With the start of classes and 90-degree weather comes a season some of us look forward to and some dread: Yet again, my friends, it’s football time in Tennessee. 

There have been several changes to the football program since last fall. I don’t keep up with sports much these days (which is an understatement, if ever there was one), but even I paid attention to all the coaching drama last winter. And though I’m not the most visually observant of girls, I’ve also noticed there have been a few changes to the stadium recently. Nothing major, just a few more trees and lampposts outside the entrance. 

That was another understatement. 

The recent stadium renovations bothered me for some time and not just because they were inconvenient. I was going to take the opportunity today to complain about them, but the more I considered my complaints, the more uninspired they seemed. I am not convinced, and probably never will be, that the renovations were somehow necessary or a responsible use of funds. As I sit in yet another overcrowded, upperlevel humanities class, I can tell you that it wasn’t, and that’s that. 

Except … 

Anyone see a problem with what I just said? (Besides the fact that I’m in hard, upper-level humanities classes my senior year and not a bunch of nice, simple, introlevel lectures?) The problem is that a blanket statement like the one I made above — that having smaller class sections in our university courses should take precedence over sports-related building renovations — simplifies a complex and interesting problem. My statement, at its core, assumed that academics ought to always be prioritized above sports; that readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic are always superior to athletic undertakings. 

I don’t think you would have to look far on campus to find a few individuals who believe this is true. On a lot of days, if I haven’t had much coffee, I am one of them. But on those rare days when I have had enough caffeine, it seems to me that to always, unreflectively, prioritize scholastic endeavors over athletics is at the very least naïve. 

Grant me a minute to explain: My knee-jerk objection to high-expense sports programs in general, not just at those here at UT, is that enormous amounts of money are spent on something that, while fantastically impressive athletically, seems, at first blush, to be nothing more than entertainment. To my cranky, academically arrogant mind, this is outrageous. 

For some reason, I boil my objections down to this: “We renovated Neyland Stadium when we could have given money to cure cancer,” and it seems irresponsible to me that there’s a hiring freeze at the university while we have fancy lampposts outside the stadium. 

But how a few donors choose to spend their money is not the point. The question with which we ought to be concerned is: What is our purpose here at UT? What do we want our aim to be? Though you may not realize it, the Volunteer athletic programs and all the academics in their ivory towers are part of the same institution. Is it possible that, to an extent, they all have a common purpose? If so, what is it? What is the university for? 

Ten different people would give you 10 different answers, but I believe that one of the most important aims of the university as an institution is to learn about mankind. The study of humanities, what it is to be human; social sciences, how we relate to one another; physical and biological sciences, how we function and relate to our environment. What are music, art and sports if not other ways of understanding human nature? 

If our aim here at the university is to learn about man, then we need to embrace all parts of him — musical, artistic, athletic — not just the intellectual. That’s my only point: My knee-jerk response to yet more spending in the athletic budget should be more reflective, less reactionary. There are all sorts of valid concerns about the role of athletics in the university that ought to be addressed (by wiser heads than mine), but I think those concerns need to be addressed, not dismissed, by all of the community if we are serious in our aim. Sport, after all, is not the only pursuit here at the university that can devolve into no more than an exercise in vanity. 

Good luck to the team this weekend, and enjoy the game if you are so inclined!

—Leigh Dickey is a senior in global studies and Latin. She can be reached at [email protected].