TDG NEWS 11-15-07
The compilation of articles today cover some interesting things that get to the core of TDG’s mission—academic
integrity, disclosure, and government intervention. Other articles cover the recent Knight Commission meetings in
October which many of us attended (and were not overly impressed with the festivities). Many articles talk about
specific faculty efforts on campuses with regard to athletic governance. I see this a very positive sign. As usual,
Rutgers is in the news with regard to its efforts to remain “big time.” Check out the excellent op-ed from TDG
member Bill Dowling in the NY Times regarding Rutgers and the state of academic integrity in college athletics.
I wonder sometimes-- Is there hope for change? I still think so. Let me know your thoughts and keep up the fight!!!
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ATHLETES IN CLASS: UT'S TOUGHEST GAME
Athletes caught between standards
Lower entrance levels, stricter NCAA criteria creating Catch-22.
John Maher , Austin American-Statesman, 29 October 2007
Ask Big 12 academic administrators about the NCAA's current reform efforts, and they'll respond with carefully
measured words and cautious praise. And then some of them will tell you what they really think.
"This is a perfect storm and a formula for disaster," said Gerald Gurney, senior associate athletic director for
academics at the University of Oklahoma. "It has encouraged academic fraud and dishonesty."
Here's why Gurney and other administrators are concerned: Even as it has lowered admission standards for
athletes, the NCAA has increased the academic requirements for those athletes once they are in college.
As Marilyn Middlebrook, Oklahoma State's associate athletic director for academic affairs, put it: The NCAA has
"lowered the bar" to get
student-athletes into schools "and raised it to let them out."
"It was always hard," Middlebrook said, "but now I've got advisers saying, 'Where's the Prozac?' They're joking, but if
you find anyone who says they're not working harder, they're lying."
Some educators say the problems began a decade ago when the NCAA tried to toughen the old Proposition 48
standard for initial athletic eligibility with Proposition 16.
Proposition 16, fully implemented in 1996, introduced a sliding scale for standardized test scores and grade-point
averages in 13 core classes, and it required an SAT score of at least 820 or an equivalent ACT score for an
incoming student-athlete to have full eligibility. Partial qualifiers - eligible for an athletic scholarship but not allowed
to compete as freshmen - could score as low as a 720 on the SAT.
That rule, however, was quickly challenged in the courts as plaintiffs
claimed standardized tests were discriminatory.
The NCAA eventually came up with Bylaw 14.3.1.1 as a replacement. It allows schools to admit a student-athlete
who scores the lowest possible SAT score of 400 if he or she has a high school grade-point average of 3.55 or
above in 14 core classes. With a 3.0 high school GPA, only a score of 620 on the SAT is needed for an athlete to
gain full eligibility and a scholarship. By comparison, the average SAT for all University of Texas freshmen has been
about 1,230 in recent years.
Even as it has made it easier for athletes to qualify for college, the NCAA has increased the rate at which they are
supposed to make progress toward their degrees.
To remain eligible for competition, athletes must have completed 40 percent of their degree requirements by the
start of their third year, 60 percent by the fourth year and 80 percent by the fifth year. The previous standards were
25, 50 and 75 percent.
The NCAA also has instituted a new measure of success, the academic progress rate, and begun to penalize
schools whose student-athletes showed unsatisfactory academic performance. Teams that don't meet APR cutoff
marks can lose scholarships, which could hurt their chances on the field.
Walter Harrison, chairman of the NCAA's committee on academic performance and president of the University of
Hartford, said the NCAA did not send a mixed message with the changes.
He said that academic admission requirements have not been lowered with the sliding scale and that standardized
tests such as the SAT could be discriminatory.
Some Big 12 administrators, however, aren't so sure that the current standards are a step in the right direction.
"The NCAA didn't want to take responsibility to require test scores; they passed it along to the individual institutions,"
said Oklahoma's Gurney. "No university wants to unilaterally abandon NCAA standards. ... We're all in athletics for
competition and who's going to restrict themselves?"
Instead, many administrators want the NCAA to set higher admission requirements that would apply to all schools.
"Every AD in the Big 12 is begging to raise initial eligibililty standards. Every AD. Not 10, not 11, but 12," said
University of Texas men's athletics director DeLoss Dodds.
For some prospective college athletes, compiling a good GPA in high school has become the goal, since it allows
them to get by with a poor SAT score, said Phil Hughes, Kansas State's associate athletic director for student
services and the current president of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics.
Brian Davis, who oversees academics for the Texas Longhorns football team, has asked groups of potential
recruits: "Who's been told not to worry about the SAT?" Davis said he sees a significant number of athletes raise
their hands. That troubles him because, if nothing else, preparing for the SAT can be good practice for studying for
college tests.
As for high school grades, college advisers say they have been shocked to see how many athletes have been
passed along.
"We're seeing some students with elementary skill sets," said one Big 12 adviser who asked not to be identified.
"In high schools, if they have one or two Division I athletes, it appears they are going to bend over backwards so
that they meet the minimum academic standards," Hughes said. "It becomes this remarkable dance. Everything
appears to be fine, and then you find out differently."
