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Welcome to OUR World: A School Cancels Football

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It seems that in the eyes of our society, the death of a music program is a non-event.  Whether it involves the choral offering at an area high school, a community band, or a civic orchestra, performing arts organizations expire without so much as even a casual nod from local media.
 
But when a Division I university decides to shutter its football program, media giants USA Today, CNN and ESPN make it one of their top stories.
 
Earlier this week, the University of Alabama at Birmingham announced that it was eliminating its football program.  According to the UAB’s press release, the program was being closed “in order to more effectively invest in the success of priority programs that are most likely to bring national prominence.”
 
The reaction from those involved was predictable.  Teeth were gnashed, marches were planned, fans complained, and ESPN published photos of football players weeping after the announcement.
 
There were those, however, who appeared to have remembered why a university exists in the first place. Birmingham’s Fox 12 quoted Karen Brooks (president pro tem of the Board of Trustees), who said that the decision will allow the university to “sharpen its competitive edge in teaching, research and service.” 
 
We do not celebrate this closure, nor do we wish ill-will toward the players or coaches involved. Rather, we hope for them a smooth transition to other teams.  Certainly, many of us in the performing arts know exactly how they feel; this sort of thing happens in our world all the time.

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Comments

  1. Yes, Ron.  If the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus was locked out for months, anything can happen to anybody.  (I think many join me in congratulating all who were involved in re-instating our wonderful ASO and ASOC.)
     
    if “it takes a village to raise a child” (and I agree it does, and Choral Musicians are an important part of that village), then it takes a world of all of us to keep communicating.  We need to gently remind and review how essential the arts are.  (Remember that song by Natalie Sleeth “…..no trio sonatas, no Christms Cantatas … How would we get along!?”  ;). We must do so  in ways that are practical, positive, inspiring, inviting, and convincing. (“Tell me; I forget.  Show me;I remember.  Involve me;I understand.”)
     
    I guess the the first way is that we attend Tschaikovsky’s “Nutcracker”,  or Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”  – or at least some of what your local community offers – in addition to those concerts of other grade levels/
    situations.  (Remember my blog; “Who are your feet?”  ) While we are telling our friends how fun and meaningful those productions are, we invite them to our own concerts/presentations.  And offer to post some local art, especially if it is a promising student, or a talented 2nd-career adult.
     
     

  2. I second that, Ron, and this reminds me of the enactment of Title IX years ago, requiring (among other things) equal access to athletic participation for females.  For some “educational” institutions, reporters, and community “leaders”, it was like a light struggling to come on:   “You mean we have to offer a broad range of opportunities to all students????”  I’m all for athletics, and participated in national intercollegiate competition myself.  As with each of the arts, the various sports and types of physical education, properly presented, teach essential life lessons.  But there is often considerable distortion in the priorities of our educational institutions and our society.

  3. I wonder what the reaction in the general public would be if we were to mobilize the same sorts of reactions at the death of a music or other arts program?  And frankly, we need to start looking to support ALL other arts programs, irrespective of whether they involve music or not.  The death of a program, even in sculpture, or graphic design, which appears to have little connection to music, is the “little death” of ALL arts programs, performance or otherwise.  We need to see ourselves as part of a larger community, rather than wrap ourselves up in only our parochial concerns.  We need to see that the elimination of one or several aspects of the arts is an impoverishment for ALL arts programs, because the creativity which they all celebrate is blocked or eliminated.  As with Scott, I do not celebrate the closure of the program; but I DO celebrate the emphasis at at least one university of returning to the core mission of an institution of higher education – which is academic effort.  The physical world is important – “mens sana in corpore sano” – but the overemphasis that we’ve seen in places on just-short-of-major-league-status sports at institutions of higher education, leads me not to mourn too much the passing of the football program at UA-Birmingham.  I wonder what the reaction of USA Today, CNN, and ESPN would be if we challenged their indifference – that great sin not part of the Seven Deadly ones – to the loss of academic programs and artistic ones.  A shrug is about what I’d expect.
     
    Ron

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