COLLEGE ATHLETICS: NECESSARY, NOT JUST NICE TO HAVE College and university athletics suffer the occasional black eye, admits the provost at Oklahoma State University, who has viewed this controversial area from several perspectives. Here, he presents the case that college athletics play a key —perhaps even necessary—role in a wellrounded higher education experience. By Robert J. Sternberg Never a varsity or even junior varsity athlete, I have no vested interest whatsoever in athletics. In the tradition of Groucho Marx, I would have refused to be a member of any serious team that would have been willing to include me as part of it. That said, I’ve come to view college athletics as playing an important, perhaps even necessary, role in a wellrounded college education. True, there are few things that college and university faculty and business officers complain about more than college athletics (though parking may be one). As a faculty member, I was at the front of that grievance line. I saw all the downsides: the time athletes take away from academics, a sense of entitlement on the part of some athletes, the cost of constructing and maintaining facilities, and the wonderment about what athletics had to do with college education anyway. With budget shortfalls and declining revenues, faculty members and others may especially resent the resources they see as going into college athletics. (Read also Mark Emmert’s Love of the Game in the September issue of Business Officer to find out about the key challenges facing intercollegiate athletics today.) As an administrator—first as a dean at Tufts University, a Division III school, and now as provost at Oklahoma State University (OSU), a Division I school—I have had an opportunity to view college athletics from a more positive angle. I’ve concluded that college athletics provide great value on the field and off. Following are a baker’s dozen reasons why, along with some cautionary advice. […]