UC Berkley could cut track and cross country if anti-sports radicals up here get there way

perspective wrote:

I don't see the university's core mission as academics. I see it as education, that is, as an institution that should be student centered.

I gained more out of my college athletic career than out of a host of classes that I took.

Student centered is just a mindless catch phrase (you cannot maximize education while conceiving of the process as one in which you simply cater to student desires, as if a college were a retail store) and one far better suited to liberal arts colleges. UC Berkeley is a research I institution, and in fact, to go by the ratings of their graduate programs, arguably the best research institution in the nation, with (at least a couple years ago) the most disciplines with a top ten ranking of any school in the country. The reason that so much money went to Cal in the past is that it was a cutting edge research institution, training great minds but also leading the world in the development of knowledge, particularly in the sciences. And the economic impact of that research has been staggering.

The often positive impact of athletics would not be lost by de-emphasizing collegiate athletics, because it could still thrive in club systems, as it does in Europe. If you have x dollars and have to choose, why choose something tangential to your mission?

Yes, I understand and I think you know what I mean. Look at the performances by the teams over the past couple of decades. Horrible.

Tough Shit fool wrote:

Tough shit for Cal. They have enough Billionaire alumni in Silicon Valley who can makeup the costs just with the cash tucked in their bras and panty straps. They should stop the war too and save $1 Trillion year. The war is a lost cause. Face it, Islam has won, we lost bigtime.

Yea and I think all sports should be stopped because it hurts my feelings other people are better than me. Like we do now with secondary school fun runs. We can't list names of the finishers cause it hurts feelings. Also I can't believe that darn BUSH upped the WAR in Afgan. like he has! That darn BUSH killed 50 of our people last month alone! How did BUSH do it and why? The Afgan war has just exploded in the last 9 months why! Thank God we are keeping it all quiet to protect BUSH this time.

Cardinale wrote:

Without athletics, Cal will become a school for nerds. Cool!

it might even be known as....an academic institution!

...the HORROR!......the HORROR!....

This is the dumbest thread on Lets Run.

And that's saying a lot given that Lets Run is FULL of a lot of dumb threads.

So you think the club system in Europe is thriving, do you?

I don't.

If the reason for UC Berkeley's existence is research, then close up the school and do research - eliminate the tangentials, such as fine arts, history, literature, athletics, and other non-essentials that would be best left, as you say, to liberal arts colleges.

on the runs wrote:

That's total bullshit. Muslims ruled Iberia for over 700 years and Christians and Jews were free to practice their religions under their rule. One word: dhimmi.

Dhimmi: Persecuted, despised, overly taxed, raped, often murdered or even massacred, second class status for Christians and Jews.

Let us listen to the words of one who lived during that time, considered often by the Jews as their greatest Rabbi:

"God has hurled us into the midst of this people, the [Muslim] Arabs, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us.... Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they." -Moses ben Maimon (aka Maimonides, aka Rambam), Letter to Yemen.

eojtlc wrote:

The Pac 10 has more national titles than any conference, by a long way. How do you measure success? The SEC can suck it.

What is the national championship count like after you throw out sports like equestrian, water polo, synchronized swimming, etc that the rest of the country doesn't participate in. Stanford routinely wins the commissioners cup with a horrible football and basketball team, but a sh!tload of points in fringe sports.

Also, many of the PAC 10 championships are decades old and have no bearing on how successful the current programs are. By your logic, Notre Dame is still the best football program because they've got the most national titles.

The good-looking, healthy and fit students on a campus are usually the athletes. Sad that future applicants won't be able to count on meeting anyone attractive at Cal.

Yep. Always look under the covers.

The U.S. has more Black Males in jails than in college. U.S. police target black males for petty crimes, while they ignore whites. U.S. police systmatically murder black males for fun, recreation, and locker room bragging rights.

The State of Israel has 8 million people. They currently incarerate 10 million Palestinians in prisons with soldiers preventing them from leaving. That's 5 prisoners for every 4 free citizens. The worst human rights ratio on the planet earth today. Communist East Germany of the 1980s was a paradise compared to the State of Israel.

seems to me, if a school's gonna cut either academics or athletics they've gotta cut athletics.

and if you really wanna dedicate your life to running then you should go to a different school.

it's a free market.

Just remain the sports:

cross country = bipedal nature harmonizing

track meet = green bipedal propulsion festival

They won't cut it or they will appear to be anti-green and anti-nature and no bleeding liberal college will ever consider wearing that tag.

Itss all in the name wrote:

Just remain the sports:

cross country = bipedal nature harmonizing

track meet = green bipedal propulsion festival

They won't cut it or they will appear to be anti-green and anti-nature and no bleeding liberal college will ever consider wearing that tag.

should read "rename"

pac 10 is good but... wrote:

What is the national championship count like after you throw out sports like equestrian, water polo, synchronized swimming, etc that the rest of the country doesn't participate in. Stanford routinely wins the commissioners cup with a horrible football and basketball team, but a sh!tload of points in fringe sports.

