为什么美国大学如此注重体育而不是学术?
2022-10-10 兰陵笑笑生 6656
正文翻译

Why are American universities so focused on sports over academics?

为什么美国大学如此注重体育而不是学术?

评论翻译
Jeff Lewis
Studied at University of Maryland, College Park
They're not. I went to the University of Maryland, which is a pretty typical big state school. Our basketball team won the national championship the year I graduated. Our football team went to the Orange Bowl the following year. Our lacrosse team is the current reigning national champion. All that's to say that, even if we're not a Crimson Tide or Fightin' Irish, our sports teams are still respectable.
So, what does the overall budget of UMD look like? Here it is. I believe that athletics are included in the 'Auxillary' expenses.
SOURCE: University of Maryland Operating Budget
That chart didn't break out athletics as a separate category, but from other sources*, the athletics budget is around $92M. That's only around 7% of what UMD spends on Research and Instruction, and only around 3.7% of the total budget. And the Athletics department actually brings in a decent amount of money through marketing and ticket sales (though apparently, not enough to pay for itself**), so it's even less of a drain on University resources than those numbers.
And from personal experience, I can tell you that even though a lot of my friends liked to support our teams and go to games, nobody took sports more seriously than their own academics. Nobody was putting themselves through a 4-5 year degree program with all the associated work, stress, and tuition, just to be able to sit in the student section at football games. Sports were a welcome distraction, but far from the focus of our college life.
So sure, sports are a big deal at American universities. And they may get more attention on TV because it's more fun to watch a football game than it is to watch a bunch of students taking an exam, but academics and research are far more important to universities than their sports programs.

曾就读于马里兰大学大学公园分校
并非如此。我上的是马里兰大学,这是一所非常典型的大州学校。我毕业那年,我们的篮球队赢得了全国冠军。我们的橄榄球队在第二年参加了橘子碗比赛。我们的长曲棍球队是目前卫冕的全国冠军。所有这些都说明,即使我们不是红潮队或爱尔兰战士队,我们的运动队仍然是值得尊敬的。
那么,UMD的总体预算是什么样子的呢?如下图所示。我相信体育运动被包括在"辅助"费用中。



资料来源:马里兰大学。马里兰大学运营预算
该图表没有将体育作为一个单独的类别,但从其他来源*来看,体育预算约为9200万美元。这只占UMD研究和教学支出的7%左右,只占总预算的3.7%左右。而且,体育部门实际上通过营销和门票销售带来了相当数量的资金(尽管显然不足以支付自己花掉的费用**),所以它对大学资源的消耗甚至比这些数字还要少。
根据个人经验,我可以告诉你,尽管我的很多朋友都喜欢支持我们的球队并去看比赛,但没有人把对待体育比对待他们自己的学业更认真。没有人把自己通过4-5年的学位课程,以及所有相关的工作、压力和学费等付出的一切,只是为了能够在足球比赛中坐在学生区。体育是一种受欢迎的消遣方式,但远不是我们大学生活的重点。
当然,体育是美国大学的一件大事。它们可能在电视上得到更多关注,因为看一场足球比赛比看一群学生考试更有趣,但学术和研究对大学来说远比它们的体育项目更重要。
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Nate Carmody
Parent of Three Awesome Kids (2001–present)
To roughly summarize, there are 5 major constituencies at big American university, and each has a different priority:
Undergrads care about sex. If they can’t get any sex, they aren’t going to be happy wherever they are. The party culture at many good school is built around this fact. Even schools with no party culture build their social systems to support this.
Faculty care about parking. They don’t live on campus and they don’t want to park and then take a bus to their office. They want parking 50 yards from the door to their building.
Trustees of the school care about the endowment. Some schools (Harvard) are more financial institutions than schools.
The administration cares about the US News & World Reports rankings. If their ranking gets better, they are doing well, if their ranking falls, they are not.
Alumni care about football. It is starting to branch out into other sports, but it is still primarily football. This is also the ONLY one of this list that is both interesting and can be put on TV on a weekly basis. So it is both a way to connect to alumni and a way to broadcast something from the school that matters.

