Two NHL teams have filed for bankruptcy in recent weeks; universities around the province are trying hard to prevent deficits. Players' salaries and university tuition are rising faster than a rocket. Professional sports teams AND universities are both asking for money from the government (on both sides of the border). Some students camped outside an university president's office to protest tuition hikes; fans camped to protest rises in ticket prices. Students and parents rally to prevent their school from closing; fans rally to prevent the hometown teams from moving (often to no avail).
What was the point of the last paragraph? It was also a sample of how professional sport and higher education have become somewhat similar. I could name a few more examples to show how similar they are, but I don't want to bore you to death (or am I doing that right now?).
I know that many people are taking sports too seriously (I am one of the people guilty of that). It's true that there are many serious issues around the world that requires our attention and many claim sports play too big a role in our society, but for many people, sports allow them to get their minds off their predicament and worries (at least temporarily). Of course, Olympic Games and World Cups (of any sport) can be seen as "wars" between nations where the battles are the events and the athletes are soldiers. On the other hand, though, these venues allow citizens of different nations to "fight" against each other without actually going to war or incur huge physical losses (unfortunately, bruised ego is something that will never go away, in sports or otherwise). I think, secretly, many nations want to beat the US in competition and many former colonies desires to face, and defeat, the nations that colonized them (even if independence was achieved decades ago).
Okay, I was going off topic and being too serious there. So let's get back to the comparison between sports and higher education. I have found a few similarities between the two, down to the people running the entities. The following is a little comparison between the people and terms between the two.
| Sports | Higher Education |
| Teams | Universities |
| Ticket Prices | Tuition |
| Concessions | Incidental Fees |
| Coaches | Professors |
| Owners | Board of Governers |
| Trade | Exchange |
| Demoted to minors | On probation |
| League | Group of Universities |
| Players Association | Student Federation |
| Player Draft | Admission Process |
The sports fans among you can probably find a few flaws in this already. For instance, coaches are fired quite frequently, while professors are almost immune to firings. Well, when a coach is fired, often they find coaching jobs elsewhere, this is like a professor moving from one university to another. You can also say that athletes are paid to play while students have to pay to learn. Or that many care about how their home town team is performing, while many less care about how a university is doing. These are valid rebuttals, but remember that the two are just somewhat similar. If sports and higher education are very alike, then we should be able to call one the other. The point is that aspects of society that may appear to be very different can actually be quite alike.
Maybe this theory is totally out of whack, but isn't the point of higher education to explore one's mind and to think outside the norm? And sports a medium for people to link with generations past and people they don't know? (Or is it that my mind has wandered to a far-off place?)
Jason "the Screaming Sports Fan" Lau