The headline “UAA hockey plans to return for 2022-23 season after $3 million fundraising effort” is great news! They did it. And they also proved that there might be enough people who value UAA hockey enough to pay the exorbitant cost to maintain it; let’s hope so for them.Never should school sports outrank education when it comes to the budget — never. Paying hockey, football and other coaches’ salaries equal to or greater than teachers, instructors, professors and the like is just plain wrong. And many of the coaches’ salaries are far greater than the academia-types. Sports are not subjects, they’re adjuncts.
Any time classes are cut in favor of sports programs, we are losing students who should become graduates and assets to society. I have yet to see or know of any football player who was a greater asset to society than a doctor, an accountant or a teacher.
The cost of sports should be borne solely by those who want to play them and those who are so rabid about watching them that they’ll pony up their so-called value. Imagine what a new science building or engineering hall or medical training facility could have been built with the money spent on the Alaska Airlines Center at UAA.
There are lots of sports supporters who will find my comments insufferable but, if reality is considered, the sports are just a side game. Sports are not the reason the education facility exists, and some lose sight of that. They should not play a centerpiece position on campus unless they are bought, paid for and maintained by those who actually want and use them.
Those who think sports are king are wearing no clothes.
— Dan Tucker
Wasilla
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