三个好孩子的家长(2001年至今)
大致总结一下,在美国的大型大学里有5个主要的群体,每个群体都有着不同的优先关注事项:
·本科生关心的是性。如果他们不能得到任何性爱,那么无论他们在哪里都不会快乐。许多好学校的派对文化都是围绕这一事实建立的。即使没有派对文化的学校也会建立他们的社交体系来支持这一点。
·教师关心停车问题。他们不住在校园里,他们不想把车停在住处,然后坐公交车去他们的办公室。他们希望停车位离他们的大楼门口50码远。
·学校的受托人关心的是捐赠额度。有些学校(哈佛)与其说是学校,不如说是金融机构。
·行政部门关心的是学校在《美国新闻与世界报道》的排名。如果他们的排名变得更好,他们就觉得自己做得很好,如果他们的排名下降,他们就被认为做得不好。
·校友们关心的是足球。这一点现在开始延伸到其他运动了,但仍然主要是橄榄球。这也是这个名单中唯一一个既有趣又能每周上电视的项目。因此,这既是一种与校友联系的方式,也是一种展示学校很厉害的方式。

Ask yourself: “What was the most important scientific paper published by a faculty member at your school in the last 12 months?” If you are like most people, your answer will be “Not only do I not know about the past 12 months or the most important, but I can’t even name any papers by any faculty in the past 5 years.”
Do you know your school’s endowment? Do you want upxes on that every month?
Would you ever really care about the faculty parking lot?
I bet your know your school’s ranking. But that’s 2 minutes of news once a year.
But the football team? That’s accessible and interesting. Maybe even other sports. Looking at my ESPN+ leagues that I can stream, I see pro football, college football, the major föötball leagues (not American football, but what Americans call soccer), then the next most popular leagues are college volleyball, men’s college soccer, and women’s college soccer. That’s a lot of accessible sports. In fact, I can’t wait to watch the 1pm women’s soccer game between Duke and Virginia later today.
(But, I can tell you Virginia’s moving up in the US News & World Reports rankings matters more to me, but I know it is boring)

问问你自己。"在过去的12个月里,你们学校的教员发表的最重要的科学论文是什么?" 如果你像大多数人一样,那么你的答案将会是 "我不仅不知道过去12个月或最重要的,而且我甚至不能说出任何教员在过去5年的论文"。
你知道你的学校的捐赠额吗?你希望每个月都有这方面的更新吗?
你会真正关心教员的停车场吗?
我打赌你知道你的学校的排名。但那只是每年一次的2分钟的新闻。
但橄榄球队呢?那是可以接触到的、有趣的。甚至可能是其他运动。看看ESPN+联赛,我能看到职业橄榄球、大学橄榄球、主要的足球联赛(不是美式足球,而是美国人所说的英式足球),然后接下来最受欢迎的联赛是大学排球、男子大学足球和女子大学足球。这是很容易接触到的运动。事实上,我迫不及待地想看今天晚些时候杜克大学和弗吉尼亚大学之间下午1点的女子足球比赛了。
(但是,我可以告诉你,弗吉尼亚在《美国新闻与世界报告》中的排名上升对我来说更重要,但也我知道这很无聊)。

Sean McDirmid
Nobody cares about what the grad students want.

没有人关心研究生们想要什么。

Chris Miranda
I came here looking for this comment, was not disappointed

我是来找这个评论的,没有失望。

Robert Trout
And they want free tuition and to get paid for helping profs with research etc

他们希望免学费,并通过帮助教授进行研究来获得报酬,等等。

Sean McDirmid
We got paid a small stipend and tuition compared to the 100x we could have made in industry with the opportunity cost to go with it. The university is just balancing supply and demand in this case.

与我们在工业界可以赚到的100倍的机会成本相比,我们得到的津贴和减免的学费是很少的。在这种情况下,大学只是在平衡供应和需求。

Greg Kemnitz
And the quality of the football team definitely has an effect on the endowment - and even the US News & WR rankings.
Alumni are more willing to open their wallets if the football team wins enough to be interesting and on national television from time to time.
A school that gets “famous” due to having an elite football program attracts better students and more applicants, improving the college’s rankings.
Better students may well mean easier faculty recruiting in the long run, so the whole institution can ultimately benefit.

