It Is Time To Reintroduce The Concept Of Patriotism And National Pride Into College Athletics

The United States has always been a powerhouse in Olympic competition, and perhaps our best sport is swimming. We have dominated for many reasons, but a big part of it is our superb college swimming tradition. The competition at the top of the college ranks is ferocious, and combined with a vibrant club team network makes American swimming the best in the world.

Except...a lot of those coveted slots in the elite club teams and collegiate teams are taken by foreign swimmers! According to the NCAA's data from 2022 (the most current I could find), about 14% of the Division 1 collegiate swimming ranks are foreign. That means that America's taxes and tuition that paid for the facilities and the coaching and the biomechanical and physiological research go to support foreigners who take that largesse and whip our asses at the Olympics!

I do not expect the NCAA to do anything. They are, after all, one of the most breathtakingly sleazy organizations on the planet. They care not a whit about their student athletes, America, patriotism, or national pride. They care about one thing...money. If the NCAA makes more money subsidizing foreign athletes, then that's what they are going to do.

But our taxes paid for most of the vast athletic infrastructure that is used by these foreign swimmers when they come to America to train. Why should the American people fund the athletics of other countries? We already pay for much of their defense; we take in the scum from their jails via our lax border policies; we fund much of the basic and applied scientific research; so maybe it is time that we told them to pound sand and pay for their own athletics.

Why? Because for better or worse, there is a huge amount of national pride embedded in the success of our athletes on the world stage. It is important for our national self image that we are competitive, and it is blatantly obvious that our geopolitical adversaries understand this. Why else does China spend a huge amount on their athletics, including bribing the international drug testing organization so that their athletes can compete without worrying about pesky little things like positive drug tests?

Will restricting foreign athletes diminish the competitiveness of our athletes? Possibly. Or...it will open up opportunities for American athletes who were not able to take advantage of the structural superiority of our collegiate athletic systems because of the slots taken by foreign athletes.

The facile arguments that we should be open to all fall on deaf ears. We have spent generations supporting the rest of the world...it is time to focus on America and Americans. Globalism should be a dirty word, and if that means reserving American athletics for Americans; then so be it.

posted by CBD at 12:00 PM

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