Nitt Picks Contributes Nothing To Society

greatly overlook the type of people the structure and team environment of the programs create. I would be interested to see if the average student had the dedication to handle the schedule that the student athletes must.

a supporter of Sukay this season. Richardson is a great back, but Nick allowed so many yards after contact in that game. He bit HARD on the long touchdown pass during the Youngstown State game as well as a few other mistakes. He looked better yesterday, but I’m not quite sold yet. I still think he leaves too much cushion and is looking for the BIG hit. I’m excited for what the B10 schedule brings and am praying for plentiful StanziBalls next weekend!

Lastly… Sukay should practice his pronunciation of ‘emphasizing’ (reference: post game interview on gopsf).

The Spiegler passage is at best tone deaf and short-sighted, but it’s the kind of hyperbole that makes easy opinion page fodder (and becomes more likely to become fodder for public “discourse,” which can often be a race to the bottom).

What he’s done is frame an ethical argument as a moral one. Rather than discussing competing goods, he’s simplified libraries as “good” and hockey as “bad” (something that “contributes nothing”). As IcersGuy has diligilently explained above, that’s simply untrue.

However, resting on the assumption that anything that strenghtens a university’s “brand,” or betters its bottom line is unequivocally “good” is almost as dangerous a simplification. Certainly, one of the primary goals of a university is to strengthen education and intellectual discourse, and those things — particularly in the short term — are not necessarily in line with economic gain and/or a marketing edge. That kind of gain is not always an unalloyed good. Increased enrollment, even, is not necessarily a good thing. I won’t presume to know how funds really affect Penn State, but I’ve seen such assumptions proven false, in some ways, at Alabama.

The discussion of the proper role of athletics within academics is one worth having. Spiegler, however, has contributed nothing to it.

The guy writes letters to the editor incessantly. There was even a story about his letter writing in the paper a couple of years ago (I’ll see if I can find it). I stopped reading his letters about 3 years ago, not because I agreed or disagreed with his viewpoints, but just because I’m sick of hearing from the guy. It’s nice to write an occasional letter, but one has to be careful not to hit the “Oh, it’s just this guy again” point. Oren is WAY past that point.

Other prolific letter writers that I can recall off the top of my head….Janet Louise Martin (East Liberty) – that woman was a racist and had a HUGE racial chip on her shoulder….Al Matlack (Carnegie and later State College)….always wrote sports letters. And there was one more whose name escapes me who also always wrote sports letters. Haven’t heard from any of these three in a long while….they may very well be dead.

Anyway, ignore Spiegler. He’s one of those guys who loves to see his letters in print. Here is the article about him.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_558536.html

An outsiders opinion. It’s his money. How dare someone tell him what to do with it. This is, after all, America (insert Otter’s Animal House speech), and if someone was opining to the letter writer guy what he should do with his charitable contributions, I’m pretty sure we know how that would go. Anyway, he got what he wanted all along – attention.

1) Private money is the past, present, and future of sports at all levels. Sports contribute a lot to society (like funneling dollars into local and statewide economies), and they especially contribute a lot to colleges. Universities make a boatload of cash on merchandising, broadcasting, and ticket sales, not to mention just plain old donations, many of which stem from athletic performance. Even at my alma mater, a tiny private college in Kansas, there’s an understanding that athletics improve awareness of the school and have a demonstrable positive impact on donations schoolwide. And even if all those donations go straight to the athletic program, they are de facto donations to the general fund, because they free up money to be used elsewhere.

2) Hockey’s not a violent sport. I’m all for a more intellectual, considered society, but calling hockey a violent sport simply shows that the person doesn’t grasp the activity. It also, along with the “contributing nothing to society” remark, betrays the real reason for the disdain; this guy just doesn’t like sports, and thinks they’re juvenile, and wants to get rid of them all. He sees sports as pointless, meaningless, with no socially redeeming qualities and no productive value. Of course, he is correct. But he probably, from the tone of his remarks, watches opera and reads books; these things also are, in the strictest sense, pointless and meaningless, with no socially redeeming qualities or productive value. Almost anything that is fun or enjoyable to anybody could be described that way. It doesn’t make any of those things unimportant. I enjoy sports; I also enjoy opera and books. This guy’s snooty pretension to intellectual authority ends up being small-minded childishness.

3) What always gets lost in this dichotomy is that the family is probably wealthy enough to do both kinds of donations. He’s right; public libraries, universal access to higher education, effective public transportation, accessible and available health care, lower food costs, environmental protections, more employment opportunities, and a thousand other concerns are equally important as, if not more important than, an ice hockey arena. Rich people shouldn’t be choosing one or the other. A society with great entertainment but crappy standards of living is obviously flawed; a society with great standards of living but no entertainment is just as flawed.

Of us having D1 hockey programs and a new ice facility. Therefore, it is the best use of the money. I’m glad he didn’t do some boring crap with it like “help people” or whatever… lame.

Spiegler is a administrator for the state government. The only thing he knows is how to do is spend other peoples’ money. Now that public sector jobs are almost double in pay and benefits to private sector jobs, I wonder how much he is willing to give back to those that actual pay his salary. My guess if nothing. Typical taker mentality. I have a right to tell those that actual produce money what they have to do with it, including paying me more. Help balance the state budget before your open your mouth again, Mr. Spiegler.