Middlebrook said academic advisers around the Big 12 almost immediately began seeing the effects of the new
admission standards - students who needed a lot more attention, including an increased number with learning
disabilities.
Such challenges have made it even more difficult for some institutions to hit the NCAA's goal of 60 percent
graduation rates for athletes. Middlebrook said that some schools don't graduate 60 percent of their general student
body yet are being held to the same standards as institutions that graduate almost all of their students.
"We're trying put a rule on everybody in the business," Middlebrook said. "But you're not even comparing apples to
oranges. You're comparing apples to watermelons."
Advisers also are worried that meeting the stricter criteria - and avoiding NCAA penalties - will create conflicts of
interests. What's best for the school might not be best for the athlete.
"It's anti-student development," Hughes said. "It creates restrictions on exploring different majors. Athletes may have
to stick with a major whether they like it or not and might get a degree they don't care about."
Added Dodds, "We make decisions based on making the APR and not what's best for the students every day. And
that's not right."
ATHLETES IN CLASS: UT'S TOUGHEST GAME
Graduation rate? Depends on which method you're using.
John Maher, Austin American Statesman, 28 October 2007
A mix of methods
All sports produce statistics, and few stats are as confusing as those used to keep score on the academic side of
college athletics. Graduation rates have been the standard for years, but there are several ways to calculate them.
Now, the NCAA is using an academic progress rate, which tracks whether athletes are in good academic standing
but does not account for whether they earn a degree.
Here are the various methods for tracking student-athletes and how the Longhorn football team fares under each:
Federal graduation rate
How it's calculated: Percentage of student-athletes who have graduated within six years. This rate is not popular with
college administrators because students who transfer from a school count against that school's graduation rate
even if they leave in good standing. The most recent data track four classes that entered from 1997-2000.
How Longhorn football fares: 32 percent graduation rate, worst in the Big 12.
NCAA graduation success rate
How it's calculated: Similar to the federal rate but does not penalize schools for transfers who leave in good
academic standing. The most recent data track four classes that entered from 1997 to 2000.
How Longhorn football fares: 42 percent graduation rate, worst in the Big 12.
AFCA graduation rate
How it's calculated: The American Football Coaches Association uses its own measurement, based on the
percentage of student-athletes who have graduated after 5½ years. Players who transfer in good standing do not
count against a school. The rate tracks a single class — the most recent being those who entered in the 2001-02
school year — making it more susceptible to year-to-year fluctuations than the four-class averages used in the
other graduation rate methods.
How Longhorn football fares: Texas was one of four Big 12 schools to be recognized for having a graduation rate
higher than 70 percent.
Academic progress rate
How it's calculated: Relatively new NCAA measurement tracks whether current student-athletes are still in school
and are in good academic standing. Most recent data are for classes that entered in 2003-05.
How Longhorn football fares: APR score of 944, best in the Big 12.
— John Maher
ATHLETES IN CLASS: UT'S TOUGHEST GAME
Schools are spending big on academics
Centers, tutors are big ticket items
By John Maher, AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF, Monday, October 29, 2007
In 1991, not long after finally voting to make public the graduation rates of athletes, NCAA Division I universities
required schools to make counseling and tutoring available to their student-athletes. Since then, many colleges
have undergone a building boom to give student-athletes greater access to computers, the Internet, study rooms,
tutors and more.
Academic centers for athletes have become commonplace at most big state schools. Many are flashy enough to be
used as recruiting tools.
Texas A&M's Center for Athletics Academic Services covers 28,000 square feet, cost $27 million and opened in
2003. Ohio State's Younkin Success Center, which houses athletic support services, is 72,000 square feet and
opened in 2000 with a $10 million price tag. The University of Texas has the Bible Academic Center in Bellmont Hall
and the Academic Learning Center in the football team's Moncrief-Neuhaus Athletics Complex. UT also is adding an
18,000-square-foot academic center for student-athletes as part of the football stadium's north end zone renovation.
The NCAA does not publicly track how much schools spend on academic support services, but school administrators
say the amount is increasing.
Phil Moses, director of academic support for student-athletes at North Carolina State and past president of the
National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics, estimates that large public universities average $1 million
per year in academic help for athletes. That's about what N.C. State spends, he said.
David Graham, director of student-athlete support services at Ohio State, said that school's budget is $2 million.
Ohio State fields more teams than almost any Division I school and has more than 800 athletes. By comparison,
Texas has about 500 athletes, slightly above the average for a Big 12 school.
Big 12 schools spend from $500,0000 to $2 million on academic support for their athletes, based on figures
provided by academic services directors or associate athletic directors around the conference. The schools with the
largest athletic budgets typically spend the most on academic aid. Football powers Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and
Texas A&M and basketball heavyweight Kansas top the list in the Big 12.
"If you wanted help, you got it — period," recalled former Longhorns football player Dusty Renfro.
