College sports, boon or bane?

It's amazing how sports can influence your mood and behavior. Take me for example, I was never a big sports buff nor did I ever care for it, but ever since I started following football and more recently college basketball, I seem to have developed a dual personality. People who observe me watching these sports, swear that I am a totally different person. I scream obscenities, get angry and am a nervous wreck to a point where I have to start worrying about the fitness of my heart after the game is over. Is this all worth it? Maybe not, but the adrenaline rush that comes with such involvement is probably why people throng to games and sports bars. But by watching such college sports, people like me contribute to another unfortunate mentality that sports is more important than education. Think of it this way, when the US economy is affected by war and other natural calamities, how does the government try to recuperate from the loss? By cutting down research money. NSF is the first to suffer a loss followed by NIH. This obviously affects universities that solely depend on such sources for money. But then the sports departments, that are housed in universities continue spending millions of dollars on coaches and stadiums. The highest paid people in a university are the coaches, while a humanities professor probably makes 40-50,000$ a year (lower than the average US income, I am told), doesn't this seem unfair? I think that all sports departments should be forced to contribute a significant amount of money to the university (not just a meager 1 million a year to the local library). If not why are they part of universities, doesn't the reputation of the universities help them in any way? They should just go ahead and have clubs and leagues instead of living in the universitys shadow . Think about it!