Beer and Circus
Beer and Circus In Sperber’s Beer and Circus he clearly states how the big-time university sports are crippling undergraduate education. Not only are these big-time universities spending millions of dollars on their athletic programs, they insist on building up their research and graduate programs, while they leave undergraduate programs to suffer. What about reading, ‘righting, and ‘rithmetic? Wasn’t that the old mission of higher learning? Now we have replaced it with a new one: recruitment (of students), retention (of current students) and renewal (of alumni support). Sperber explains why universities will poor millions of dollars into their athletic programs. In the mid-1980s and on, many admissions officers have prayed for the “Flutie Factor” to hit their schools, and many administrators have invoked it to justify their excessive spending on college sports (Sperber 60). Doug Flutie’s last second “Hail Mary” pass in the nationally televised game enabling Boston College to beat Miami was known to put his school “on the map”. After the spotlight was on Boston College its applications began to overflow, partially due to the “Flutie Factor”. What was known as the “Flutie Factor” later changed to the “mission-driven athletics” in the 1990s (62). The mission means that no matter how much money the athletic department loses or how bad the team is, the school should still promote its big time sports programs as an essential mission.