West Point Is Placing Too Much Emphasis On Football

[Kenneth P. Katz]

"As a West Point graduate and faculty member, I find many of these arguments troubling. Academy leaders and alumni have often asserted that performance on the gridiron has a direct impact on our ability to win our nation’s wars and that we therefore have a moral imperative to win in football. But the facts do not support that assertion."

 

Full article here.

[Corinthian]

I am ignorant on how West Point football teams are organized, so I ask: how many captains, majors, colonels, and generals are there that played football for West Point? How many of these officers have commanded battalions, brigades, and divisions, and how did they rate as leaders of these units particularly in combat?

 

Because if it turns out that many of these football players did not end up leading battalions and up, and that if those who did had lackluster performance as leaders, particularly those exposed to combat, then I can see just how bad this obsession on football has become.

[DKTanker]

The service academies really ought to petition the NCAA to allow them to drop down to FCS, Division II would be even better. They really don't belong in the FBS competing against schools with far greater resources, have more time that football players can devote to football, and no concern about what happens to the players after their eligibility has expired.

 

I know of no way to bring the three academies into parity with each other, other than to discontinue the practice of recruiting football players. I think it safe to say that given a choice, an athlete will pick the academy which provides the safest post graduate career. And that wouldn't be the army. However, if the practice of recruiting football players is discontinued then the recruitment for all sports would have to end. And that's just not going to happen either.

[FALightFighter]

GEN Odierno played football. COL Greg Gadson played linebacker www.Belvoir.army.mil/Command/gadson.asp . I don't have any statistics handy. I know that I currently work with two former football players. One did his 5 years, got out and was hired by the army as a civilian computer scientist, building simulations. The other as still an active officer who just completed grad school as an Operations Research/Systems Analyst. I know that Field Artillery has been a popular branch for USMA football players, but can't think of any others off the top of my head.

[Paul in Qatar]

In addition to the direct costs of the academy's football team, consider the prep schools. We have acres of sergeants who would make great officers, but who need a year to get up to speed in calculus or whatever. Those guys can't get in because the prep schools are used to train up high school kids to be football players.

 

All in all, we ought to contract out the football team functions to the NFL. It would be cheaper, we would not have to pay the disability costs and we could pay attention to winning a war.

[EchoFiveMike]

Colleges in general squander too many resources on sports activities, to the extreme detriment of actual education. The money goes to recruit Demonicus Jones whose vertical leap approaches his IQ, instead of people who actually belong in an educational setting.

 

Start a farm league for all the stupid behemoths with athletic capacity but the brain power of a tree stump.

 

You might notice a sudden decrease in campus violence with a corresponding increase in actual learning, if you're not carefully shielding your eyes from reality. S/F....Ken M

Edited March 5, 2014 by EchoFiveMike

[DKTanker]

Colleges in general squander too many resources on sports activities, to the extreme detriment of actual education. The money goes to recruit Demonicus Jones whose vertical leap approaches his IQ, instead of people who actually belong in an educational setting.

 

Start a farm league for all the stupid behemoths with athletic capacity but the brain power of a tree stump.

 

You might notice a sudden decrease in campus violence, if you're not carefully shielding your eyes from reality. S/F....Ken M

Most colleges spend no resources on sports other than what is generated by their revenue sports. Conference TV Network and Bowl tie ins provide vast amounts of money to the various schools. So that, along with endowments, gate receipts, and concessions, almost all athletic departments are self-sufficient.

A farm league has been started for the NFL, NFL Europe. As you also know, there have been other football league start ups over the last 40 years, none of which have remained viable. The reason those leagues don't do well is because nobody cares about them...course with central planning I suppose one could be forced to like them.

Sudden decrease in campus violence? The eyes that are shielded are those that believe violence arises only from the athletic community.

[EchoFiveMike]

Space and time isn't a resource, got it.

 

By definition, a military org like a academy is going to be centralized, kinda goes without saying.

 

I'm on a phone, so not worth the time. Maybe X-Files will deign to beat the ignorance out of you with a list of "studint aflete" crimes relative to say, engineering scholarships. S/F..Ken M

[DKTanker]

Space and time isn't a resource, got it.

 

By definition, a military org like a academy is going to be centralized, kinda goes without saying.

