Why not have a village for teachers, musicians or performing artists, architects, chemists or professors, or foreign exchange students? I oppose this pandering to athletes. They may not like being forced to go live in one area. Has anyone taken a poll?
Ginger L. Lynd
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The athletes might just be the key to this deal… if they were to go public with a rejection it would carry some weight. After all, they are (purported to be) students first.
And many of them truly are student-athletes. I’m sure some of them are leery of putting tons of money into athletics facilities — they might prefer more support for competition travel or support to finish their degrees after their athletic eligibility runs out. Some of them love their sport and enjoy participating at the NCAA level, and they’ll be perfectly happy to graduate or go into the working world when their eligibility is finished.
It’s always difficult to expect people to argue against something that is in their self-interest. In this case, few of the athletes here today would be around to benefit directly from any athletics village — especially since there’s funding only for buying land, not for building anything on it. Yet they could well enjoy the sense of leaving a legacy for future athletes in their sport.
Think of it this way — if President Schmidly can’t say no to $30 million, even when its donor insists it be spent in ways that are counterintuitive and counterproductive, it’s not too surprising that an athlete wouldn’t say no to a great dorm or practice court.
However, if anybody is buddies with an OSU student-athlete, ask — it’s always good to know, even if it just confirms that they’re gung-ho for it.
I’ve talked to over 50 athletes, in all sports, and they are 100% for it.
Greg,
If they were not sending lawyers, police, and National Guard troops to talk with the people would they still be for it? Let these athletes look in the eyes of a woman who is loosing the home her and her husband built. The home where her kids took their first steps. The home that saw countless family gatherings. The home where he life partner drew his last breath. Let them then tell her that you will give her a fraction of the homes finical worth. That she will go from no mortgage to being in debt until the day she dies. Let them do that, then ask them if they are still 100% for it.
First, let’s leave the National Guard out of it. These young men and women are out there risking their lives in Iraq and other areas around the world. They will not be used to kick folks out of their homes, that will be the Sheriff’s departments job after a court order from Payne County.
Now, to respond to Greg, were any of the 50 athletes from Stillwater and if so did they grow up in the targeted area. More than likely they were out of state students that could care less about the residents of Stillwater. What college kid (even excluding athletes) wouldn’t want to live like a king? With the canal work, maybe we can even have them living like Saddam did before the war. Nice little palaces for each sport and a canal to keep the old folks out. But really, the last people that we should care about in this concern is the student-athletes. They already have a MUCH better lifestyle and academic support than ANY normal students attending OSU.