GG: How one can say that university sports do not matter is beyond me. Being part of a community such as a university, we should all take interest in the events happening around us. This rings especially true within the collegiate system that York operates under. It is a given that a very small number of students have the talent to play for the university teams, yet our colleges give us a great opportunity to get involved. Only a select few universities can offer their students a chance to play sport at a less competitive level. With sports being such a major part of both university and college life, how can you say that we should not be bothered about them?
TS: Our colleges do offer a chance for more people to get involved, but it doesn’t mean that I have to follow it… I have a million pages of reading to do for my degree, I have to attend lectures, etc. So why should I care about university level sport? It’s not like America where there are huge stadiums with the games being broadcasted; it’s just not that deep in England. We’re all busy and there are times when I might not even be able to watch the Arsenal game, let alone dedicate time to going to uni games, or follow the uni scores when it’s really not that important to me.
GG: I’m not saying that everyone should have to go and watch university matches, but we should still take interest. I accept your point that many of us just don’t have the time to attend games, yet how hard is it to keep at least updated in a small way with university sport? Checking scores and fixtures takes seconds. I manage to keep updated with international, national and university level sport. Obviously following national and international sport still takes priority for me, especially when it comes to the mighty Spurs, but university sport should still be appreciated and followed by students.
TS: I see what you’re saying about checking scores not being too time consuming… but why should I care enough to do this? I’ve come to this university because I want to study here. Now that I’m here, it doesn’t mean that I have some die hard loyalty to the uni nor an interest in everything it does. I might care about the teams when I personally know some of the players, but when I don’t know them I don’t think that I should be interested in their team just because I go the same uni as they do.
GG: I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that students have no obligation of loyalty to their university. Yes, university choice is primarily based on academic reasons, but this shouldn’t continue into university life. We are all part of a community here and with that should come, however big or small, a sense of loyalty. I’m not saying that we should all be “die hard” with our loyalty to the university, but I believe that we should all take interest and invest in the community around us, sports included.
TS: Hmm… I understand why some people are interested in university sports, and obviously it’s good for university students to actively support the university teams, but it’s just not for me. I can’t really take an interest in university games when I don’t actually watch them or know anything about the teams, and as I don’t have the time or effort to go to uni games I doubt I’ll ever follow uni sport closely. If the games were streamed and I could watch them on the internet then I might get into it a bit more. However, until then, I think I’ll just stick to following the Premier League.