 

I'm on a phone, so not worth the time. Maybe X-Files will deign to beat the ignorance out of you with a list of "studint aflete" crimes relative to say, engineering scholarships. S/F..Ken M

You didn't speak of the military academies, you spoke of colleges in general.

 

Space and time are resources, got it? You'll now explain how space and time that wouldn't otherwise be utilized by the university, squanders those resources by allowing athletics. Never mind, your last sentence is quite indicative that the Homo Erectus hasn't yet evolved to the Homo Sapien level.

 

Beat the ingnorance...quite illustrative.

Edited March 5, 2014 by DKTanker

[EchoFiveMike]

I'll make this simple. You have a college, purportedly a place of higher learning, supposedly educating the future leaders of the American military. You have, say, 1000 seats(space) and 4 years(time), is it more effective to recruit (resources!) Joe the 1480 SAT engineering student who also passes the basic physical requirements for being an officer, or Bob the 1060 SAT physical education major who plays football?

 

Sure, we can parse out private colleges vs schools that take taxpayer money(which is almost all of them, at some level) as well as discuss what loyalty said schools owe to the society they exist in as well as the Nation in general.

 

Since we're going to throw insults, feel free to expound widely on loyalty to Nation, please address the hiring and employment of illegal foreigners and if you feel this is a betrayal of said Nation and your fellow Americans the people you just happen to live near. S/F....Ken M

 

 

[Ken Estes]

My stats are ~10 yrs old, but there were over 3500 degree granting colleges/universities in the US, and only 150 of them had firm entrance standards, of these only some 50 were tough.

[Stargrunt6]

Athletic departments also get funded by athletic foundations which operate on donations. In some cases (like my alma mater, LSU), portions of revenue go toward the university for scholarships and research grants.

 

The service academies oughta go down a div because . . . they've been terrible in div I.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Athletic departments also get funded by athletic foundations which operate on donations. In some cases (like my alma mater, LSU), portions of revenue go toward the university for scholarships and research grants.

 

The service academies oughta go down a div because . . . they've been terrible in div I.

 

Navy begs to differ, yo.

 

I was under the impression that the Service Academies require all students participate in organized sports, from intramurals to Div 1 sports. I know the service academies are good to great in minor sports like lacrosse, but those tend to be niche sports that are higher profile on the Eastern Seaboard where they're located anyway.

 

Related to the article, why does Air Force and Navy have decent(-ish) football programs yet Army has been rubbish for as long as I can remember. Maybe the rot in West Point runs far deeper than that.

[Corinthian]

http://www.cracked.com/article_17474_the-7-most-unintentionally-hilarious-g.i.-joe-characters.html

 

Check out #7.

 

[sunday]

 

Athletic departments also get funded by athletic foundations which operate on donations. In some cases (like my alma mater, LSU), portions of revenue go toward the university for scholarships and research grants.

 

The service academies oughta go down a div because . . . they've been terrible in div I.

 

Navy begs to differ, yo.

 

I was under the impression that the Service Academies require all students participate in organized sports, from intramurals to Div 1 sports. I know the service academies are good to great in minor sports like lacrosse, but those tend to be niche sports that are higher profile on the Eastern Seaboard where they're located anyway.

 

Related to the article, why does Air Force and Navy have decent(-ish) football programs yet Army has been rubbish for as long as I can remember. Maybe the rot in West Point runs far deeper than that.

 

 

Perhaps Logistics is not as important in the sports field as Tactics?

[Corinthian]

Perhaps Logistics is not as important in the sports field as Tactics?

 

 

NOPFWFAW!

 

(No One Plays Football Without Food And Water)

 

[nigelfe]

The whole concept of officer training institutions running degree length courses or mixing officer training up with a university education is well past its used by date. It made a bit of sense when normal universities were somewhat thinner on the ground, that was a long time ago. Officer training institutions should accept graduates and non-graduates, the latter always having a opportunity for a degree while serving, the former could be boosted by defence scholarships. Officer training courses should be relatively short (+ or - of 12 months) and high intensity. All candidates for full time service should pass one of these.

[DKTanker]

 

Related to the article, why does Air Force and Navy have decent(-ish) football programs yet Army has been rubbish for as long as I can remember. Maybe the rot in West Point runs far deeper than that.

