the stadium versed the serious student

"Athletics played a most important role on the college campus of the 1920s. A football victory set an optimistic tone at many schools in the interwar period. Furthermore, a successful sports program raised the visibility of an institution: it provided a means of entertainment and identification for the local community -- and that community could include an entire state -- as well as for the college's alumni and students. In the eyes of most people, students and others alike, the stadium was the most important building on campus, and the achievements of a school's athletes there overshadowed the achievements of faculty and students in the laboratory and in the classroom.
...
"Amidst the activities and fraternities, one type of student was bound to be unhappy -- the serious student."

-- The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, David Levine, 1988, p. 120, 121.