而橄榄球队的质量肯定会对学校捐赠产生影响--甚至对美国新闻和世界报道排名产生影响。
如果橄榄球队赢得足够多的比赛,让人感兴趣,并时常出现在国家电视台上,那么校友们就更愿意打开他们的钱包。
一个因拥有精英橄榄球项目而"出名"的学校会吸引更好的学生和更多的申请人,从而提高学院的排名。
从长远来看,更好的学生很可能意味着更容易招募到教师,所以整个机构最终都能受益。

Robert Trout
The Ivys do a great job of attracting super students without having ranked football teams. Add in Cal Tech, Chicago, Harvey Mudd, MIT, John’s Hopkins abd others.

常春藤大学在吸引超级学生的加入方面做得很好,而没有排得上名号的橄榄球队。包括加州理工学院、芝加哥、哈维穆德、麻省理工学院、约翰霍普金斯大学和其他大学也是如此。

Van Damme
The Ivys and JHU spread their legs for recruited athletes too.

常春藤大学和霍普金斯大学也会为招募的运动员张开双腿。

Robert Trout
Sure they do. Is the football coach the highest paid person at Harvard? If the answer is no then sports Are not as important at Iveys as elsewhere. In nearly every state in the US the highest paid public employee is a football or basketball coach (NC, KY) in the state. The exceptions can be found in Ivy- land. CT, MA, RI, VT, NH

当然。但是橄榄球教练是哈佛大学收入最高的人吗?如果答案是否定的,那么体育在常春藤等大学就不像其他地方那么重要。在美国几乎每个州,工资最高的公职人员都是该州的橄榄球或篮球教练(北卡罗来纳州、肯塔基州)。但在常春藤的土地上可以找到例外情况。康涅狄格州、马萨诸塞州、罗德岛州、弗吉尼亚州、新罕布什尔州
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Joshua Cerniglia
Looking at AP there seems to be an inverse relationship between academic and football performance. There are only 3 schools that are in the top 25 for both and 2 of them are in a 4 way tie for 25th academically (so arguably only 1 is). Also, over half of the top 25 schools for football aren’t even in the top 100 for academics.

从AP来看,学术和橄榄球表现之间似乎有一个反比关系。只有3所学校在这两方面都进入了前25名,其中2所学校在学术方面处于4个并列第25名(所以可以说只有1所是)。此外,超过一半的橄榄球前25名的学校甚至没有进入学术前100名。

Optimus Prime
True, but the correlation is obvious that athletes are rarely academically-inclined; and academicians are rarely outstanding athletes. Schools use one to attract the other.

是的,相关性很明显,运动员很少对学术感兴趣;而学者也很少是优秀的运动员。学校只是利用其中一个来吸引另一个。

Joshua Cerniglia
They are inversely correlate most schools that are good at athletics are bad at academics and moat schools that are good at academics are bad at athletic.

它们是成反比的,大多数擅长体育的学校在学术上很差,而擅长学术的学校在体育上也很差。

Jose Lizano
I like how women's soccer is getting better and better!
Many years back I was at the beach with some friends here in Costa Rica. Some random girls asked if we wanted to play soccer with them. I passed by my friends played.
I sat with a nice cold beer and watched how those girls completely demolished my friends + 2 random dudes. Goal after goal, each more imaginative than the last. If I am not mistake the guys did not score.
Things turn sour when one of the random dudes took it too seriusly that women were beating men in a “men's sport”, his ego probably shattered to pieces, and he did a nasty sliding tackle, which the woman jumped over, keeping the ball, but they ended the game after that.
Turns out the girls were the Costa Rican women's national team hahahahaha!
Me, we'll was just lucky to drink beer and watch my friends be unexpectedly trashed to the floor by actual pros!

