All Posts Tagged With: "University sport"
Should universities rethink sports?
Cutbacks to McGill’s athletics programs stirring up controversy
Controversy is brewing at McGill University after the university stripped 20 teams of their varsity status. While the decision was made last spring, it’s only now coming to a head. The decision means that instead of receiving funding from the school students now have to pay to play. These teams have also lost access to one of McGill’s gyms. High profile sports like hockey and football were spared. The decision came after $147,000 was cut from the athletics department’s budget.
The teams stripped of their status include cheerleading, men’s volleyball, figure skating, sailing, wrestling, women’s lacrosse and fencing. McGill also says the decision was made because some of the teams, like women’s lacrosse and fencing, are the only ones in the province. But students who want to participate in these teams say that without the varsity funding they no longer have the money to travel to Ontario or the United States to compete.
But how important are sports to modern Canadian universities and university life?
Varsity sports are often touted as a way to boost a schools profile and school pride, but the fact is most students are indifferent to even high profile teams. According to CBC, McGill’s highest profile sport, football, only draws around 1,000 spectators per game, and that’s at a school with over 30,000 students and attendance is dropping, though the team’s dismal record and a hazing scandal that saw the team lose its entire 2005-2006 season may have something to do with it.
In a competitive university environment prospective students care less about a university’s athletic success than its academic success. When students do care about athletics their more concerned about the quality of a school gym where they can exercise.
Now this may not be the case everywhere, Université Laval whose Rouge et Or football team has won the Vanier Cup (Canada’s football chapionship) draws around 10,000 spectators each game. In addition to the team’s successes this may also have to do with the university’s Quebec City location, where there is no CFL team.
High-profile university sports, like football and hockey, had humble beginnings with regular students trying out for teams, but this is no longer the case. For many sports teams, athletes are scouted and recruited at the high school level.
As universities struggle financially perhaps it’s time for them to start thinking about whether recruiting high calibre athletes, promoting these teams and maintaining stadium infrastructure is a worthwhile investment.
The winners, the losers
An unscientific guide to the best and worst in university sports
Top overall
The University of Western Ontario. Last year, the Mustangs won nine OUA (Ontario University Athletics) championships and both the men’s and the women’s national rowing titles, and made it to the final in both football and men’s hockey, and the semifinal in men’s basketball. “There’s a real sports culture at Western,” says Rob Pettapiece, who writes about the Canadian Interuniversity Sports (CIS) league for the CIS Blog—and plenty of jock alum are willing to support the team, in spite of the purple uniforms.
Honourable mention: The UBC Thunderbirds—whose hockey teams now play out of an Olympic venue—have won back-to-back national titles in women’s volleyball, three of the previous six national championships in women’s basketball and 22 of the past 24 national swimming championships. For the past four years, they have been ranked top 10 in basketball, volleyball, soccer, swimming and field hockey, and every couple of years pick up a national title in either soccer or men’s volleyball. While other schools tend to dominate individual sports, UBC spreads its big sports budget widely. Attendance, however, is consistently pathetic.
Honourable mention: University of Alberta, whose men’s and women’s hockey and volleyball teams tend to dominate the Canada West division. Alberta, a traditional powerhouse, has won national titles in every team sport. It consistently fields a bad football team, though—just a warm-up for the real sports, they say in Edmonton.
Top football
Laval University—no contest. Defending national champions the Rouge et Or have won five Vanier Cups in the last 10 years. Laval boasts 18,000 fans per game at PEPS stadium, which recently underwent a $2-million refit. (Western, by comparison, draws 11,000 to its homecoming games.) The program, overseen by ultra-successful head coach Glen Constantin, is flush with cash, and is treated like a pro franchise. It has invested in full-time assistant coaches, with an investors board made up of Quebec business people, and the team goes to Florida for training camp.
Top men’s hockey
In Canada, university hockey plays second fiddle to junior leagues, but the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds, who have claimed two of the last three national championships, boast a stellar program. Last season, they beat reigning NCAA champions Boston College, whose lineup featured 11 NHL draft choices. UNB standout Rob Hennigar, the Varsity Reds all-time points leader, made the unlikely step from CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport) to the NHL, inking a contract with the New York Islanders in 2008.
Top women’s hockey
Back-to-back CIS national champs, the McGill Martlets—who haven’t lost a game in almost two years, dating back to a 2-1 shootout loss to Alberta on Dec. 30, 2007—are the rising women’s hockey powerhouse. Goaltender Charlie Labonte and defenceman Catherine Ward both play for the women’s national team. Martlets head coach Peter Smith is assistant coach of the Olympic national team (previously head coach of the under-21 women’s national team).
Expect McGill’s dominance to continue. Two years ago, the team received a landmark $1-million donation—the biggest ever to a university women’s sports program in Canada. So it’s flush, and has a strong coach with an eye on the country’s top young talent. Smith’s recruiting job isn’t difficult: the appeal of playing for a winning team while surrounded by everything a McGill education and downtown Montreal has to offer is tough to turn down.
