I see Barry Thomas has another letter in today's The Post (4/17) bashing athletics.

The letter says he is a Professor emeritus in German.
He seems to be taking up the "Vedder Rant " .
Just wondering if anyone out there with recent ties to Athens knows anything about him.

 

I didn't read his letter as an attack on athletics. It does raise some good questions, and I think it calls out local reporters. He just wants to see the proof in the numbers that there is return on investment in our athletics department.

thepost.ohiou.edu/content/post-letter-%E2%80%98athletic-kingdom%E2%80%99-tries-defend-spending-millions

I don't agree with him. I don't think he should have to "shut up and teach", though. I think he's perfectly within his rights to write a letter to the editor.

Maybe its me,but refering to the Athletic Department as the "Athletic Kingdom" in kind of an attack.

As far as "shut up and teach" ,the letter says he's a Professor emeritus.
As far as I know "emeritus" means retired,but with an honorary title.
So he doesn't have to teach anymore.Just sit back,relax and write letters to The Post.

In response to "Ohio cat fan" I  think the last sentence in his letter was meant to cynical/sarcastic.Although at least he thinks enough of O.U. to wear an O.U. hat.

Given the semi-facist nature of the Modern Languages department, any whining from them should be met with loud disapproval.

The letter is definitely an attack. The article in question gave application numbers and examples of other schools that reaped the rewards of athletic success, yet the letter-writer claims that the article provided no evidence. The article was well-written and provided a balanced viewpoint while citing statistics. The letter-writer obviously didn't read it.

The letter is certainly sarcastic.  He claims to know of no stats supporting the argument that the increased spend/budget for athletics more than pays for itself.  I think that there are some stats that are readily available that, at the least, lend some support to the positive benefits of the spend.  He provides no support for his argument that there's a negative return on the spend.  All he does is speculate.  Fair enough; he shouldn't dress it up as sound argument in that case, though.

Really, it strikes mer as a quickly dashed off letter.  I don't see much of the old academic rigor there.  It's pretty much in line with the C+ posts on this board.  No better.

Its worse than forgetting this.  These folks know this.  They just don't care.  They want the athletics budget eliminated and those funds spent on faculty.

Can anyone inform me when the last Cost Benefit Analysis on the German Department was done? Is the education offered through the German department worth the cost, or would that funding be more educationally beneficial moved elsewhere? 

Yeah because he's added so much value to the university by teaching German. He should be paying Ohio University to allow him to teach German.

This thread took a sickening turn.

You don't like someone attacking what we all here consider a useful part of the university, so we stoop to the same level by questioning if TEACHING THE GERMAN LANGUAGE IS USEFUL?

Good god.

Thomas is making a hypothetical argument that sounds logical except that its already been tested repeatedly and proven false. Not to get into politics but its like when Rand Paul said that the govt shouldn't have the authority to tell businesses that they can't discriminate against customers based on their race. His hypothesis was that most people wouldn't visit a racist business and therefore the business wouldn't survive. That sounds completely logical, until you remember what the South was like for about 100 years between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Using Thomas' logic, we're to believe that people all across the state of Ohio and beyond are rabid supporters of OSU because of their exciting Math department. He wants us to believe that Butler and Shawnee State probably both have the same amount of applicants because they have the same number of enrollments.

If you don't like sports then think of Athletics as Marketing. Athletics isn't an expense, its an investment and the return on investment isn't always monetary, but it is real.

p.s. no need for the ill will toward the Germans, Pearl Harbor was a long time ago.

I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said after we stormed the beaches at Getttysburg- The only thing we have to fear is what you can do for your country.