我喜欢女子足球变得越来越好的样子
许多年前,我和一些朋友在哥斯达黎加这里的海滩上。一些陌生的女孩问我们是否想和她们一起踢足球。我没参加,我的朋友们参加了。
我坐在那里,喝着冰凉的啤酒,看着那些女孩如何完全摧毁了我的朋友和两个路人帅哥。一个接一个的进球,每一个都比上一个更有想象力。如果我没有弄错的话,这些人没有得一分。
当其中一个路人男把女人在"男人的运动"中打败男人看得太严重时,事情就变糟了,他的自尊心可能被击得粉碎,所以做了一个低级的滑铲,女人跳了过去,保住了球,但他们之后就结束了比赛。
结果发现这些女孩是哥斯达黎加女子国家队,哈哈哈哈!
至于我,我们只是很幸运地喝着啤酒,看着我的朋友们意外地被真正的职业球员狠狠摧毁!

AJ Nagaraj
Plagiarism much?
"The three purposes of the university? To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty."
— Clark Kerr, U.C. Berkeley's first chancellor

竟能如此相似?
"大学的三个目的?为学生提供性服务,为毕业校友提供运动,为教师提供停车位"。
- 克拉克-克尔,加州大学伯克利分校的第一任校长
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Mitul Mehta
administrators care about research funding of which US News rankings are partially based on and US News and NCAA rankings drives private donors to give more money. MIT’s football team sucks but we have faculty members who got Nobel Prizes in 2021 and 2020, so I donate to my Alma Mater despite their endowment that is larger than the GDP of some countries.

行政人员关心的是研究经费,而《美国新闻》的排名部分基于此,《美国新闻》和NCAA的排名促使私人捐助者提供更多的资金。麻省理工学院的橄榄球队很烂,但我们的教师在2021年和2020年获得了诺贝尔奖,所以我向我的母校捐款,尽管他们获得的捐赠已经比一些国家的GDP还高。

James Eastwood
I find it interesting that universities seem to be the only business where the employees (faculty, staff) get the closest parking and the customers (students, taxpaying visitors) don’t get any at all.

我发现一个有趣的现象,大学似乎是唯一一个员工(教职员工)可以得到最近的停车位,而顾客(学生、纳税的访客)根本得不到任何停车位的企业。

Ian Campbell
Nope. Government-run more or less anything do the same. My local public swimming pool has the nearest three or four rows in the car park reserved for staff.

不。政府经营的东西或多或少都是这样的。我当地的公共游泳池在停车场最近的三、四排是留给工作人员的。

James Cobban
As an outsider I find it disturbing that in 39 of the 50 states the highest paid public employee in the state is either a football or basketball coach. Not a state department head, or even the president of a university: a football or basketball coach.

作为一个局外人,我发现令人不安的是,在50个州中的39个州,工资最高的公职人员不是橄榄球就是篮球教练。不是国家部门的领导,甚至不是大学的校长:而是橄榄球或篮球教练。

Steve Rubens
And the pleased alumni make contributions which increases the endowment and pleasing the trustees. The large endowment helps rankings (it worked for USC) and pleases the administration. The large endowment also buys more parking spots pleasing the faculty. Finally, a successful football team offers the students more excuses to party.

欣喜的校友们慷慨解囊,从而增加了捐赠,取悦了托管人。大笔捐赠有助于排名的提升(这对南加州大学很有效),又取悦了行政部门。庞大的捐赠也能买到更多的停车位,取悦了教职员工。最后,一支成功的橄榄球队为学生们提供了更多的借口去开派对。

Steven Bordeaux
I say nationalize all colleges, then abolish all college sports, eliminate administrative fat, confine research to a relative handful of schools - all this with a goal of getting most colleges tuition down to around $10,000 per year. Then pay for it 100% with tax dollars for anyone who needs it.

要我说,所有的大学都应该国有化,然后废除所有的大学体育项目,取消行政管理,将研究限制在相对少数的学校中--所有这一切的目标是让大多数大学的学费降到每年1万美元左右。然后用税款为任何需要的人支付100%的费用。

Matthew McCracken
So true about the parking. A wealthy alum from my school gave me a “red parking pass” for my campus which allowed me to basically park one over from the handicapped spots in front of every building. I drove an old, beat-up chevy truck so you knew it wasn’t a professor or wealthy alumni parking there. Anyway, I learned early on, I couldn’t park in front of whatever building my class was in lest my professor find out I had this prime parking pass and then resent me for the rest of the semester.

