Could somebody explain to me (Australian) why/how sport and higher education became so closely linked? We certainly have university sporting teams here, but they are not really notable and certainly don't have the political clout that they do in US schools.
In Europe all the football teams have their own junior teams that are separate from education. Eg there are Chelsea/Real Madrid/Bayern under-10s teams that kids attend after school and feed up to the seniors. In addition, the leagues in Europe are a pyramid. Part-timers play at the bottom, superstars at the top. There's relegation and promotion, and players can develop at lower league teams to get bought by the top clubs later.
In the US they don't have that. AFAIK, there's no "Green Bay Packers U-18s" football team that is integrated with the professional club and promotes young players. Baseball does have a farm team system called the Minor Leagues.
The NCAA which runs university athletics in the US managed to make a junior league feeding all the professional leagues in various sports. The progression for an American athlete is then to get a scholarship to play at some university, and then get drafted by a professional team once they finish.
