I take your question seriously. In the sense that Jesse is a very physical person, and, yes, smart as well. He, like a current counterpart, has little patience for disagreement, except Jesse had a more enlightened perspective. Jesse ultimately promoted conspiracy theories, which are not always a bad thing--like that the sun doesn't orbit the earth. His counterpart just flat out lies, about everything. I'm not sure that this has to do with mind and body being one, except that Trump is a brain floating in a blob of blubber. Herein is one argument for physical development as a part of education from primary through higher ed, and those with athletic talent should be encouraged, not discriminated against..
I don't know where you are going with this, but Northwestern is a private university and can do almost whatever it wants with its approach to education. Anything legal that is. Its policies tend to be progressive until it comes to having fun.
So you can't say NU "discriminates" against athletes. If you want to say that NU doesn't value "athletics" as much as it values music, drama, theatre, economics or engineering, thats fine. They get to decide what programs are important.