Σ School Spirit. If a person takes pride in one's community many benefits ensue; similarly disaffection from one's environment and associates can make life unpleasant and a person listless. Last winter a freshman at Boston College told me that he first realized he was "home" at BC when he rushed the court following a rousing basketball victory over arch rival Syracuse. By arriving "home" he reduced some of the usual freshman anxieties about life away from his family. "At home" at Boston College he will now be able to focus his energies on the academic and co-curricular activities that constitute the heart of college life. A productive life becomes more possible with pride in one's community. Intercollegiate sports is one way of generating such pride in one's university.
Spectator sports are enjoyable to view; often the lasting memories from college surround an exciting game. A fall afternoon, thousands of cheering fans, marching bands, colorful cheer leaders and the two rival teams competing on the field--this spectacle can cause a great rush of adrenalin for many--students, alumni, parents and others only loosely associated with a university. Years later friendships will be renewed by recalling the thrill of an overtime hockey victory for a national championship or the dismay at being stuffed four times at the one yard line in a frustrating loss. When evaluating college sports one must not be overly earnest. After all sports are intended to be a diversion; they are meant to be entertaining. The banter and sociability surrounding a sporting event bring enjoyment to many. I think that is good. Some angry philippics against college sports seem to stem from a fear that someone somewhere is having a good time. It has been remarked that the Puritans were opposed to bear-baiting not so much because of the pain it caused the bears as for the entertainment afforded spectators.
Boston College offers orientation programs each summer for 2200 matriculating students as well as parallel programs for parents. Before returning home the parents ransack the Boston College bookstore for sweatshirts and caps emblazoned with eagles and the school seal replete with its mystifying Greek motto. These sweatshirts and caps will be worn proudly in several weeks upon the parents' return for a Parents' Weekend that concludes with a Boston College football game. This sporting event thus becomes an event that allows parents to identify in a special way with the university that will be their children's home for the next four years. Is it too much to claim that this football game initiates a new stage in the relationship between parents and the young adults who have left home, really, for the first time? At the very least this sporting event annually becomes a focal point for celebrating the Boston College extended family.
Σ Enrollment Goals. In addition to fostering a union of students and parents with their university, can sports also be an instrument to achieve various enrollment goals? Do sports attract students to a university? Do they attract certain targeted students? Are there any costs associated with this strategy? Admission officers at colleges debate whether there is a "Flutie factor" in a student's choice of college. Does a successful sports program, a "hail Mary" Doug Flutie pass, a Northwestern Rose Bowl victory, the Knute Rockne tradition at Notre Dame, Gonzaga's remarkable basketball success--do these sporting phenomena actually attract qualified students to a university? I suspect Notre Dame feels it does. But what about Boston College, Northwestern, and Gonzaga? Some years ago a bright student from Hattiesburg, Mississippi told me that he first thought of attending Boston College after watching on TV Boston College defeat Notre Dame with a last second field goal. I have considerable anecdotal evidence derived from numerous conversations over lunch in the Eagles Nest at Boston College that a strong sports program is one of the factors that does attract academically strong students to Boston College.
One "Hail Mary" pass won't do the trick, however. Evidence supporting the existence of a simple "Flutie Factor" is thin. Boston College's applications were growing in the years before that pass in the Boston College-Miami game and have continued to rise even though most high school seniors today may well not be influenced by a 1984 football game. But the presence of sports at a school does appeal to students. They enjoy the sociability of attending games with fellow students; they take pride in attending a university that is known and recognized by their peers. Students look forward to pulling out that sweatshirt purchased during orientation and wearing it in the mall at Thanksgiving or when flying home at Christmas knowing their university will be recognized. One rousing victory alone doesn't generate this recognition; but one big game can call attention to the university especially if you are from Hattiesburg and thinking of going to Notre Dame.
Can a sports program be used to attract certain kinds of students? All Jesuit universities have more female than male undergraduate students. In several the female percentage approaches two-thirds of the total enrollment. A generation ago there were more men than women attending college. Today fifty-four percent of four-year college students are women. So again Jesuit universities find themselves in the mainstream of American higher education. How should Jesuit universities respond to this development? No response would be called for if Jesuit universities wished to become women's colleges. But since presumably this is not the case and there probably is a tipping point beyond which both women and men who wish to attend a coed university may be deterred from attending a university whose enrollment is becoming single sex, Jesuit universities must be concerned about this growing female/male disparity.