UT senior associate athletic director Randa Ryan said Longhorn athletes receive about 7,000 hours of tutoring a
year — and that doesn't include the football team. Brian Davis, who oversees the football squad's academic
performance, said the team totals 4,000 to 5,000 hours of tutoring per semester, including the summer semester
when players are enrolled and doing voluntary workouts. That works out to 12,000 to 15,000 hours — about 100
hours per football player per year.
Those numbers dwarf the level of tutoring that non-athletes receive at UT.
Alan Constant, director of UT's Learning Center, where most of the university's undergraduate tutoring is done, said
3,910 students took advantage of tutorial services during the 2006-07 school year, totaling 52,496 hours of tutoring.
That's about 11 percent of all undergraduate students, at an average of a little more than 13 hours each.
PIGSKIN PIGGYBANK
Ram football players get comfy at the Hilton, but it isn’t helping their record.
Brian Park, Ft. Collins Rocky Mountain Chronicle, 15 November 2007
The Colorado State University football team went to bed on October 26 dreaming of a win against the Utah Utes the
following day. After pregame meetings and a buffet dinner, complete with burgers, pasta dishes and an array of
other foods, helped mentally and physically prepare the squad, players settled into their hotel-room beds.
Despite the cozy preparations, Utah won, 27 to 3, and the Rams became cellar dwellers, solidifying last place in the
Mountain West conference, an unflattering distinction the team still holds with a 1-9 record.
Staying at hotels and eating catered meals is nothing new in the realm of college football, only these beds and
meals were at the Hilton Fort Collins, and the Rams were playing at Hughes Stadium, not on the road. The team
occupies 41 rooms per home game to accommodate players and an occasional coach or two.
“I think we stay there so we can stay focused as a team. It allows us to have meetings and everyone be together
before we go to battle the next day,” says Kyle Bell, a running back for the team and red-shirt junior. “For some
guys, I think, they would prefer staying in their own beds, but for the most part it’s a good thing.”
It’s also an expensive thing: CSU has budgeted $70,632 for the Hilton this year. The school forks over $22,632 in
accomodations for the six home games. The rest of the payment goes toward food, including a dinner buffet and a
breakfast smorgasbord.
To put the football team’s hotel tab in perspective, $70,000 could offset this year’s $287 tuition increase for 244 in-
state students (see sidebar for more).
No other sports teams at CSU get the Hilton treatment, even though a lot have outperformed the football team. Case
in point: The women’s cross-country team won the 2007 Mountain West Conference Cross Country Championship
on October 27.
“Generally, as an industry practice, football is the only program that does this, usually because of sheer numbers,”
says Paul Kowalczyk, director of athletics at CSU, meaning that football teams include many more athletes than
cross-country or basketball teams. “It’s easier to do bed-checks when they’re [football players] all in one place
instead of strewn around campus.”
Football teams staying at a hotel before home games is common practice around the nation. Both the University of
Colorado at Boulder and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs do the same. The Buffs have budgeted
approximately $84,000 for beds and grub this season.
“I don’t know of a Division I-A [football] program that doesn’t do this,” Kowalczyk says.
Except the University of Wyoming, CSU’s cross-border rival, doesn’t — the only team out of the nine in the Mountain
West conference to shun the practice.
“I think it’s a big advantage to sleep in your own surroundings, your own bed, to have some normalcy of your day-to-
day life,” says Casey Glenn, director of football operations at Wyoming and son of head coach Joe Glenn. “If you’re
not doing that and instead sleeping in a hotel, it’s like any other away game.
“It’s a coaches’ decision,” he adds.
Wyoming doesn’t put its players up, but the school still doles out money for its football team, with a catered dinner at
a restaurant in Laramie and free movie passes the night before home games. The Cowboy State, however, is flush
with funding due to increased royalties from the state’s booming oil and gas industry. Wyoming spends the most
money per full-time student in the entire U.S. and nearly four times as much as Colorado.
State legislators spent the summer studying Colorado’s assessment and use of oil- and gas-tax money, and a bill
could be introduced in the next legislative session, beginning in January, to filter some of those funds to higher
education.
Still, the notion of sleeping in a hotel when one’s own bed is close by does not make sense to Glenn.
“I’ve coached at Idaho State and Oklahoma; I never saw it as a distinct advantage to stay at hotels,” he says.
Comparing the Cowboys’ record (5-5) with the Rams, he might just have a point.
PAY TO STAY
The money spent by Colorado State University to pay for home-game hotel rooms at the Fort Collins Hilton are
taken from the athletics budget, but they could conceivably go toward meeting financial shortfalls around campus,
and there are plenty of them.
Colorado ranks 48th in the nation in state and local public higher education support per full-time student and for
operating expenses per capita, according to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, based
in Boulder.
“We’re not last, but we’re pretty darn close,” says Frank Waterous, a senior policy analyst with the Bell Policy
Center, a Denver-based policy think tank.
Waterous would not comment on the football team’s policy or CSU’s expenditures in general, but he made it clear
that state higher ed has some yardage to make up.
“The lack of state money going to higher ed is generally offset by tuition increases,” Waterous says, stating he
doesn’t believe this is a sustainable way to make up for the millions of dollars the state cannot get from its general
fund.
