PRO:
By Vincent Perez
News editor
Collegiate athletics are not only important to the people involved, such as student athletes, coaches, boosters and parents, sports are essential to education and the institutions themselves.
Many athletes continue their education after community college and do have majors, despite the misconception that the majority only play collegiate athletics to play their favorite sport and to receive scholarships at four-year schools.
While athletes do receive scholarships, those athletes do have majors and throughout all of the athletes I have spoken with at Bakersfield College, I was given the impression that all of them are driven by education and realize the importance of furthering their own education, even if they have to use their sport as a launching pad for their future career, professional athlete or not.
Athletes that compete at the community college level prepare themselves for a bigger step, such as Division 1 or Division 2 football around the nation, and the National Football League as many have already done through the BC football program.
The BC baseball and basketball programs have also had players transfer out to four-year universities and eventually make their own way to the professional leagues.
There are obviously athletes who do depend on scholarships, but they could not receive these scholarships unless their grades were up to standard. No educational institution would risk taking in an athlete unless they were willing to do the work to keep up their GPA.
Various sports bring communities together, especially in a city such as Bakersfield, where young and old can come together to watch a football, baseball, softball, basketball, soccer or even a volleyball game.
BC’s own Memorial Stadium is a 20,000-seat arena in which our football and track and field teams compete with other junior colleges around the state. Thousands walk through the gates to watch football games every season here at BC to create revenue for the school and for the football program.
The $2.3 million Dean and Adah Gay Sports Complex, which is considered the best baseball stadium in the California community college system, brings plenty of pride when students and the community see the baseball field.
Without sports in college, each institution would suffer due to the lack of community support. At BC, not only do athletic teams bring our community together, they unify students for a common goal: teamwork.
In a time when other local educational institutions are making cuts on sports, BC has also taken its hits. Even with travel and other expenses being as costly as they are in sports, BC has not cut any of its sports in such a time that calls for it. In doing so, it is a feat itself when other campuses around the state are cutting sports programs swiftly.
CON:
By David Karnowski
Magazine editor
The primary mission of an institution of education is just that: education. When a college or university is confronted with economic woes, one might hope that the original intent of the college would stay intact.
Bakersfield College and its continued support of athletic programs are an example of this deviance from the fundamental function of providing cheap and effective academic development in our community.
While the value of intercollegiate athletics is not lost upon me, there is an uneven and unjustified balance in our college’s basic mission when we are turning away academic students from full general education classes and still have functioning athletic programs.
Students are struggling to find seats in general education courses such as English, math and science and are even more unlikely to find space available in degree-specific classes.
I understand the importance of team cohesion, physical discipline and the feeling of lifted spirits when an athlete succeeds in individual and group goals, but a quick browse through the college catalog will reveal that no degree or certificate exists for these sport programs with the closest comparison being a single associate’s degree offered in physical education. Believe it or not, our athletes do not earn degrees in football, baseball or swimming.
While campuses across the nation are cutting back sports programs, BC has yet to cut a single team from our athletic programs. This might seem like some magical feat performed by our administrators but I couldn’t disagree more.
Academic based programs, like the award winning BC debate team, have crumbled under the pressure of economic meltdown, yet homecoming this past fall was in full swing in our stadium and around the campus.
I question the classic argument of sports programs being a source of revenue for other academic endeavors. How much money is truly coming from our football program and making its way into the classrooms? Are the costs of maintaining an aging structure like Memorial Stadium included in the analysis of such budgets or are massive expenditures like insurance for the players conveniently left out of the accounting?
This clouding of academic purpose is a significant threat to the education of many.
With our state and national economic vitality not predicted to improve in the near future and more cuts expected to the coming year’s academic budget, the time has come for sports to “take a hit.”
Listed in the values section of the president’s message on the BC Web site are two sentences that ring true.
“Education is the reason our institution exists, both for its own sake and for the benefit of the local, state, and national economy. People who are educated are more geographically and economically mobile and better able to contribute to society as a whole.”