A carefully designed sports program may offer some assistance in addressing this problem. Certain sports are more popular among men than women. Ice hockey is one of these and perhaps also football. These are also, along with basketball, the principal collegiate spectator sports. My experience at Boston College suggests that a carefully designed array of sports might well be useful in making a university more male-friendly. Such efforts, of course, will need to be complemented by other considerations such as the mix of a university's academic offerings before the female/male ratio issue can be appropriately addressed. Can a sports program be designed to attract minority students? Perhaps. Georgetown University's appeal to African-American students has been enhanced by the high visibility and great success of its basketball program with stars like Patrick Ewing and the tutelage of John Thompson.
Do the students participating in the Division 1 sports program at Boston College seriously compromise the overall intellectual climate of the university? Or do athletes pursue their studies in a manner similar to other students and graduate with their classmates? The answers to these two questions are probably not and probably yes. Granted athletes are sometimes admitted to the university under different criteria than many of their fellow students. But athletes are not the only students so admitted in this fashion. All universities balance many institutional and societal goals in deciding which students to enroll. Consequently the student body is enriched in ways that would not be achieved by pursuing an admission policy defined exclusively in terms of SATs and class rank.
Athletes at Boston College graduate at the same rate as do other BC students ranking Boston College consistently with Duke, Northwestern and Notre Dame among universities with major sports programs. Over the past eight years the average graduation rate for football players at Boston College was 87 percent, while the graduation rate for all BC students during that period fluctuated between 85 and 88 percent.
Σ Alumni Affiliation. Acute observers have remarked two major differences between American and European universities. In contrast with the European experience, alumni of American universities continue long after graduation to identify with alma mater, maintain close contact with fellow alumni and financially support their universities; and American universities unlike their European universities have popular intercollegiate sports programs. There is little doubt that for many alumni an emotional attachment to their university is maintained by a continuing interest in the university's sports exploits. Apparently Europeans have long been puzzled by this American fascination with sports. The Jesuit publication Company reports that the first Italian Jesuits at Santa Clara in the 1850s "…were surprised at the American love of athletic competition. There are no conversations `in which sports are not spoken of' complained a newly arrived Italian.'" (Company (Summer 2001), p. 19)
Many university functions to entice alumni back to campus are scheduled in connection with sporting events--homecoming football games, for example. Boston College held the kickoff for its capital campaign in northern California on the eve of the Boston College/Stanford football game last fall. This sporting event was a catalyst that energized support for the campaign among alumni, parents and friends of the university.
Σ Mens Sana in Corpore Sano. The vast majority of the nearly ten thousand athletes in Jesuit universities will never appear on television, never hear the roar of thousands of fans cheering a last minute slam dunk to win a conference championship, nor cherish a hope, however remote, for a professional career. But all athletes follow a rigorous training regimen, balance their team obligations with other demands of college life and in the process learn the meaning of teamwork, discipline, and the sacrifice associated with the pursuit of a common goal. All athletes at some moment experience defeat and then must move on with their lives; they will also taste success and it is hoped will learn to be gracious. These are important lessons learned from competitive sports that are fully consistent with the Jesuit educational goal of promoting emotional and spiritual maturity among students.
Conclusion
Many charges against intercollegiate sports have some validity--promotion of an irresponsible sports mania, exploitation of minority students who receive neither a diploma nor become a professional athlete, and the dilution of the student body with academically-challenged athletes. These charges, however, do not seem compelling when brought against Jesuit universities, at least not in my experience at Boston College. There certainly are costs associated with college sports; some are the costs of vigilance against the charges discussed in this paper; some are the financial costs of supporting coaches, team travel, and facilities as well as tuition remission in those universities with athletic scholarships. The financial costs as a percent of a university's total operating budget may be highest in those schools with modest sports programs since these programs generate little or no revenue. Dollars spent on sports indeed are drawn from limited university resources that also must finance directly academic activities as well as various support functions, such as parking facilities, dining halls and wellness centers. The Jesuit university must balance its budget by allocating limited resources across these competing needs based on the judgment of how much each contributes to the overall mission of the university. In my judgment an intercollegiate sports program makes a positive contribution to Jesuit education and so is entitled to sit at the budgetary table and receive an appropriate piece of the financial pie.
Sports are an integral part of the American higher education scene; on the whole their contribution is positive; and they have much to contribute to the Jesuit educational mission. Jesuit universities would be ill-advised to turn their back on their sports tradition in some misguided desire to become pure. Recall Charles Peguy's observation--one can keep one's hands entirely clean only if one were to cut off one's arms. Sometimes the price for absolute cleanliness is too high.
ENDNOTES
1. Ronald A. Smith, Sports and Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, p.214
2. Murray Sperber, Beer and Circus, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000, 380pp.
3. James Shulman and William Bowen, The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 447pp.