Tuition increases have become an annual practice at CSU and at schools around Colorado. CSU President Larry
Penley’s sneaky attempt earlier this year to raise tuition by attaching the hike to a bill in the state legislature
exemplifies the struggle CSU is facing. The decline in state support for higher education is worsened by
constitutional limitations, including the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), according to a report issued by CSU in
2004.
New options must be enacted, “so you’re not balancing the budget on the backs of students and families,” Waterous
adds. — B.P.
Athletes Behaving Badly: A Problem Solved by Degrees?
Robert Boland, Clinical associate professor of Sports Management, NYU Preston Robert Tisch Center
for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management
It may be the fastest growing “industry” sector, but the reputation of professional sports stands to suffer from the
growing and high profile instances of player misconduct. With sports leagues absorbing the cost and disciplinary
measures failing, fans and sponsors are calling for action.
One idea to abate the situation, “the Degree Tax,” is put forth by Professor Robert Boland and several of his
colleagues at NYU’s Robert Preston Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management.Based on a
correlation they found between criminal behavior and athletes without a degree, the proposal sets out to change
locker room culture and encourage young, would-be athletes to finish school. Boland, an attorney who has
negotiated more than 100 player and endorsement contracts, is also a sports agent. He competed in the 1984 U.S.
Olympic Regional Trials as a college athlete.
“It appears that a player’s ability to earn a degree is directly related to his ability to be a successful employee of a
professional sports team,” Boland explains. The Degree Tax plan, which is currently being circulated to the NFL,
proposes a contract incentive to players with degrees who stay out of trouble and salary cap exemptions to teams
that sign players with degrees.Proponents say that it would turn players into successful employees and better role
models, as well as easing the financial strain on leagues.
“Managing player conduct is the single biggest challenge American professional sports leagues face going forward,”
Boland continues. “Fans and sponsors are slowly beginning to be siphoned away from leagues by the problems of
conduct; not only criminal conduct by athletes, but also by coaches and referees.
“Whether we’re talking about random crimes, like the Michael Vick situation; steroids, which continues to haunt major
league baseball; or gambling, which threatens the NBA’s integrity, it all adds up to a loss of trust that may not be
regained,” Boland asserts.
As for the growth of sports once this obstacle is overcome? According to Boland, the leagues can get back to
developing new communication strategies involving digital media on a global level and working to refine strategy and
knowledge on a more local level.
Boland, who has been working at NYU since 2003, teaches courses in sports law, finance, and management in the
Tisch Center’s undergraduate and graduate sports business programs. Admitted to the bars of New York and
Georgia, he was previously litigation counsel to several major New York area law firms, including Skadden, Arps and
Slate, Meagher & Flom, and an assistant district attorney.
Play it Smart pays off
Darren Epps, Chattanooga Times Free Press, 14 November 2007
Dennis Rogan might not be returning kicks for Tennessee without the Play It Smart program, instead disappearing
into the anonymity that greets 18-year-olds without a high school degree.
Ventrell Jenkins admits he wouldn't be experiencing Kentucky's remarkable season without his Play It Smart
academic counselor. He might be clogging the inner city of Columbia, S.C. instead of gaps on the line of scrimmage
as a crucial part of the Wildcats' defensive line.
Alabama's Javier Arenas said his GPA was "in the low 2s" before enrolling in Play It Smart his sophomore year of
high school. These days, Arenas is performing well in the classroom and punters are angling their kicks away from
him.
The impact of Play It Smart, a nonprofit program sponsored by the College Football Hall of Fame and the National
Football Foundation, stretches across the entire Southeastern Conference every Saturday. Play It Smart's mission
is helping football players in under-served schools learn how to study, become involved in the community, manage
their time and, ultimately, go to college.
Tennessee has three Play It Smart graduates on the roster, more than any other SEC school.
"I know for a fact that a lot of us wouldn't be in school," Rogan said of his former teammates at Fulton High School
earlier this year. "Without that program, we wouldn't be where we're at. I couldn't imagine where we'd be right now,
and I wouldn't want to."
Founded in 1998, Play It Smart is now present in 136 high schools with more than 200 graduates competing in the
Football Bowl Subdivision this season. The program is paid for by a $30,000 grant to each school, though the
number can vary. The NFL and the NFL Players Association donate $1.1 million every year, and the Chick-fil-A Bowl
recently announced it would give $180,000 to put Play It Smart in Atlanta's public schools.
Vince Lambdin cannot imagine a more worthy high school academic program. Lambdin is the academic coach at
Fulton -- there's one for every school with Play It Smart -- whose duties are the most vital part of the program.
Lambdin is a father figure, a disciplinarian -- he will take away playing time, if needed -- a mentor, an adviser and a
community service coordinator. He helps put Fulton's athletes in the proper 16 core classes, sets up tutoring for
classwork and the ACT, establishes goals for his students and makes sure the NCAA Clearinghouse isn't ready to
claim another academic causality. He has a well-visited office inside Fulton High School.
At Columbia (S.C.) High School, Kyrstin Krist was the academic coach, the one responsible for putting Jenkins on
the field at Kentucky.
