Johns Hopkins Magazine -- February 1998
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FEBRUARY 1998
CONTENTS

RETURN TO GREAT EXPECTATIONS

AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK

RELATED SITES

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Great Expectations
Author's Notebook
By Dale Keiger


If you have a serious interest in sports, education, and moral values, I don't see how you cannot be troubled by intercollegiate athletics. At many universities, the highest paid employees are not scholars, senior administrators, or researchers, but coaches. Mercenary athletes who are unaware that their school has a library, run amuck like the free companies of mercenary soldiers who afflicted Europe in the 14th century. Major universities perpetuate the blatant lie that athletes are students, instead of what they are--exploited revenue producers who are enrolled so that their school can generate the money and publicity attendant upon a big-time football or basketball program.

Against this background of hypocrisy, Division III sports are a relief. Small schools like Hopkins don't give athletic scholarships for their Div. III teams. The atletes play in small gyms in front of sparse crowds. And they play for the fun of it-- because athletics provide moments of pure, ecstatic joy that become all too rare as one becomes an adult.

Watching the Lady Jays play basketball is a lovely experience. They are very, very good at the game, but no more exalted, unapproachable, or arrogant than your kid sister. They deserve more fans, but when you go to one of their games, you feel like you're in on a secret, and that's fun in its own way. They probably will not win the national championship; the odds are against any team doing that. But they have as good a shot as anyone in the country, and come March, I'll be there pulling for them.


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