停车位这部分太真实了。我学校的一位富哥校友给了我一张校园的"红色停车证",这让我基本上可以把车停在每栋楼前的残疾人停车位上。我开着一辆破旧的雪佛兰卡车,所以你可以知道不是教授或富有的校友把车停在那里。总之,我很早就知道,我不能把车停在我的班级所在的任何大楼前面,以免我的教授发现我有这张优质停车证,然后在剩下的学期里对我不满。

David Johnson
My mom was a college professor and let me tell you parking was not a fucking joke… shit was hunger games

我妈妈是一名大学教授,让我告诉你,停车不是一个笑话......而是一个饥饿游戏。

Choose to be Happy
Totally agree. I had so happen to attend a university who once was revered for his football program, basically took it out and decided to focus on education. Not going to lie, having no football team sort of defeated the “u.s American college experience.” However, over time I realize it’s for the best. Instead we just had seasonal sports where we could form a team for soccer, football, tennis and basketball then play against other college students from our own school.

完全同意。我碰巧参加了一所大学,这所大学曾经因其橄榄球项目而受到推崇,后来基本上把它拿掉了,决定把重点放在教育上。不瞒你说,失去了橄榄球队让"典型的美国大学生活"有点失败。然而,随着时间的推移,我意识到这是最好的选择。相反,我们只有季节性的运动,我们可以组成一个足球、橄榄球、网球和篮球队,然后与我们自己学校的其他大学生比赛。

John Preston Ford
Despite being quite loud, the % of young adults having and seeking casual sex is actually a pretty small minority. Same with drinking, drugs, party culture in general.

尽管发出的声音很大,但拥有和寻求随意性行为的年轻成年人的百分比实际上是一个相当小的少数。喝酒、吸毒、聚会文化也是如此。

James Bruno
My crappy rural high school elevated sports over academics to the point of even diverting precious funds from text books to purchasing fancy jackets for the venerated football team. I therefore made sure I attended undergrad and grad schools where sports was way down the list of priorities. Academics ruled. This obsession with sports at U.S. colleges distorts the whole purpose of getting a higher education and makes us look like a population straight out of the movie, “Idiocracy.” So, if you’re truly serious about getting a quality education, take a pass on Ol’ Miss and shoot for Columbia, et al.

我那所蹩脚的农村高中把体育看得比学术还重要,甚至把宝贵的资金从课堂上挪用到为受人尊敬的橄榄球队购买花哨的外套上。因此,我在找本科和研究生大学就读时,找的都是体育处于优先事项底部的大学。学术应该占主导地位。美国大学对体育的痴迷扭曲了接受高等教育的整个目的,使我们看起来像从电影"白痴 "中走出来的人。因此,如果你真的想获得高质量的教育,请放弃密西西比大学,而选择哥伦比亚大学等。

Sam Sprague
If they started televising the undergrad sex I might watch that.

如果他们开始转播本科生的性生活,我可能会看。

Viswanatha
How come American Universities are in top at innovation and discovery in S&T? If they are like what you said above! Please clarify!

为什么美国大学在科技创新和发现方面名列前茅?如果他们像你上面所说的那样! 请澄清一下!

Souparna Bhattacharjee
Two words “industry interaction" ofcourse lots of money pumped in by companies in r&d and not loaded with useless coursework to fill up credits helps a lot!!!

两个词"行业互动",当然,公司在研发方面投入了大量资金,而不是用无用的课程作业来填补学分,这对我们有很大的帮助!!
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C. Lang
BSEE and MSEE grad
Money and publicity.
College sports, which used to be a way for colleges to engage students, give them an activity to participate in and to facilitate school spirit (a long, long time ago, like turn of the last century long time ago), have morphed into money making machines and a recruiting tool.
There is BIG money in college sports. TV money, money to play in various conferences, revenue from ticket sales to games, particularly bowl games/championship games(which are purchased by the general public as well as students), and licensing deals with athletic companies (you think that jersey with your favorite college logo was given to that jersey company for free?) feed college coffers and attract the best coaches.
College sports also act as part of the brand. My alma mater, UCLA, is not only known for its academics, it is also known for its sports programs—that is true of just about every school in the Pac-12. UC Berkeley, Stanford, and USC are also in the Pac-12 and are also known for their academic programs. Every fall the university gets free advertising on TVs around the country during football season, and every spring during basketball season. There are many college students who consider going to a football/basketball school to be important even if academia is also important to them-many students who attend a Pac-12 School or a Big Ten school fall into this category.