"Some people develop skills on their own," Jenkins said. "I wasn't one of those people. I needed guidance. I needed
someone to motivate me and give me a boost when I was in high school. For some people, it's the only support
group they have. Whether it's grades, school, or life in general -- any problem that you had or were going through,
Play It Smart can help you through it."
Before Lambdin's arrival at Fulton, student-athletes would unwittingly take too many electives and fail to pass the
NCAA's admission standards. Over the last four years, Fulton is graduating 100 percent of its football players,
including Rogan.
The national graduation rate for Play It Smart members is 95 percent, compared to 85 percent for their peers. And
80 percent will enroll in college. Lambdin said the East Tennessee Chapter explored the possibility of installing
programs at Chattanooga-area schools, but the idea "lost steam."
"The most important thing is not necessarily that we've got kids playing in college," said Lambdin, in his sixth year
with Fulton, "is that they're going to college."
And using the skills they gained as members of Play It Smart. Tennessee defensive end Antonio Reynolds will
graduate next month with a degree in sociology and renewed spiritual strength, accomplishments he credits to the
program he joined as a junior in high school.
"Before the program, I was just average in the classroom and just getting by spiritually," he said. "It took a lot for me
to realize my priorities. It just rubs off on everybody, because you're all working together and you want to see people
do well. Your academic coach is your role model. I try to be a role model now and a positive influence toward youth."
The program also encourages community service. Play It Smart members total more than 67,000 hours of
community service annually, and Fulton registered almost 600 last year. They read to elementary school students,
take part in food drives, pick up trash in the community and work at churches.
Jenkins still volunteers as a mentor at Johnson Elementary School in Lexington. Arenas does work in Tuscaloosa.
"It's good to just see what other people go through and understand," Arenas said. "At first, you think it's going to be
boring. But then you help somebody, you make a difference and you get pretty excited about it."
Lambdin knows the feeling. He was at Neyland Stadium last Saturday when Rogan, a freshman, nearly returned a
kick for a touchdown. For three years, he pleaded with Rogan to study more, try harder, transfer his
competitiveness from the field to the classroom.
Lambdin was beaming last Saturday.
"It blesses my heart to see him achieve goals he set for himself," Lambdin said. "It's awesome to see it pay off. But
I'm going to keep holding him accountable. I'm going to stay on him the next three and a half years."
Most importantly, Lambdin will know where to find him.
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Rutgers Gets Blitzed
By WILLIAM C. DOWLING, New Brunswick
ABOUT a month ago, as the Rutgers football team rose to 10th place in the national polls, I thought about a student
who recently transferred to another college. He’d come to us with a 1570 SAT score. He chose Rutgers for its math
and philosophy departments.
But we couldn’t keep him. Along with his superb academic credentials, this student played one of the so-called non-
revenue sports — crew, swimming, tennis, fencing — recently eliminated in the name of budgetary stringency. When
the news came, he applied to Yale, M.I.T. and Brown. Accepted at all three, he chose Brown.
The budgetary stringency is real. This year alone, a $66 million shortfall has led to huge staff layoffs and
cancellation of more than 400 course sections. Rutgers undergraduates go to class on a grimy, decaying, traffic-
choked campus. Still, the budget crisis hasn’t prevented a lavish expenditure on the revenue sports. Estimates of
the amount spent on the athletics build-up run from $250 million to $300 million.
Recently, the administration announced plans for a $116 million stadium upgrade with corporate sky boxes. Even
such “little” expenditures as the $88,000 spent on trinkets for boosters and state legislators when Rutgers played in
a minor bowl game don’t seem so little to those sitting in deteriorating classrooms.
Among faculty, a growing fear is that students like the one who transferred to Brown have begun to avoid Rutgers. It’
s not an idle worry.
A group of Williams College analysts led by Gordon C. Winston has argued that what is called the theory of peer
effects plays a decisive role when talented students are choosing colleges. Such applicants understand intuitively
that, as Professor Winston puts it, “students will learn more, think more carefully and perform better by associating
with academically strong fellow students.”
A corollary holds that very bright students will, whenever possible, avoid universities dominated by unmotivated or
actively disruptive students. In recent years, I’ve heard many colleagues complain that such students are
increasingly dominant at Rutgers, where their belligerence and incivility — arriving late, playing video games, talking
on cellphones and sleeping in class — have become commonplace. In the minds of most faculty members, there’s
little doubt that big-time athletics, by attracting students whose idea of “college” is drinking beer, painting their faces
and howling obscenities at opposing teams, is a major reason.
Last month, for instance, the president of Rutgers found himself writing a letter of apology to the superintendent of
the United States Naval Academy because fans in the Rutgers student section directed obscene chants at the
midshipmen during a game. A few weeks ago, a mother of two young boys wrote the student newspaper because
she hadn’t much enjoyed hearing Rutgers students screaming profanities during a game against Cincinnati, or
having her sons watch as the police handcuffed and ejected brawling, drunken undergraduates.
