Sports detract from education

I applaud Shawn Vestal’s June 17 column (“Imagine if the tables were turned on school and athletics funding”). Somewhere along the American academic path, we swapped the curricular with the extra-curricular. And now, we have professional, er, I mean nationally televised, multi-billion dollar amateur teams at every major university.

Of course the NCAA must maintain that the players are not even semi-pro, but amateurs, so they only have to offer the coaches a salary. I could continue, because this is only the beginning of the corrupt nomenclature.

Yet, the WSU incident is only indicative of what is occurring in universities across the country: students and the government are asked to fulfill the multi-million-dollar whims of athletic programs. Their request is based on the “future” return of their “investment.”

I, for one, am confident that WSU or any other university will be able to offer the same level of education without a multi-million-dollar athletic program. Since these programs are confident in their profitability, maybe they should start their own league separate from our places of learning. Tell your alma maters that we don’t need multi-million-dollar Leaches at our schools.

Paul Lee

Spokane