Long story short: University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe resigns after protests over racism are joined by over 30 black members of the school’s football team.
I have a friend. They are not a sports fan. I am a sports fan. This friend and I have had several discussions in the past about how unjust it is that typically, college athletic coaches make millions and millions of dollars in annual salary, whereas even the most tenured, credentialed and celebrated professors won’t even come close to making that kind of money.
Coaches scream at student-athletes, boss them around, institute rigorous physical training onto them, and more or less work for five, six months tops, out of the year. Professors on the other hand, teach students information, skill, and try to train their brains, so that they can do things once leaving college that don’t involve trying to hit a ball, kick a ball, throw a ball, or move a ball ten yards at a time, as effectively as possible. And they work vastly more months than six out of any given year.
This friend is vehemently on the side of thinking that it is unfair that professors make peanuts compared to college coaches. I do not disagree with opinion.
However, I happen to like sports, and I’ve seen my share of impacts that a good coach can do to a program, such as Nick Saban turning Alabama into a perennial powerhouse, Steve Spurrier digging South Carolina out from under the mud into an era of respectability, and more recently Urban Meyer turning Ohio State from pretenders back into champions.
Winning games generates money, and when the day is over, schools are no different than any other organization; they like accumulating money.
I see both sides to the argument. Professors have the potential to teach students things way more important than the importance of being able to move a ball. But the ability to move balls is a very, very profitable talent.
And as shitty of a notion it is, money drives everything.
That’s how I feel about the whole Missouri situation. In the end, what the students and faculty were protesting about, university president Tim Wolfe, has resigned. Ostensibly, with Wolfe out of power, his supposed veiled racism is also out of power, or so it would like to be believed.
I’m all for when a protest with a just cause succeeds, but it’s the manner in which this protest succeeded that makes me believe that ultimately, it was a hollow victory, one that doesn’t really count as much of a victory, because I think there’s great reason to believe that the impetus for Wolfe’s resignation has nothing to do with remorse and personal reflection, so much as it has to do with, of course, money.
According to the New York Times:
Months of student and faculty protests over racial tensions and other issues…
Months.
Months of protesting over racial tensions gets absolutely nowhere.
On Saturday, November 7th, over 30 black members of the school’s Mizzou Tigers football team declared that they would boycott all football-related activities, including games, until Tim Wolfe was out of power. The coach and all other teammates joined in solidarity.
On Monday, November 9th, after just two days of protest from basically, the football team, Tim Wolfe resigns. Ostensibly, the Mizzou Tigers resume all football-related activities effective immediately, and will take the field on November 14th against Brigham Young.
Does this sound like a victory for civil rights? Or does it sound like a victory for governing body of the University of Missouri at ensuring that the money train known as the Mizzou Tigers continues to flow?
If you think it’s the former, I’d really like to have a sip of the optimism tea that you’re drinking, because I certainly could stand to better myself to not be so jaded.
Because it’s no secret that football generates a ton of money, especially a team in the SEC, the most powerful and lucrative football conference in all of college sports. Mizzou simply not playing has gargantuan financial repercussions, and regardless of the money they don’t make by not playing on Saturday, there would undoubtedly be severe penalties and fines to be paid by the NCAA or the BCS or whomever is in charge of everything. Organizations like schools don’t like to lose money.
Ultimately, everyone wins to some degree; the students and faculty to wanted to see Tim Wolfe removed from power got what they wanted, as does the football team, with Tim Wolfe resigning. Fans and supporters of Mizzou won’t miss their football on Saturday, and will undoubtedly resuming sinking their dollars into their preferred team.
Unfortunately, the school itself kind of wins too, because with the protest basically over, they will continue to rake in the money that football generates. And if you want the very worst part of this all is that depending on your perspective, Tim Wolfe probably wins too, because this ordeal is now over, and I’d be willing to wager that there’s some sort of payout or monetary gain for him by voluntarily stepping down, because I can’t imagine that if he really didn’t want to resign, he might not have had to. Wolfe leaves because he’s pressured to leave; if his ambivalence towards racial matters makes him a racist, then this whole experience isn’t going to push him towards any sort of reform.
But because this whole situation required intervention from the football team, as good intentioned as their motives were, at least in my opinion, it really, severely waters down the magnitude of this victory, to where it becomes extremely hollow.
If there was ever reason to believe that when the day is over, sports hold more influence over the most powerful and influential professors in the world, this is the kind of story that cements it. And if you ask me, that, is kind of sad.