It wasn’t always this way. Founded in 1766, Rutgers was long a magnet for serious New Jersey students of modest
means. In addition, the school has a history of genuinely collegiate athletics. The first college football game in
America was played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869. For more than a century, its main rivals were teams
that today make up the Division I-AA non-athletic-scholarship Patriot and Ivy Leagues. Only in 1994, under pressure
from powerful athletics boosters, was Rutgers pushed into the Big East Conference, with its million-dollar coaches,
lavish training facilities and elaborate athletes-only tutoring programs.
In the 1990s, worried that Rutgers was on its way to becoming just another Division I-A sports factory, a group of
bright and resourceful students organized Rutgers 1000, a campaign to resist the corruption of professionalized
college sports. Drawing strong faculty and alumni support, their protest attracted national attention. Rutgers 1000
disbanded only in 2002, when the appointment of a new president convinced the students that Rutgers would return
to its core values.
In the years since, however, as the institutional center of gravity has gone on shifting toward big-time athletics, a
new generation of intellectually serious undergraduates has once more found itself being shoved to the margins of
institutional life.
That’s why I was heartened last week when a group of students announced they were reviving Rutgers 1000.
Watching the school’s rise in the national rankings, they’d seen the defiant crudity and anti-intellectualism of football
booster culture become dominant on campus.
More important, these students had glimpsed an essential point: the real issue at the heart of the big-time athletics
controversy is a violated ideal of democratic education. To talented students from less-than-wealthy backgrounds, a
state university is often the only realistic college choice. But a public university that puts professionalized sports at
its symbolic center inevitably draws large numbers of party-animal students who, as they’ll be the first to tell you,
“hate school.”
Poisoned by resistance to real and meaningful education, such a university soon finds itself adding remedial
sections, dumbing down its curriculum and watching as its best faculty members depart for better institutions.
Outnumbered and abandoned, bright and motivated students have nowhere to turn. Before that happens at
Rutgers, the students told me, they are ready to fight.
William C. Dowling, a professor of English at Rutgers, is the author most recently of “Confessions of a Spoilsport.”
Stadium plans come under fire
Marissa Graziadio, RU Daily Targum, 14 November 2007
As the final decision by the University Board of Governors on whether the expansion of Rutgers Football Stadium on
Busch campus will be approved draws near, the Rutgers 1000 - a group dead set against the proposal - said they
want University President Richard L. McCormick to take a stand.
"President McCormick hasn't challenged the Board of Governors in any of their misguided decisions and we are
giving him a chance to do that," said Rutgers 1000 Treasurer Niti Bagchi, a Rutgers College senior. "We are giving
him the chance to act like the president of a university of longstanding tradition and intellectual community, not like
the president of a sports factory."
The Rutgers 1000 is a six-person, student steering committee that is actively seeking members. The group was
active in the 1990s, then dissolved when McCormick came on board, Bagchi said. But because the members are
unhappy with the way the president is running the University, the Rutgers 1000 felt the need to start up again.
Yesterday, the group took out a full-page ad in The Daily Targum that petitioned McCormick to stand up against the
Board of Governors. Additionally, the ad decried the current state of the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus as
"shoddily-built, deteriorating and asphalt-covered."
In an interview yesterday, McCormick disagreed.
"The characterization of the Rutgers campus in the ad is both unfortunate and untrue," he said.
McCormick noted no one from the organization had personally contacted him before the ad was ran, and said the
notion he would grant the board a blank check was simply untrue.
"Neither athletics nor any other part of the University has a blank check," McCormick said.
McCormick said the final recommendations from the Committee on Budget and Finance, the Committee on Buildings
and Grounds and the Committee on Athletics would be presented at the Dec. 6 Board of Governors' meeting.
He reiterated his commitment to the University as a whole, not just any section in particular.
"The Rutgers administration and the BOG take very seriously their responsibilities for good decision making and for
due diligence with respect to new projects," McCormick said.
Professor William Dowling, a longtime critic of athletics at the University and a supporter of Rutgers 1000, refused to
comment.
Last year the University eliminated six intercollegiate sports teams that had a total budget of $1 million.
"It's not just about the money," Bagchi said. "The Board of Governors is saying a football franchise is worth much
more than sports played by real students who go to real classes and do real intellectual work. When you're part of
an intellectual community, it's hard not to see the stadium expansion as anything but completely unacceptable."
Bagchi said she finds it appalling that budgetary stringency is put on smaller sports while there are plans to install
luxury skyboxes in a newly expanded stadium.
The group wants to see less spending on football and more on academics and University facilities. University
maintenance costs are being deferred in order to hasten the expansion of the football stadium, Bagchi said.
"Students are being treated as second-class citizens. It's insidious and demoralizing and unacceptable," Bagchi said.
Though the Rutgers 1000 is made up primarily of students, it has garnered various faculty members in support.
Professor Richard Gundy referred to the proposal to spend a figure of $100 million plus on the stadium's expansion
and to borrow money that will be paid back in part by tax payers and the University as foolish, particularly at a time
when there is half a billion dollars in deferred maintenance costs and a deficit of state funds.
