The money that some high-profile, football-and-basketball-playing universities get from network TV and apparel-and-equipment deals–well into nine figures for multi-year partnerships–is obscene. Then there are the multi-millions routinely doled out to head coaches to deliver enough wins to meet market demands.
Any wonder that schools, and North Carolina and Florida State are merely the most recent examples, are pressured like never before to win–not just “compete.” Any wonder that academic fraud (UNC) and police-blotter behavior (FSU) are increasingly in the news. Any wonder that embarrassed university presidents are bringing in guest-speaker “role models” and mandating “social responsibility” classes for “student-athletes.”
In short, when you have to put quotation marks around “student-athletes,” you know you have an inherent problem. When you have to go out of your way to tell prized recruits that they can’t punch women, you know you have been enabling a societal malignancy.