Some students were upset that classes were only canceled after 3:10 p.m. on Monday following the women's basketball team's NCAA tournament victory.
However, I oppose cancelling any classes because of a sports win.
Quite simply, most other students and I are paying money to be here and take classes from experts in a field we're interested in. I, like many other students, couldn't name one member of either basketball team and don't particularly care what happens. I do not play on the team, I do not know anyone who plays on the team and I don't know why I should be emotionally invested in any sports team just because it happens to have branding with the name of the school I attend.
Even if the sports programs bring in more revenue with wins, that probably won't affect my student life. We can give a pay boost to our coaches, who are among the highest-paid employees in the state, or buy another giant statue of our mascot. I don't care. Those things don't affect me in any way, and we definitely aren't going to be using sports money to pay for better mental health services, more Arts and Sciences funding or a multicultural student center larger than a room in the basement of Russell.
So why should I celebrate, much less so hard that a day of classes gets cancelled? Some other students at the school — to the extent that athletes are students rather than unpaid employees who have to attend classes as a formality — won a major victory. But we wouldn't dream of cancelling classes in celebration of breakthroughs in faculty research, students winning fellowships or any sports team's win aside from football or basketball. Are those achievements less worthy of celebration? Would a tennis championship win be less spectacular and representative of the university than a basketball one?
I understand some other students care. Great for them. I hope they enjoy watching people throw balls into hoops well. Everyone needs something to get them through life. But it's not worth disrupting every professor's lesson plan with a month to go in classes just to let them get a little bit drunker than they otherwise would.
Some of us are here to learn. It would be nice if they respected the thousands the students paid in tuition by not cancelling classes without a clear public safety reason.