"To spend and pay back later is exactly the reason that the state is in the fiscal situation that it finds itself in right
now," Gundy said. "The University on a smaller scale is doing exactly the same thing. The people who will pay it back
are the future students and tax payers of New Jersey who are somewhat hard-pressed to support any borrowing."
The group is currently creating advertisements and spreading their message amongst the University community in
order to gather more support, Bagchi said.
"A lot of what we are doing involves making the Board of Governors and President McCormick aware that the
students know what's going on - they notice the discrepancies and we're not going to stand for it," Bagchi said.
"Right now they are trying to get this approval [for the football stadium] done hush-hush, but we're going to bring it
out into the open. They can't railroad this through."
"If the Board of Governors cares more about getting their Texas Bowl rings than in making Rutgers a top public
university, then we'll keep fighting," Bagchi said.
- Steven Williamson contributed to this story.
Under athletics' thumb
Staff Editorial, Rutgers U. Targum, 7 November 2007
The recently released State Commission of Investigation report that has been causing so much controversy
definitely has every reason to be questioned itself. Dedicating a small section to Rutgers University's "emergency
accounts," the evaluation took note of the enormous amounts of spending done in areas that are intended to hold a
"fixed balance." However, not only are the amounts expended much higher than the school seemed to anticipate
when determining these fixed values, but also are much more than the public could possibly imagine being
necessary. With the designated number for both Camden and Newark campuses set at $45,000, a big question is
why does the University's athletic department have a working account of $90,000?
The University is way off base with this fund and its name. Since when is travel an emergency? Categorizing it as
such seems to serve simply as a catch all for whatever the department may feel the need to blow a few bucks on.
This continues along with the trend of Rutgers athletics being gluttonous.
Exactly 68 percent - $3.2 of the $4.7 million used by all four emergency funds between 2002 and 2006 - can be
attributed to the "Athletic Working Account," which is intended for "travel-related expenditures of university's athletic
department staff." Regrettably, we have no idea how this money was spent. Could this possibly be another example
of the lack of transparency we have here at the University? Perhaps it is, but how much can we blame on the
University and how much on the report's lack of detail?
Going on to criticize a $4,721.25 liquor purchase for Camden's 55th Alumni Anniversary Dinner, the SCI report
neglected to make any mention of where the athletic department spent its money. It is not unexpected that politics lie
within the core of the SCI's report, but is that the case with their decision not to include further information about the
Athletic Working Account? It seems suspicious to say the least.
Businesses eager to buy a seat in teams' luxury boxes
Ryan Sharrow, Baltimore Business Journal, 02 November 2007
In mid-October, less than 24 hours after watching the Baltimore Ravens defeat the St. Louis Rams, 22-3, from his
company's luxury box at M&T Bank Stadium, Jeff Elkin returned to the suite for something other than football.
The Advance Business Systems chief operating officer -- who just inked a five-year deal to renew the company's
luxury box along the stadium's southwest corner -- returned that Monday armed with an outside marketing
consultant to sketch plans to brand the company's 24-person suite.
Those plans include splashing the walls with the signature red and gray colors and a 9-foot-tall Advance Business
Systems logo, and pasting the company's "We live and breathe this stuff" slogan above the suite's door.
"It just reinforces all the other marketing and advertising we do," said Elkin, whose company has been a Ravens
suite owner since 2003.
Advance is one of hundreds of regionally companies using luxury boxes at stadiums and arenas as marketing and
networking vehicles. Executives say that suites are a way to build relationships with existing and potential clients in a
more casual, laid-back environment.
Despite the business leads that can result from a day of corporate hospitality at a sporting event, suites aren't
cheap. And more stadiums around the region are creating them.
The Ravens added five suites to its lineup of 128 prior to the start of this season, and the Washington Nationals
professional baseball team will unveil 78 suites at its new stadium in 2008. The University of Maryland, College
Park's Byrd Stadium is adding 64 boxes -- at $50,000 per suite, per year -- that will be completed by the start of the
2009 season.
Meanwhile, a study released this spring for a new midsize arena in Baltimore recommends the city could handle as
many as 20 suites for the venue.
While industry experts say the region is not yet saturated by suites, teams are doing their part to creatively market
them and lure local companies. By offering incentives other than just several hours a week at the stadium, team
executives say purchasing suites gives companies more than a schedule of games.
Executives from the Washington Redskins say the team handles its 250 suites like a stock portfolio and will only sell
a certain amount of suites to each industry to better connect different sectors.
Colleges, however, are not only turning to companies, they're also looking to attract wealthy alumni and boosters in
the region to help fill their boxes.
"I don't think it's impossible to sell them," said Dennis Coates, a sports economist at the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County. "I'm a great believer if people are doing them over and over again, it must be effective."
'A suite brand'
Despite Baltimore being a mid-level market and home to just two Fortune 500 companies, industry experts say that
the city's financial, law and real estate core helps it remain competitive when selling suites.
"The reason you look at that is because a lot of those industries are based on relationships," said Greg Smith, the
former COO at the Maryland Stadium Authority, who now runs Smith Sports Ltd. and has consulted on several new
arena projects across the country.
