Yes, we buy tickets to watch the players.
But... We want to watch the players because we have some tie to the University. Often, we want to watch them because we once had a player that was in one of our classes or that we saw at Kam's, CO's, The Library, or R&Rs. People that in some way, real or perceived, we could relate to.
It was a shared experience.
And as Frankie Williams once told me, "thanks for paying tuition so I can go to the NBA and make millions of dollars", let's not pretend that these athletes received nothing in return.
A place to showcase talents for future opportunity...Check.
Access to advanced education... Check.
Alumni connections that they can leverage for jobs... Check.
All of this for free when others are now paying $35k a year and more... Check.
We went from one extreme to the other, to a certain degree, to the detriment of the whole. Realistically, most students cannot transfer 4x in 4 years and maintain academic progress for standard graduation.
Tldr: need some guardrails if we're going to continue with the student-athlete illusion.