Next: Top basketball teams, best rivalry, worst team name, blind arrogance and more
The bottom line
Figuring it out: Tuition rates vary considerably across Canada
In his teachings, the Greek philosopher Epictetus proclaimed: “Only the educated are free.” Unfortunately, an education isn’t. On average, undergraduate tuition fees across Canada increased by 3.6 per cent this year, the same percentage jump as last year. Ontario had the highest increase at five per cent, the maximum allowed by the provincial government, while British Columbia had the lowest increase at two per cent. Despite a 4.2 per cent increase, students at Quebec universities still pay among the lowest tuition in the country—as long as they are residents of the province. Meanwhile, Manitoba and Saskatchewan ended tuition freezes with increases of 4.3 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively.
Tuition fees in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador remained unchanged, while in Nova Scotia, fees actually decreased by 3.1 per cent. Thanks to the implementation of the Nova Scotia University Student Bursary Trust in March 2008, fees for residents of the province will remain frozen until 2011. International students, who generally pay considerably higher tuition than Canadian students, saw their fees rise 7.1 per cent for an average fee of $15,674.
When it comes to compulsory fees, undergraduate students across the country are paying 6.8 per cent more on average this year, with Alberta students facing an enormous 31.1 per cent increase.
—Sally Brown
All fees in the accompanying chart are for undergraduate arts and science programs as of September 2009. The names of several universities appear twice:
Quebec institutions where out-of-province fees apply, and universities where there are different fees for arts programs and science programs.
Compulsory ancillary fees can vary according to program, or in the case of UBC and UNB, by campus location: students at UBC Okanagan campus pay $125 less than students at the main Vancouver campus; students at UNB Saint John pay $61 more than those at UNB Fredericton. UOIT’s fees include the cost of a laptop. Ancillary fees include student health plan fees. If students are covered by another insurance plan, they can opt out of most health plans, which range in cost from $52 to $386.
*Tuition at Nova Scotia universities is reduced for residents of the province.
Out-of-province students must pay $1,022 more than the tuition fees listed here.
UCalgary football player suspended for steroid use
Team’s head coach says positive drug test is a “slap in the face”
A University of Calgary Dinos football player has been suspended from competitive university athletics for two years after testing positive for steroid use.
Last March, linebacker Duncan McLean, 25, tested positive for Oxymetholone metabolites, a prohibited and very toxic anabolic steroid that has serious potential side effects according to the testing agency, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.
When informed of the test results in April, the Vernon, B.C. native waived his right to hearing and admitted to breaking the anti-doping rules followed by the Canadian Interuniversity Sport association. McLean’s football career is essentially over at the school, as he as already played for three years.
“The University of Calgary is unequivocally opposed to the use of banned substances by our student-athletes,” said Kevin Boyles, director of athletics for the university in yesterday’s press release.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy both at the UofC and in CIS,” he said. “We are fully supportive of the Canadian Anti-Doping Program and hope that this unfortunate situation sends a strong message throughout the league.”
Calgary Dinos football head coach Blake Nill says he wishes it didn’t take one of his athletes to test positive for an anabolic steroid to reinforce the league’s rules .
“This is the first one in 18 years for me. It’s tough,” Nill told The Canadian Press Wednesday, just hours after McLean was officially suspended.
“Our drug-testing is one of the best there is. Eventually, you’re going to get caught. If you try to take a performance-enhancer, you’re going to get caught. You see it all the time, but it’s unfortunate it happened in my program.”
Nill says he worries about the impact McLean’s suspension will have on the reputation of his school’s football program, although he has already phoned the families of incoming recruits to assure the parents that drug use isn’t a problem in his locker room.
“It’s still a shock when it happens,” Nill said. “Coaching at the university level is like adopting the athletes. It’s like I have 100 sons, I’m the surrogate father to 100 kids … I consider this sort of a slap-in-the-face type thing. I don’t feel responsible for it, but I’m disappointed it happened.”
- with files from The Canadian Press, photo courtesy of D’Arcy Norman
SFU snaps football losing streak
It’s the opening weekend for the 2008 Canadian Interuniversity Sport football season and it only took one game for magic to occur; the Simon Fraser University Clan won a football game and snapped their 25 game winless streak. For those of you interested in seeing highlights, SFU has uploaded them to YouTube. While SFU fans [...]
It’s the opening weekend for the 2008 Canadian Interuniversity Sport football season and it only took one game for magic to occur; the Simon Fraser University Clan won a football game and snapped their 25 game winless streak.
For those of you interested in seeing highlights, SFU has uploaded them to YouTube.
While SFU fans may think 25 games is a bad losing streak, University of Toronto fans must be praying for divine intervention.
The UofT Varsity Blues have lost all of their last 49 games and have been setting the CIS record for a losing streak ever since their defeat last October against the University of Western Ontario Mustangs. Their last win came in 2001 when they beat the Windsor Lancers 13-11.