 

Maybe it has something to do with the out years. Sticking with football, most of the players from the service academies were not recruited by any of the 120 or so other FBS schools. The two primary reasons being that the players indicated early that they were seeking appointments to one of the service academies and two, most probably just aren't good enough football players. I think it is a testament to the players and coaches of the academies that they remain as competitive as they do. They are playing against others who see their college football career as a stepping stone to big NFL money, not being shot at by big bullets.

 

As to why the Army is the lowest of the three service academies. Self preservation. If you're 17 years old being recruited by USAF, USN, and Army to play football for them, it is quite natural to think about what lies ahead after school. You can be sure that both Navy and AF will positively reinforce the idea that their respective service members tend to live the life of Reilly compared to those in the Army. Go Navy if you like to stay clean, enjoy exotic ports of call, and not get shot at (and if you're good enough, be assigned to San Diego and perhaps play for the Chargers).

[Paul in Qatar]

The whole idea of American football is well past its sell-by date. Would you let your son play high school ball? Would your wife? The sport is simply dangerous and will soon die out under a mountain of lawsuits and the loss of its farm-system of colleges, high schools and Pop Warner leagues.

 

It takes a lot of expensive gear, cannot be played in any serious way by some kids in a field. I am surprised it has held on as long as it has.

[m1a1mg]

If the service academy athletic departments are not self sustaining, they should be shut down. If we are going to send Soldiers home, we should damn sure fire the athletes first.

Edited March 9, 2014 by m1a1mg

[Ivanhoe]

The service academies oughta go down a div because . . . they've been terrible in div I.

 

I'll worry about academy sports when Navy starts beating Alabama every other year, and embarrassed foes complain about plebes juicing and cheating academically. Unless somebody has some statistics showing that the units commanded by former intercollegiate athletes have a higher casualty rate, lower retention rate, or whatever, I'm going to assume that this is some sort of PC politicking.

[Ken Estes]

As with all universities, even the uncollege at Annapolis, the problem lies with the grads.

[Tony Evans]

The whole concept of officer training institutions running degree length courses or mixing officer training up with a university education is well past its used by date. It made a bit of sense when normal universities were somewhat thinner on the ground, that was a long time ago. Officer training institutions should accept graduates and non-graduates, the latter always having a opportunity for a degree while serving, the former could be boosted by defence scholarships. Officer training courses should be relatively short (+ or - of 12 months) and high intensity. All candidates for full time service should pass one of these.

 

I don't know if it's still an issue, but back in the Eighties the Marine Corps was making Naval Academy students go through the same officer candidate school that they required of ROTC and direct-entry types, because guys straight out of the Academy were not thought to be "military" enough.

 

Also, Naval Academy alumnus, Vietnam veteran, and Senator James Webb wrote a novel -- A Sense of Honor -- set at the Naval Academy in the late 60s. In it, he highlighted what he perceived to be a similar lack of military priorities during that time period. Od course, the problem was not football, but putting academics and technology above military skills and attitudes.

[nigelfe]

If I was running an officer training program I'd take one look at US arrangements and assess those in charge as 'unable to see essentials'!

[Ken Estes]

The period when Bulldog/OCS training was required for USMC commissionings from the Naval Academy was almost as short as Mr. Webb's tenure as SecNav: the classes of 1989-91 experienced this and the experiment was understandably dumped. Webb was upset because as many USNA grads stood at the top of their USMC Basic School class as the bottom, and that went against his semi-mythical warrior notion of the service academy and program, which he had invoked in his fanciful novels.

 

Numerous studies have shown nothing of merit, including that varsity letter winners did worse in class standing at The Basic School than non-varsity athletes. Big deal.

 

My academy class went through in three different companies, and my TBS 3-70 posted class and 4/5 platoon honor men [the class honor man later commanded TBS] from the academy graduate ranks. There was no USMC preparatory training at the academy in those days, but after all, four years of active duty as Midn, USN including two summers afloat and another at various bases and stations of the training commands scarcely left one less 'military' than College Joe and his 8-weeks of PLC/OCS/NROTC summers at Quantico.

 

The 'cultural' differences of USNA to USMC were minute, once one mastered the technical skill of polishing the back of the belt buckle as well as the front, for instance. At USNA the rifle and pistol qualification is handled during the 8 week induction summer before the academic year begins, using USMC marksmanship instructors.