Page 493 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

Expensive athletic facilities and equipment should not be
used only by the teams. At the college level, sports

should stress fitness and the joy of competition and

should include everyone. It’s time to open the basketball

courts, unlock the weight rooms and saunas, and bring

out the track and field equipment for everyone to enjoy.

If students are to focus on academics, they need a
healthy outlet for their energy. Encouraging every

student—even the clumsy or the overweight, even the

couch potatoes and the party people—to use these

facilities for exercise would contribute to healthier bodies

and minds for the whole student body.

Perhaps the worst consequence of shining the spotlight

on athletics is that it takes the focus away from

scholarship. Many talented students write computer

programs, conduct experiments in physics or

psychology, or write poems, stories, and plays. The
attention, however, is not on these students, but on the

few who manage to move a pigskin-covered ball a few

yards down a green field or who use their height and

coordination to dunk a ball through a hoop. A focus on

academics would give bright, successful students the
attention they deserve. Then other students, seeing the

recognition that scholarship brought, would be inspired

to make the most of their own intellectual talents.