Aside from the hysteria about bathrooms, The Right’s obsession with trans Americans seems to be focused on sports, especially sports scholarships. I support those who wish to go to college (despite what you might have thought) and believe that college and K-12 education should be well rounded, with academics, art, and sport. I also support the idea of scholarships for economically disadvantaged students.
What I do not agree with is the disproportionate degree of financial (and other) support that we award for athletics. A fencing coach at Harvard helps wealthy parents send their kids there in exchange for million dollar bribes? Yeah, when I think of Harvard, the first thing that comes to mind is fencing.
Here’s another interesting bit of trivia. Ask anyone who the highest paid public employee is in their state and most will guess “the governor” or perhaps some doctor or lawyer, but in fact, it’s most likely a college sports coach.
I’m not excited at the idea of my tax dollars being spent to underwrite the costs of the farm teams for the NBA and the NFL.
And now this. Trans kids getting sports scholarships, more headlines for Fox News.
So how about those of us on the Left move to defund the Sport Machine that is distorting our higher education?
This data is easy to find for Massachusetts (cf https://www.masslive.com/politics/2022/01/massachusetts-state-salary-database-see-the-top-earners-in-2021.html#:~:text=Employees%20across%20the%20University%20of,of%20UMass%20Chan%20Medical%20School.).
Here, from the above link, are the 10 highest-paid public employees of MA in 2021:
1. Dr. Michael F. Collins, chancellor of UMass Chan Medical School ( $1.35 M)
2. Dr. Terence Flotte, provost and executive deputy chancellor of UMass Chan Medial School ($1.11 M)
3, Matthew McCall, the head coach for UMass men’s basketball ($0.78 M)
4, Martin Meehan, president of the UMass system ($0,73 M)
5. Jacqueline Moloney, chanceller, UMass system ($0.72 M)
6. Walter Bell, head football coach, UMass-Boston ($0.65 M)
7,. Normand Bazin, head coach, men’s ice hockey, UMass-Boston ($0.62 M)
8. Gregory Carvel, Athletic Coach, UMass system ($0.60 M)
9. Kenneth Rock, Chairman of Department, UMass system ($0.60 M)
10. Kumble Subbaswamy, chancellor, UMass system ($0.59 M)
Four of the ten are part of the athletic program. It is worth mentioning that the two highest paid state employees earn significantly more than any of the figures in the athletic program.
The person who guesses that the highest paid person is “perhaps some doctor” is, in fact, precisely correct.
Also worth mentioning is that the highest paid person outside of higher education is:
* Mindy Hull, Chief Medical Examiner, ($0.42 M)
The second highest paid person outside of higher education is
* Perry Yee, maintenance foreman, MBTA ($0.37 M)
There is exactly one woman in the top ten (Jacqueline Moloney) and her compensation is about half of the highest-paid employee.
This data reflects the pronounced gender bias in compensation that is so often denied by some of us.
The best way to “defund the sports machine” is to FUND higher education, perhaps structured so that this funding is only available to offset cuts in the college athletic program.
Oh — and finally — it is worth mentioning that Harvard is a well-endowed private university.
The athletic program of the UMass system is, in my view, a more appropriate initial target than Harvard or any other privately funded college or university.
College coaches dominate list of highest-paid public employees with seven-digit salaries.
Who is the highest-paid person in Alabama?
Nick Saban
That’s true for Nick Saban, who sits atop the payroll list in Alabama with an annual salary this year at $9.3 million.Oct 22, 2021
No doubt. That’s an example of why I have never regretted my 1974 choice to live in Massachusetts. There are no seven-digit coaches working for any public university in MA.
It is also worth mentioning that Jimmy Carter — in 1975 — was the last Democrat that a majority of Alabama voters chose in a presidential election. It is also worth noting that George Wallace — an explicit segregationist who ran on a platform of segregation — was from Alabama and won the Alabama presidential vote of 1968.
Democrats and the Democratic Party are not responsible for Mr. Saban’s presence at the top of that list.
I’ve long resented that athletes get full boat while academic standouts get relative crumbs.