When non-intramural sports were welded to institutions of higher learning, only a sage could've seen the endgame.
But in 2015, there are literally billions of dollars on the line, and coaches are under a lot of pressure to win. One way to win games is to get the best athletes on your team. Unfortunately, athletes are a lot like the general public, in that they're bad students.
Some schools, like Stanford or Wisconsin, don't bend their admission rules. Of those two schools, however, only Stanford has won a national championship, and it occurred in 1940.
Auburn, by comparison, last won a national title in 2010.
From WSJ.com:
In 2013, Auburn University’s curriculum review committee took up the case of a small, unpopular undergraduate major called public administration. After concluding that the major added very little to the school’s academic mission, the committee voted to eliminate it.
But according to internal documents and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the committee’s decision was ultimately overruled by top administrators after it met significant opposition from another powerful force on campus: Auburn’s athletic department.
[...]
Auburn faculty members, in interviews, said the athletic department’s interest in public administration represents a troubling new development. Michael Stern, the chairman of Auburn’s economics department and a former member of the faculty senate, said athletics is so powerful at Auburn that it operates like a “second university.” Whenever athletic interests intersect with an academic matter, he said, “it’s a different kind of process.”
How Auburn athletics attempt to resolve this issue? Funny you should ask.
Auburn confirmed Wednesday that athletic department officials had offered to subsidize public administration during the meeting with Boosinger, but the provost had turned the offer down.
Waters, through a spokesman, said he told the provost during the meeting that he was concerned that cutting the major might have a “detrimental impact on the academic experience of students enrolled in that program.”
Auburn said the decision to save the major was Boosinger’s and that the provost changed his mind because the new dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Joseph Aistrup, asked to keep public administration open.
And that, my friends, is how the sausage gets made in big-time athletics.