Varsity Blues set futility mark
It’s a program that’s won four Grey Cup championships, two Vanier Cup titles and 25 Yates Cup crowns and is steeped in tradition over its 130-year existence.But now, the University of Toronto Blues own one of the most dubious of Canadian university football records. Randy McAuley scored two touchdowns as the Western Mustangs throttled Toronto [...]
It’s a program that’s won four Grey Cup championships, two Vanier Cup titles and 25 Yates Cup crowns and is steeped in tradition over its 130-year existence.But now, the University of Toronto Blues own one of the most dubious of Canadian university football records.
Randy McAuley scored two touchdowns as the Western Mustangs throttled Toronto 44-1 on Saturday before 5,350 spectators at TD Waterhouse Stadium, handing the Blues their CIS-record 48th consecutive loss.
“I’m disappointed with the outcome of the game, the record isn’t an issue,” said Blues coach Steve Howlett. “I don’t like the score, I don’t like how we performed and most importantly I don’t like the fact that we really came unglued.”
The Blues were penalized 18 times for 191 yards — one which forced a Kris Newman touchdown to be called back in the first half — and committed four turnovers in eclipsing the mark for futility previously held by the York Lions (1988-’95).
“We had some big plays on both sides of the ball that came back because of penalties,” Howlett said. “Without the penalties it’s a competitive game.
“They [penalties] take away your heart.”
Toronto’s last victory was a come-from-behind 13-11 decision over the Windsor Lancers during the 2001 season that halted a 18-game losing streak.
U of T (0-7) last had a winning record in 1995 when it posted a 4-3-1 mark. As bad as the Blues’ losing streak is, it pales in comparison to the NCAA record for consecutive defeats, which is 80 set by Prairie View A&M (1989-’98).
“We’re not proud, obviously, of our record,” said Liz Hoffman, the school’s director of athletics and recreation. “But we’re proud of our team.”
Michael Faulds and Nick Kordic had Western’s other touchdowns. Derek Schiavone booted the converts and four field goals. The other points came on two safeties.
Mark Stinson’s single accounted for Toronto’s scoring.
Western (3-4) took control of the game, surging to an 18-0 half-time lead.
McAuley scored on a five-yard run at 6:58 of the first and had a one-yard TD run on the last play of the half, but it was nullified by a penalty. That forced the Mustangs to settle for Schiavone’s 15-yard field goal.
Toronto was its own worst enemy in the first half with 10 penalties for 89 yards. One of those resulted in a Kris Newman touchdown being called back.
Toronto’s offensive woes continued to start the second half as Faulds scored on a eight-yard run just 1:40 into the third after Western recovered a fumble. The Mustangs intercepted David Hamilton on the Blues’ next possession, returning it to the Toronto six-yard line.
Two plays later, McAuley ran in from the five-yard line to give the Mustangs a 32-0 advantage before Kordic returned an interception 88 yards for the TD at 9:49.
Stinson broke Western’s shutout bid with a 65-yard single at 6:10 of the fourth.
Toronto will finish its season next weekend against Queen’s. Western takes on Waterloo with the winner capturing the sixth and final OUA playoff spot.
Howlett, in his fifth season at his alma mater, is still searching for his first victory as a CIS head coach. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for a coach in the final year of his contract, however Howlett’s not about to dwell on things, be it his club’s losing streak or his precarious future.
“I don’t like dealing with a loss and I didn’t like it last week either,” he said. “But I’m tough and by [Sunday] morning once we watch the film and correct it, I’ll be ready to move on and prepare for Queen’s.
“I’m not the only guy who is tough. These guys [Blues players] are tough, too, and will do the same as me. We will come together and start working on the next week.”
Toronto’s struggles, though, date back before Howlett’s arrival as the Blues are just 4-83 since 1997.
However, Western coach Greg Marshall said he sees definite improvement in the Blues program. Back in 2003 when Marshall was coaching at McMaster, the Marauders earned an 80-0 victory over Toronto.
“In my last year at McMaster [in 2003], they weren’t competitive but they’re competing now,” said Marshall, who spent three years coaching the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats before returning to Western last season. “They’re making progress.
“It’s not as fast as everyone would like but they have a new stadium, a very good coach and an athletic director who believes in the football team. The thing right now is they have to overcome that losing, and I’ve been there where you’re competitive in every game and yet you’re not getting any wins, you’re finding ways to lose.
“Once you get over that, things will happen. They just have to put together another good recruiting class this year and that’s how you win.”
Newman (who ran for 64 yards on 15 carries) and backup quarterback Andrew Gillis, who showed very good athleticism in the second half, seem to back up Marshall’s statement. Both are first-year students at U of T and have definite future promise.
There’s little doubt the Blues’ new home — the impressive 5,000-seat Varsity Centre with its new artificial turf that can be domed for winter use — will help the school in its quest to attract better players. However, many recruits will immediately look at the program’s penchant for losing, a challenge Howlett readily acknowledges.
“We’ve got some great, young kids this year and they’re going to be the building blocks of the next part of our future,” Howlett said. “It’s not about the past, it’s about the future.
“I know some kids will look at that [record] somewhat and it’s up to us to try and convince them otherwise.”
- The Canadian Press
