I’m going to play the scrooge here and say, shouldn’t a university pride itself on its academics rather than its sports? is the point of a university not to educate?

also, ironically, this piece from The Atlantic appeared adjacent to this article on my dash: The Shame of College Sports, on the exploitation of young athletes.

Hello. I noticed your comment on your reblog of my post, and I understand what you’re driving at. I don’t mean to attack you, insult you or otherwise criticize you for taking that viewpoint on my post. But what I would like to do is congratulate you on missing the point of my post so brilliantly. It goes without saying that my pride of being a Buckeye and of being an Ohio State graduate goes far, far beyond any connection I had to the football team. My experiences with the school, my brilliant professors, the relationships I developed, the first-class education I received and the sights, sounds and happenings of that wonderful campus affect me much more deeply than any football team ever could. My Ohio State pride ultimately has very little to do with football or college athletics.

My post was not meant to be some general assessment of how my Ohio State pride is directly related to the success of the football team. My life has had its ups and downs. Briefly before attending Ohio State, my life had many more downs than ups. The Ohio State University, and Columbus as a whole, saved me, it gave me an opportunity to change my fortune, to receive a wonderful education in a wonderful, lively city. My post was meant to convey that Ohio Stadium, this building in particular, is a building in which my dreams came true because as a journalism major, honing my craft and sharing the team’s success on the air with people around the world was something I could have never envisioned happening in what had been a very difficult life until that time. The post is about how this beautiful building is very special to me. Nothing else. My Ohio State pride is deeply rooted in education. But it’s personified mainly in the little parts of myself that I left scattered throughout the campus. And there is a lot of myself permanently stamped on Ohio Stadium.