While I was procrastinating on Facebook one day, a friend posted an infographic of the highest paid United States public employees by state. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I clicked on the link, but I figured that it must be interesting.
I took one look at the infographic and quickly became furious. The infographic was a map that showed the highest paid public employees of the 50 states and their jobs. It showed that 27 football coaches and 13 basketball coaches made up the highest paid public employees of their respective states. The other ten states have a medical school plastic surgeon, college presidents, a medical school department chair, a medical school chancellor and a law school dean. How in the world did we let 40 out of 50 states give most of their money to coaches?
I continued reading past the graphic. The article went on to explain that a lot of the money athletics generates doesn’t make its way back to the school. Most of the revenue just goes directly to the coaches, athletic directors, administrators and facility costs. At that point I was livid. I’ve always been under the impression that the money generated by athletic events goes back to the education programs.
The United States needs to rethink their priorities. Now don’t get me wrong, I love college sports, but this is crazy. Since when did sports become a higher priority than education? I feel ashamed that we are letting this happen while also being aware that we are falling behind on academic standards compared to the rest of the world.
Now I may be slightly contradicting myself since this is a sports blog, but I firmly believe that a school’s educational programs are much more important than their athletic achievements. Sports are great, but your ability to tackle a person or shoot a free throw will not get you a job.
So with that, maybe I should start looking at colleges in Montana or the Dakotas.
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