{"id":337,"date":"2008-03-12T19:24:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T19:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/insidersed.wordpress.com\/2008\/03\/12\/ubc-and-the-ncaa\/"},"modified":"2008-03-12T19:24:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-12T19:24:00","slug":"ubc-and-the-ncaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/2008\/03\/12\/ubc-and-the-ncaa\/","title":{"rendered":"UBC and the NCAA"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I\u2019d meant to write this sooner, but work commitments sapped my time and writing energies. As well, there\u2019s a very good Ubyssey article on the subject; read it here<\/a>. I also note that there has been some discussion at AMS Exec about the Athletics fee; I\u2019m not sure what it is, and I\u2019m not sure on the latest developments<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

The annual NCAA men\u2019s Division I basketball championship is coming up in a couple weeks. I\u2019m excited. But did you know that UBC could compete in it as soon as a decade from now? More importantly, did you know that, even if you don\u2019t give a rat\u2019s ass about sports or athletics, you should still care?<\/p>\n

The NCAA is the US collegiate sports authority. It\u2019s big. There are no non-US members. They recently voted to allow non-US members into Division II (their second tier) on a provisional basis. UBC harbours an intense desire to join the NCAA. Why? Better competition, more exposure, better development opportunities, and fewer restrictions on offering scholarships. In short, Athletics wants to be bigger.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing about joining the NCAA. It\u2019ll cost a ton. Initially, only a few sports would join, which would only require an internal budgetary re-allocation within Athletics. But UBC\u2019s athletics facilities generally are far below the requirements for NCAA competition. They need upgrading. And that\u2019s where students come in.
<\/p>\n

Right now, students pay a levy of nearly $200 to Athletics and Recreation. There\u2019s long been a simmering undercurrent of resentment about it, as students still have to pay for gym memberships and intramural events. Indeed, UBC is among the only universities in Canada whose students still have to pay for gym passes. UBC Athletics has also long desired to upgrade the SRC, which contains the Bird Coop. But they can\u2019t do it without student support. Nor can they get through any of the other development they need to do in the face of student opposition. Indeed, there\u2019s a chance that an attempt to raise funds could trigger a backlash and threaten their existing mandatory student funding.<\/p>\n

Heck, everybody is a being cautious about joining the NCAA, including the NCAA itself. If students opposed it outright, that could easily scuttle the project.<\/p>\n

What a smart student leader should see here is leverage. There are many ways in which Athletics can enrich the student experience. They could provide free gym passes to people other than varsity athletes, reduce Storm the Wall fees, co-operate with a renewed SUB to include free student fitness components (see Mike Duncan\u2019s campaign platform). Because right now we have an Athletics department that can\u2019t afford to provide free exercise equipment or affordable intramurals to students, yet is seeking to spend more on performance athletics. And that\u2019s a tension that students can profit from. Indeed, it\u2019s a no-lose proposition. Yes, there have been conversations about a new Athletics fee, but I\u2019m not sure if the NCAA application has, on the student side, played a role in the negotiation. And it should.<\/p>\n

I have no idea what the progress of the NCAA decision is. But the deadline to apply for 2009 membership is June 1 \u2013 very very soon. Students should demand to know what\u2019s happening, and demand to play a role in the process before it\u2019s too late.
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I\u2019d meant to write this sooner, but work commitments sapped my time and writing energies. As well, there\u2019s a very good Ubyssey article on the subject; read it here. I also note that there has been some discussion at AMS Exec about the Athletics fee; I\u2019m not sure what it is, and I\u2019m not sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2518,1957],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-campus-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ubcinsiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}