “National Athletic Association” minus “Collegiate.” It’s where young, talented athletes go to prepare for the professional leagues. If those NAA teams want to locate in college towns and wear college colors and even be “sponsored” by the local university, fine.

But let’s not conflate the two.

Bring on the enemy

Somebody at Portland State needs to clue in Viking football coach Jerry Glanville that his team is not an army, the game is not a war, and the other side is not “the enemy.”

A recent Oregonian story notes Glanville’s advice to freshman starters: “….the enemy doesn't care that this is your first college game.”

The world has enough enemies without Glanville creating more for Portland State.

Two and a half years ago, I wrote about Glanville's twisted rhetoric. In that post, I noted at least one PSU grad shared my view and I quoted him at length.

Glanville hasn't changed over time. Sadly, he is typical of the battleground atmosphere that surrounds collegiate football. And here we thought that college might have something to do with being collegial. That includes inter-collegial.

Glanville’s field-marshal posturing is part of the same violent atmosphere in which LeGarrette Blount slugged a Boise State player in the face following the Ducks' season-opener loss.

In collegiate football, a Glanville keeps his “teaching” job, while Blount keeps his “athletic scholarship.” (The only thing Blount should be keeping is a date before the judge on assault charges.)

It’s all part of the misguided, testosterone-fueled, media-hype madness that still dubs the rivalry between UO and OSU “The Civil War.” (Yes, dear Ducks and Beavers, I'm not letting go of this one.)

And here’s the strange part: Our most highly educated citizens, college graduates, buy into the craziness — wallets wide open. Bring on the season tickets, the car pennants, the pom-pons, the logo-laden paraphernalia.

And, at PSU, bring on the enemy! Let the blood flow.

Misplaced Values

Let the record show that the highest paid public employees in the state are not its public health doctors, not its Supreme Court Justices, not its university presidents and certainly not its governor.

No, the highest paid state employees are the football coaches at its Division 1A universities. They make more than twice as much as the university presidents.

Defenders argue that the football programs are self-supporting, with revenues coming from fans, patrons, broadcasting rights and commercial deals.

But critics like me say it’s a question of values. If you love your university, in the name of wisdom, truth and knowledge, give to its professors and students.

The whole collegiate sports scene has gone over the top, distorting the perception of our universities and their values.

Fortunately, many on the campuses are fighting back. The Coalition on Collegiate Athletics is one of the groups leading the charge.

Here's some of what they are up against.

We learn today — another day of dire economic suffering across this land — that the University of Oregon has agreed to have its new coach-in-waiting, Chip Kelly, make $7 million over five years, plus bonuses of an undetermined amount.

According to this morning's Oregonian, the Duck’s current coach, Mike Bellotti, raked in more than $1.9 million last year. (Be sure to read the comments after The Oregonian story for the flavor of fan support.)

Kelly’s and Bellotti’s bonuses require higher math to determine. They are tied to ticket sales, numbers of televised games, participations in Conference and BCS champions, regular season victories, coaching honors (question: is there an honor for most grotesque compensation package?) and final national rankings.

Oh, and there are incentives for graduation success rates, academic progress rate and scholarship student grade-point averages. Presumably these are measured by grades on the transcripts of “scholar” athletes and not on the old transcripts of the coaches themselves. (“Hey, coach, what was your GPA?”)

A modest suggestion. The universities of this state should follow the example of Honda, which has announced that it is dropping Formula One racing because of the hard times.

With more and more kids unable to pay for college, it’s time to dump football, at least football that has become nothing more than entertainment and has zilch to do with education.

Quick math. If it costs $30,000 for a year’s tuition at a state university, then the pay of just one head football coach (think of the salaries of a whole staff of them) would pay the tuition for 50 students now unable to go to school.

It's time for a values shift regarding what our universities really stand for and why we should support them.