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Athletes at Webster University in Missouri aren’t happy with a billboard posted by the college along I-70 outside St. Louis. Picturing two members of the Chess team dressed for sport, the billboard reads, “Our top recruits are Chess players—Webster University”.
Webster has a very active Chess program, recruits players from around the world, and was the winner of the previous President’s Cup national college Chess championship (also known as the Chess final four). Yet athletes at the university are calling the billboard “degrading” and “a slap in the face.” They’re complaining that “Chess isn’t a sport” and that the billboard has “damaged the name of Webster University.”
Some have launched a Twitter campaign to get the university to remove the billboard.
According to Webster’s Director of Public Relations, Patrick Giblin, the sign is meant as a PR counter to an adjacent, long-standing series of University of Missouri billboards, which promote that institution’s athletic achievements.
[via The Journal]
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The athletes can get over it! It’s high time recognition and visibility and praise be extended
in other areas besides athletics. Webster is a global university, and if you look around the
world you will discover other nations award and give ample recognition to achievers in science,
math, engineering and other fields. In India, winners of certain math tournaments are treated
like rock stars. We’ve been way behind the curve in recognizing the achievements of people who
excel in areas like chess. I say Three Cheers for Webster’s “rock star” Chess Players. You
guys truly do represent the best!
I found this tweet particularly funny:
“‘I’m definitely going to that school because they have a good chess team!’ – No one ever”
Because that’s exactly what’s happening.
I am a current student at Webster University at the Webster Groves home campus. This is my third year here, and I am on the executive board of two student organizations. I have never been affiliated with a sports team at Webster, and have never been to a Webster sporting event.
That being said, I was offended by the billboard too.
While the athletic department is especially offended by the billboard because the chess players are jokingly dressed as athletes, this is an issue that is impacting the entire campus. We–athletes, students, and faculty alike–are upset because, instead of adding support to parts of our university community that are in need of updates, the administration decided to dish out money for SPICE (it’s debatable whether or not they “bought” the team, but they definitely bought Susan Polgar and her husband). Since we already have a nationally recognized theatre program, a baseball team that has recently been to the College World Series, and an incredible tradition of speech and debate, it is confusing why they would invest so many resources into a chess team than involves such a small number of people. Even if this money didn’t go toward athletics or a different student activity, getting new desks or updating the unreliable internet would have benefitted more students. Isn’t that the point of a university that doesn’t focus on sports? That they care more about the average student?
On top of all this, the Webster billboard is 7 miles away from the series of Mizzou signs. Is it still funny if it takes 5+ minutes to get to the punchline?
There’s nothing unusual about a university employing great measures to build a new program or using financial incentives to recruit a coach.
What I see is a university emphasizing an intellectual activity over sports, and then calling attention to that in juxtaposition to what is done elsewhere. Then, with the shoe finally on the other foot, athletes start whining because they feel insulted.
Well I think the billboard is wonderful! I think Webster University should be proud of the emphasis it’s giving Chess.
Of course it’s not unusual in higher education to spend so much money on a new program. However, it is unusual for Webster. Those of us who attend Webster chose to go here because we wanted to go to a school that was focused on academics and global education, not because the elitist culture of athletics was going to be replaced with an elitist chess culture.
OK, I can understand that. Yet clearly there are athletes complaining for a different reason. And those complaints I am not sympathetic to.
It’s definitely been blown out of proportion in terms of athletics, but only part of that is the athletes’ fault. It’s hard not to complain when you put a lot of work into something and don’t receive much recognition. Posting a few tweets is one thing, but the situation completely changed when those tweets were spread through the news.
David, what wise comments! There is such a need for people to think more creatively and more critically, rather than just reactively. In my view there needs to a revived interest in activities that engage the mind and open new windows of experience for students. Chess is certainly one of those activities.