Even though we will not see golf in the Olympics till 2016, we can still support the games. The Winter Games are less the 100 days away in our neighbor to the north. I am excited. I love watching the Olympics on TV. The games are never short on excitement.

PSU, so let's talk about golf in the Olympics in 2016. Maybe we should start a seperate thread on that. I think it's going to be an amazing addition.

I love the Winter Games. Golf will be interesting. So what do you think that's going to do to the selection criteria. I mean for something like archery, you don't need nearly the room and conditions that you do a golf course. So do you think the quality of the local golf courses plays into the decision?

Bah humbug, I think the Olympics has gotten out of control with number of sports and too many allowances for professional athletes. I'm a purist, I'd like to roll the sports back to like 1920, when it was simple track and field and swimming for summer, skiing and gymnastics in the winter. Not the politics of that time, just the simplicity of the sport.

I think the BEST part of the Olympics is the SKIING. The rest can get pretty boring. Ice Hockey is second.

I think "purity" in sports is gone. From amateur to professional sports is a money making adventure. However, I still support the Olypmics because this is one the world comes together to watch and enjoy. Granted we are helping the money making by tuning in but I tune to watch golf and NCAA basketball.

I think the USSR ruined the Olypmics when they started training their little kids to be world class competitors. All on the house. Free training and full support for anyone good enough to compete with the rest of the world. That was the beginning of the end for amatuer athletes in the Olypmics. And now that the team sports are all made up of Pros, it's not what the Olypmics was created to be.

erm and other countries dont do the same???????
how many people do college sport in your country - how many Olympians were sponsored by the British army? same thing
sorry Don - every country sponsors their own, just a lot of them don't make it that obvious.....
Remember countries want to promote how good they are, and they use the olympics to show it (remember we have spent shed loads of pennies on us having it in 2 years.- I actually feel sorry for Londoners, well sort of anyway....)

Kevin

Sorry Kevin, but you are wrong about EVERY country doing the same thing. WE here in the USA had rules against Paying or subporting amatuers so they could train FULL time for the Olympics. Sure, people could DONATE some money to athelets to help them out. but no one was PAYING them to train full time, which is what Russia was doing. Same for Cuba, East Germany, and some of the other Communist countries. This is WHY Russia won so many medals in hockey, track and field, and gymsastics for so many years. It's also why East Germany dominated swimming for a long time.

As for college sports, you do know that ALL college sports is limited to amatuer players don't you? Other than free tutition, they don't get a free ride in life. as the players in Russia did.

Well I guess it depends on what your definition of paying and supporting athletes is. Home Depot for example pays workers who are athletes 40hrs for 20 hrs work so they can practice/train/compete. They've done that for years for hundred of athletes.

And if athletes make the national team, many athletes get sponsorships and such from the USOC and similar organizations.

And for others, they get scholarships to college where they continue to train and compete.

So by far it's not the same but there are ways we provide support for athletes to train. it's not like they do it totally on their own without assistance. There are avenues for them. But it's also not the extreme situation that you mention either.

Do not forget the NCAA is always looking to giving athletes a stipend. So in the future it is possible for college athletes not only to have a full scholarship to attend the university but also have stipend.

An "official" stipend as opposed to the money they get from boosters "under the table"...college sport in the major markets is totally corrupt also, that's a whole other topic.

It is hard to say about thing about college sports. I was lucky enough to go to college on athletic scholarship in a non-revenue sport. I know that football pretty much paid for my college. Being a small sport, I know the importance of big money sports. Also, big sports can help the university. There is a lot of politics involved but when you are the athlete you appreciate every little thing. No matter what school you go to or what sport you play...there is sometimes a bad seed that takes the money or does something else stupid. I feel like that ruins it for everyone.

In college I would have loved to have a stipend. As an athlete it is almost impossible to have a job during the school year. Not only are you dealing with you class, training schedule, and games you have to get permission from the athletic department to even have a job. They also limit the amount you can make and how many hours a week you can work. As freshman if you are receiving any scholarship money through athletics you can not even hold a job. With all of that going on I would have liked some extra money. I know I should have been excited to just to have a chance to play a sport in college and get my tuition payed for but sometimes it felt I was an employee for the university. You bleed, sweat, and cry for that sport and you really start to do everything for you teammates and the school. Hahaha, I sound a little whiny but I really loved every minute playing golf.

The goal of college sport has become to bring as much money into the school as possible. Playing for the love of sport must happen, but it sickens me to see the palace that gets built for the football players at Oregon (as an example). Academic programs get cut, lesser sports get no support, but millions are spent on spas, plasma TV's, and leather lounge furniture for those players. It just feeds a culture of entitlement.
Seems to me we should have separate institutions, one for academics (ie, what a college was supposed to be for) and one for the professional athlete in training.
Many football fans will say that Notre Dame is not competitive because their academic standards are too high. Pretty sad.

What really GETS ME MAD is the Denver University Hockey program. If you look at the names of the player on the hockey team. I bet you can't pronounce 90 percent of them. Not unless you are real good with Swedish and Norvegian and somoe of the Eastenr Europe countries that are good at hockey. What I want to know is WHY IS DU GIVING OUT SPONSORSHIPS TO KIDS FROM EUROPE TO PLAY HOCKEY? It's not like those students will use what they learn in college to benefit the Unidted States after they finish school. They just become pro hockey players if that.