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?

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.

Cut-away from Beavers' game to Ford service clogs KOIN lines

Amazing.

Yesterday, thousands in Oregon and Missouri had settled comfortably and avidly into watching the Sun Bowl in El Paso. It turned out to be a terrific game, won in the final seconds by the OSU Beavs.

But near the end of the second quarter, the outcome of the entire broadcast itself was thrown into serious doubt.

In the middle of Beavers's drive, KOIN TV and CBS suddenly cut away. No, not to breaking news of the expected hanging of Saddam Hussein, which would come later, but to a private memorial service for former President Gerald Ford at the Ford family church in Palm Desert, California.

Suddenly we were jarred from the roar of the Sun Bowl crowd to hushed, funereal coverage sprinkled with such trenchant detail such as a description the late president's favorite ice cream flavor.

The interruption clogged KOIN's telephone lines, and deservedly so.

I finally e-mailed my complaint and eventually got a response that the decision to break into the football game was made in New York.

Well, duh.

My guess is that if Ford, a star lineman at the University of Michigan and an avid football fan, had had his say, he'd be complaining about the interruption too.

The coverage from Palm Desert ended just in time for the commercial-clogged half-time show in El Paso, but the entire second half was clouded by the possibility that Saddam's execution would break into the game's riveting finish.

By some miracle, it didn't