Take the money and go, USC
Re “Stanford’s uneven football playing field,” Opinion, Sept. 13
Like Glenn Kramon, I watched the USC-Stanford game on Sept. 10 with a sense of displacement. Like him, I —a USC graduate — found myself cheering for the other team, Stanford.
This is because unlike Kramon, I object to the increasing professionalism of college athletes. I admire Stanford for holding the line on transfers and keeping competition in perspective. I am particularly upset with the decision of USC and UCLA to leave the Pac-12 Conference, abandoning century-old traditions like the USC-Stanford rivalry.
If the NFL needs a minor league system to recruit players, let them pay for it. Do not encourage academic institutions to subsidize one of the most profitable businesses around.
Few universities balance their athletic program costs. Many get involved in scandal and compromised activities that are far removed from the intellectual purposes of their schools.
I have communicated my dissatisfaction to my alma mater, which seems to not care about it. So that makes my distancing from the university less painful. Glen Mowrer
Santa Barbara
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The commercialization of college football was inevitable. Football players have been recruited for years by universities only interested in how much power they could display on the gridiron.
College football is big business. Thus, it is not unreasonable to pay those who do the work.
And yet, it is possible that universities such as Stanford could function simply on the basis of their academic offerings.
Kramon thinks high school seniors would be less interested in going to a university without a football team. Is that why UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine have to fight applicants off with a stick? Caltech seems to manage to recruit students too.
Erica Hahn Monrovia
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Money’s influence has polluted all sports, and its effect on the collegiate level is particularly disgusting.
Why is it accepted that Major League Baseball draws most of its players from its minor league system, which is a business, while the NFL, NBA and WNBA use colleges as their minor league at no major cost?
These leagues should not recruit from colleges and be required to recruit their new players from non-collegiate pro or semipro minor leagues.
Stu Bernstein
Santa Monica