The Eastern Michigan University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has received the largest gift ever to the department, EMU Director of Athletics Dr. Derrick Gragg announced today.
The gift, a $1 million dollar pledge from former EMU track and cross country competitor Daniel J. McClory, has been designated for the men’s and women’s track and field and cross country programs.
“This is the second historic gift we have received in two months,” said EMU provost and executive vice president Dr. Don Loppnow. “We received the largest estate gift in school history in support of academics in January and now this gift will help our student-athletes continue their success in the classroom and on the field.”
“Above all else, our mission is to guide, support and inspire our student-athletes in their pursuit of excellence, academically, athletically and socially,” Gragg said. “Dan’s gift will ensure that we will be able to do just that.”
I kind of have to take back what I said before, though what I was trying to say before is that I have mixed feelings about donations for athletics. And I guess I also have to admit a certain sports bias here. For some reason, I have absolutely no problem with the track team getting a wad of cash, but if it had been football or basketball, I would have been ticked off. And believe me, I’m much more of a fan of football and/or basketball than I am of cross country running.
Anyway, that’s the big news. Congrats and such.
I feel the same way as you do, sitedad!
What’s wrong with football and basketball? Without either sport, our track and field teams could not be members of the MAC Conference.
Many, many congratulations to the EMU track and field team — and to the distinguished graduate, Dan McClory, who made this generous gift. He was an English major, and then got a master’s from EMU’s college of business, in the early 1980s. What a guy! There’s a nice feature article about him in the Friday AA NEWS sports pages. Significantly, in each Olympics since 1960, an EMU track or field athlete has competed, which is quite a record.
Alum is right that without EMU playing in football and basketball, we could have no teams in the MAC. But the rules of the MAC are set by the MAC, which is controlled by the presidents of the schools in the MAC. The requirement that one must play in the two most expensive sports in order to play in any of them is not unique to the MAC, but it a strange prejudice, as it puts two sports that are not often lifetime activities against others than are, and which therefore provide a better educational and health benefit to society.
Hats off to Mr. McClory! He’s a distance runner in more ways than one.
“as it puts two sports that are not often lifetime activities against others than are, and which therefore provide a better educational and health benefit to society.”
Since when have organized sports been about education and health? I just see it as another form of business where we put a bunch of overcompetitive people together to fight each other, except instead of to the death like in Rome we make them throw balls around. Now the Olympic games, that’s another story.
I agree though, it’s a crazy emphasis, but I suppose we have the bigger schools and professional sports to blame for that for helping to make football and basketball so popular. Give the people what they want, right?
ET, the historic justification for creating rival sporting programs among American colleges and universities was, a century ago, that athletics builds character and involves healthy physical activities, and taught team manship, and was hence educationally valuable. The idea was that athletics was fully compatible with the educational mission of the universities & colleges. And by and large, this justification endures today, hence the continued focus on the well being of the ‘scholar-athlete’ as the justification for Div-I athletics. Of course, the historic origins of things and their continued rhetorical value does not necessarily equal the real contemporary reasons for why something is valued in the present; and there’s lots of evidence that today college athletics is valued for the same non educational reasons that Cable television is valued – it is entertaining and (hypothetically in the case of college sports) profitable. Yet all educators should resist turning any aspect of the university into mere entertainment, and the best coaches certainly understand this.
I am not absolutely certain about this, but I think that Temple U. is or will be a member of the MAC, but will not join the MAC in basketball, it will remain an independent. Just as Notre Dame is a member of the Big East for basketball, but is an independent for football. Anyone know about this?
I have only heard Temple being a part of the MAC for football only. They have had a limited MAC schedule for the last several years. They are a member of the Atlantic 10 for other sports. (Dayton, Duquesne, Rhode Island, etc.)
http://atlantic10.cstv.com/
BTW – EMU v Temple has some special history in football. Circa 1993 or 1994 Temple played at EMU on ESPN. It was the first NCAA Division 1-A football game ever played where both head coaches were African-American. (Cooper/EMU and Dickerson/Temple) I was there. I believe EMU lost late 31-30 or 31-28?