Can you imagine a university president proposing to his or her board of trustees a program that would lose millions of dollars every year and cause brain damage?
No university has to propose such a program. Most already have it. It’s called college football.
There are a handful of universities that make big bucks on this head banging sport. But most lose a bundle. And almost universally, universities across the nation are facing major budget problems. So for those universities that want to save money, help education and reduce brain damage, it’s pretty easy.
Call a press conference and announce your university is eliminating football. Explain how this instantly saves millions.
For most schools, coaching salaries and perks alone will save more than a million. The university won’t have to waste money on recruiting trips, travel, helmets, shoulder pads and pain-killing drugs or on health insurance policies for a program causing injuries that can have lifelong consequences, and I’m not talking about knee surgery.
Instead of giving full-ride scholarships to someone who can throw a block or a tight spiral, universities will now have more funds to give scholarships to students who excel in math and science.
Think of what a potential public relations coup your university can score. Yours could be the university that supports students looking to improve their brainpower instead of supporting a sport that damages it.
From a public health perspective, we are now with football where we were in the 1950s with cigarette smoking. But the damage from smoke in the lungs takes a lot longer to destroy than repeated jarring hits and blows to a young brain.
As current research has shown, a player doesn’t need an NFL career to cause damage.
Researchers at Purdue University, who followed players through a season, discovered football players who had never suffered a concussion performed worse on basic memory tests as the season progressed. Getting banged on the head repeatedly just isn’t good for the brain.
Because university presidents appear to be among the biggest pom-pom wavers for college football, it may be difficult for them to see the twin benefits of saving both dollars and brain tissue.
So here’s a simple suggestion that might help any university president focus his or her thinking on the matter.
For any professor or university student or parent or legislator or taxpayer concerned with education and public health, ask your university president one question: Why would you support an activity that loses several million dollars and causes brain damage?
If your university president doesn’t have a compelling answer supported by facts and substance, then it’s time to ask your university president to stop supporting a sport that a growing body of medical evidence shows is a menace to young, vulnerable and extremely valuable minds.
Karl Idsvoog is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University. His students recently completed a project examining how academic students in the MAC subsidize athletic programs.