金钱和宣传。
大学体育曾经是大学吸引学生的一种方式,给他们提供一个可以参与的活动,并促进学校精神(很久很久以前,差不多是上世纪初的事情了),现在已经演变成赚钱的机器和招募的工具。
大学体育中存在巨大的财富。电视转播费、参加各种大会的费用、比赛门票的销售收入,特别是碗赛/冠军赛(公众和学生都会购买),以及与体育公司的许可交易(你认为印有你最喜欢的大学标志的球衣是免费提供给该球衣公司的吗),这些都为大学库房提供资金,并吸引最好的教练。
大学体育也是品牌的一部分。我的母校加州大学洛杉矶分校不仅以学术闻名,还以其体育项目闻名--太平洋十二校联盟的每所学校都是如此。加州大学伯克利分校、斯坦福大学和南加州大学也在太平洋十二校联盟里,也以其学术项目而闻名。每年秋天的橄榄球赛季,大学都会在全国各地的电视上获得一次免费广告,每年春天的篮球赛季也是如此。有许多大学生认为去橄榄球/篮球厉害的学校很重要,即使学术对他们来说也很重要--许多在太平洋十二校联盟学校或十大联盟学校上学的学生都属于这一类。

Branding also works well for schools that aren’t as top tier when it comes to academics. If you aren’t a great school or a middling one (like many of the schools in the South or Midwest) college sports can be a way to attract students who might not have the interest in attending a very competitive school or have the grades to do so but have the desire and ability to complete a college program. In many cases, the school is only known for being a football/basketball school but a middling to below average academic institution in most parts of the country and that is all the student body cares about in large part.
Also, college sports are increasingly a feeder for professional sports teams. Players who are looking for professional careers will be attracted to the best football schools, which in turn gives the school a higher profile. The NBA and NFL will look more seriously at a college athlete that plays well for a school that has a top football or basketball program than they would at a school whose program is not as good. Professional players are also high profile alumnae who often will donate to their alma mater or otherwise still be closely lixed to the school. A football player or basketball player who is well known is always associated with his alma mater in the public’s mind YEARS after that person graduated—most people know Brett Farve went to Ol’ Miss, or OJ Simpson was a USC grad even though it’s been decades since either one was in college.

对于那些在学术方面不那么顶尖的学校来说,这对于学校品牌建设也很有效。如果你不是一个伟大的学校或只是一个中等的学校(如南方或中西部的许多学校),大学体育可以成为吸引学生的一种方式,这些学生可能没有兴趣去一个非常有竞争力的学校,或没有足够的成绩,但有愿望和能力完成普通大学课程。在许多情况下,学校即使在全国大部分地区处于中等至低于平均水平,但因是一所橄榄球/篮球学校而闻名,这在很大程度上是学生群体关心的全部。
另外,大学体育越来越成为职业运动队的养料。追求职业生涯的球员将被吸引到最好的橄榄球学校,这反过来又给学校带来更高的知名度。NBA和NFL会更认真地看待一个在拥有顶级橄榄球或篮球项目的学校发挥出色的大学运动员,但不会这么看待那些体育项目不那么好的学校。职业球员也是高调的校友,他们往往会向母校捐款,或以其他方式与学校仍有密切联系。一个知名的橄榄球运动员或篮球运动员在毕业后的几年里,在公众心目中总是与他的母校联系在一起--大多数人都知道布雷特-法夫是密西西比大学的学生,或者辛普森是南加州大学的毕业生,尽管离这两个人在大学时已经过去了几十年。

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