Wolfpack athletics was exhilarating three years ago. The men’s basketball team defeated Chapel Hill in an exciting game and went on an incredible tear through the ACC tournament, coming just a few shots short of an NCAA tournament birth.
The football team was disappointing for most of the season, but gave students two unbelievable primetime wins against Florida State and Boston College.
Students could take pride in something more than mediocrity and look forward to better days. I will certainly count myself amongst thousands of other Wolfpack fans who were enamored with the program and imagined a bright future.
While athletics has faltered — quite notably — in the last few years, it can and will continue to be a source of pride for the campus community.
There is a difference, though, between healthy pride and blind admiration for a deceptive institution.
For years, the University struggled with poor academics amongst its athletes. Those problems have improved substantially (one of the few credits we can give to Lee Fowler), but athletics has yet to truly integrate with the campus community. It holds itself as privileged — set apart from the rest of the University.
Prime example: Case Dining Hall, where athletes sit and eat in their own private dinner oasis, while honors, scholars and other students from East and Central Campus cram into Clark. It’s absurd to think that select students are given such blatantly preferential treatment. Aren’t athletes still students first and foremost?
While we can all acknowledge athletes particularly sizeable time obligations outside academics, it’s not an uncommon state of affairs. Thousands of other students at the University have similarly large time obligations.
One of the cruelest slaps in the face of all this is that all students and taxpayers pay for University building and their upkeep; regardless of athletic ability, students should have equal access.
For a truly absurd example of where this has gone wrong, take a look at the conundrum the club track team faces. The student-athletes of the team aren’t given the opportunity to practice on the publicly financed and supported Paul Derr Track because according to Mary Yemma, assistant director for club sports, “there is no extra time on the track this semester.”
When I consulted Jackie Brooks, director of operations for athletics, on the issue, she repeated the irrational story and suggested that the team should try practicing when the first four lanes of the facility are open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. What are the odds that a group of students can align their schedules such that they can find free time on any weekday between those hours? It’s impossible. Would it really be too hard to give them just a couple hours after the varsity team wraps up its practice one night a week?
It wouldn’t seem so, but athletics and facilities claim it’s a safety concern. Brooks said allowing them in there at night would put the soccer and softball fields at risk.
From whom, may I ask? A bunch of skinny kids running around in circles.
Facilities said it would jeopardize the track to allow any non-varsity usage. The story between administrative departments seems to change as rapidly as the Raleigh weather and I still can’t explain why a sanctioned University club composed of fee-paying students can’t use the track one night a week.
The students on the club and varsity team should be no different except, perhaps, in track priority. But to deny the club team access is a travesty.
The University is seriously missing the mark if it continues to fail in discerning the role of athletics. It’s a rallying cry, but not an area that should trample the rights of other students. The injustices the athletics community perpetrates, such as the track and Case Dining Hall, must be ended. If nothing else, it brings bad karma on our program. We don’t need any more of that.