Also, many of the PAC 10 championships are decades old and have no bearing on how successful the current programs are. By your logic, Notre Dame is still the best football program because they've got the most national titles.

You can't be serious.

You really need to do some homework.

The Sears Cup Trophy does not include Equestrian or Synchro Swimming.

I'm actually a CAL alum and would beg to differ that Stanford has been "horrible" in football and basketball as you claim. Granted, they haven't had a lot of success in football as of late under coaches Tye Willingham and Buddy Teevens, but Jim Harbaugh has been turning their program around in only 3 short years; hence the upset of #7 ranked Oregon and now finally getting ranked in the Top 25 this year. I would also predict that current Stanford QB Andrew Luck will be a top Heisman candidate before his career is over and a Top 10 NFL draft choice.

But Basketball?

Stanford has been horrible in Basketball?

You can't be serious.

Care to guess how many times the Men's and Women's basketball programs have been in the Sweet 16? The Elite 8? The Final Four? The Championship game?

And as far as the sports in the Sears Cup Directors Trophy are concerned, they don't include Rugby ( which CAL has won 20 Championships in ), but they do include RIFLE SHOOTING and BOWLING for those Midwestern schools like Nebraska. They also include SKIING for schools like Colorado, as well as FENCING for the Ivy League.

Those are the only "fringe" sports that I would highlight.

I don't believe that Stanford has a Rifle, Bowling, Fencing, or Ski team. Neither does Cal.

And if you think that soccer, volleyball, golf, tennis, or swimming are FRINGE sports, then you better not tell that to Texas or Michigan or Auburn or Oklahoma or UNC or Miami.

pac 10 is good but... wrote:

Also, many of the PAC 10 championships are decades old and have no bearing on how successful the current programs are. By your logic, Notre Dame is still the best football program because they've got the most national titles.

As of June 8th, 2009 current Pac-10 members have won 380 NCAA Championships.

For the 2008-09 academic year, the Pac-10 won 12 NCAA titles:

Men's Teams

• Cross Country - Oregon

• Water Polo - USC

• Gymnastics - Stanford

• Indoor Track and Field - Oregon

• Tennis - USC

• Rowing - Washington

Women's Teams

• Cross Country- Washington

• Swimming - California

• Water Polo - UCLA

• Golf - Arizona State

• Rowing - Stanford

• Softball - Washington

For the 2007-2008 academic year, the Pac-10 won 13 NCAA titles:

Men's Teams

• Cross Country - 2007 - Oregon

• Water Polo - 2007 - California

• Indoor Track - 2008 - Arizona State

• Swimming & Diving - 2008 - Arizona

• Golf - 2008 - UCLA

Women's Teams

• Cross Country- 2007 - Stanford

• Soccer- 2007 - USC

• Indoor Track - 2008 - Arizona State

• Swimming & Diving - 2008 - Arizona

• Water Polo - 2008 - UCLA

• Tennis - 2008 - UCLA

• Golf - 2008- USC

• Softball - 2008 - Arizona State

I went to Cal in the late 80's and was always struck by how limited the recreational facilities were for the regular student. Just a small portion of the money that is spent keeping the intercollegiate athletics department afloat could be better used to build and maintain fitness and rec facilities that were accessible to the greater student body.

perspective wrote:

So you think the club system in Europe is thriving, do you?

I don't.

If the reason for UC Berkeley's existence is research, then close up the school and do research - eliminate the tangentials, such as fine arts, history, literature, athletics, and other non-essentials that would be best left, as you say, to liberal arts colleges.

the European club system is not reducible to running clubs.

A weak post in general. I said that UC Berkeley's core mission is academics, not research. Research is a key part of it, and forms a major reason for the quality of education of advanced undergraduates (notice that I didn't say that Cal does a great job in educating its freshmen and sophomores, who are taught almost entirely by graduate students) and graduate students. And history, literature, art history, German, and so forth are all research departments as well. Most Cal profs are at the cutting edge of their field. I never said that athletics or non-research oriented fields, if there are any, are better left to liberal arts colleges. Athletics is a fun thing to have at liberal arts schools, but no closer to their mission. If they want to pretend that they are primarily teaching institutions, then they can have that (which is not to say "student centered") as their mission and abandon other things. But a faculty that does no research makes for a junior college, losing touch completely with the scholarly process.

SC sucks but many of my Rubber friends can't shutup about the fact the USC has won more Oly medals than any other school and that they are the only school to be the main host for the Oly Games twice. But I swear those USC cheerleaders are world class Hollywood grade hotties. My school UCLA has the 2nd most Oly medals and but are tops in NCAA champs.

owen riley wrote:

I went to Cal in the late 80's and was always struck by how limited the recreational facilities were for the regular student. Just a small portion of the money that is spent keeping the intercollegiate athletics department afloat could be better used to build and maintain fitness and rec facilities that were accessible to the greater student body.

If you were in fact attending Cal in the late 80's as you claim, how could you not remember the $20 million dollar RSF (Recreational Sports Facility) that was built in 1984?

The last I checked, the operating budget for the RSF is around $8.6 million as of 2005.

GO BEARS!