And sports franchises around the region are doing their part to lure both corporate backers and the companies'
potential clients into the suites.
The Ravens offer suite holders 24/7 access to the suites to hold meetings or parties. The team also holds a "State
of the Ravens" address each season for suite holders, hosted by General Manager Ozzie Newsome and head
coach Brian Billick, and offers owners private trips to road games.
"There are meaningful attachments," said Dennis Mannion, senior vice president of business ventures for the
Ravens, who have sold all 128 of their $130,000 luxury boxes this season. "The goal is to create almost a suite
brand that creates more than ever more business-to-business opportunities for those that are in the suite network."
Companies are continuing to sign multi-year deals with teams, and the occupancy rate for suites remains steady
throughout venues across the country. In Major League Baseball the occupancy rate of suites is at 86 percent, while
the National Football League's 32 teams boast a 96 percent rate, according to statistics from the Cincinnati-based
Association of Luxury Suite Directors.
Dennis Greene, president of business operations at the Washington Redskins, said the team won't allow just any
company to purchase suites, which range from $120,000 to $620,000.
"We prefer to choose who we want in there," said Greene, who noted that the Redskins sold out suites for the 2007
season. "Two years ago we could've sold [a suite] to every mortgage broker. In 2001 we were all in technology. But
it's much better to be diversified for networking."
Like the Ravens, the Redskins host exclusive events for suite holders, such as road trips and dinners, to help some
of D.C.'s biggest names interact.
Industry experts say professional teams in Baltimore and Washington aren't directly competing with each other.
Though only 35 miles apart, the business landscape of each city remains different.
The District is tied to larger corporations, wealthy lobbyists, the federal government and high-powered law firms -- all
sought by teams when selling a suite.
"Washington is an international market," Smith said. "Baltimore is a market that's growing."
Just win, baby
Industry experts say it's not accurate to compare the NFL's suite market to that of a college or baseball team. The
NFL offers suite holders just 10 games a year, an easier sell than baseball, which can require an 81-game
commitment per year.
The Orioles, which would not disclose its occupancy rate for the baseball stadium's 70 suites, try to stay competitive
by offering companies the option to purchase a box for a single game or part of a season. A 10-game suite plan at
Oriole Park will cost $23,000 for companies "with a smaller budget," said team spokesman Greg Bader.
Minor-league teams offer more of a family and small-business environment for their fans.
In Aberdeen, the 6-year-old Ripken Stadium was designed for 24 suites. But team officials decided to build just six.
Jeff Eiseman, a vice president with the Aberdeen IronBirds, said team officials decided to use the extra space for
club-level seating and meeting space. The team's suites start at $40,000.
"We're competing with major-league talent from up and down the road," he said.
Suites at the Naval Academy's Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium have spiked from $15,000 to $30,000 since
they were unveiled in 2003.
Eric Ruden, Navy's deputy athletics director, said the stadium's 20 suites are more reasonably priced than major-
league venues and the demand for a box has gone up since 2003. Ruden said the school has a suite waiting list of
40 people.
Both Navy and the University of Maryland have had successful on-field records the last several seasons, which
makes the suites an easier sell, officials say. Maryland already has sold 18 of the 64 suites that will be ready for the
2009 football season.
But like any industry, it's easier to sell a product that boasts a track record for winning. And successful sports teams
are attractive for companies that want to tie their name to a winning product, said Bill Dorsey, executive director of
the Association of Luxury Suite Directors.
Boxed In
The region is full of arenas and stadiums with luxury boxes. Here is a partial list of those venues.
M&T Bank Stadium
Team/Sport: Baltimore Ravens/NFL
No. of suites: 128
*Price range: $130,000
Availability: Sold out; no waiting list
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Team/Sport: Baltimore Orioles/MLB
No. of suites: 70
*Price range: Varies based on package
Availability: For sale
Ripken Stadium
Team/Sport: Aberdeen IronBirds/minor-league baseball No. of suites: 6 *Price range: $40,000 to $50,000
Availability: One is available for the 2008 season on a game-by-game basis
Navy-Marine Corps Stadium
Team/Sport: Navy Midshipmen/NCAA football No. of suites: 20 *Price range: $30,000
Availability: Waiting list
FedEx Field
Team/Sport: Washington Redskins/NFL
No. of suites: Around 250
*Price range: $120,000 to $620,000
Availability: Sold out; no waiting list
Byrd Stadium
Team/Sport: University of Maryland Terrapins/NCAA football No. of suites: 64 will be available beginning in 2009
*Price range: $50,000
Availability: For sale
*Prices can vary based on length of contract.
Officials at Schools with Big-time Sports Programs Beginning to Feel the Heat
Bob Gilbert Column (710), Advance For Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007 - Sent Oct. 14
They won't admit that their house of cards is about to collapse under its own weight of greed and deceit, but the
presidents and trustees of the nation's universities with big-time sports programs are beginning to feel the heat.
The fire really needs to be turned up under senators and congressmen who bow to the dictates of their big donors
and cater to the needs of the college officials who want to protect the goose that laid the golden egg.
Big-time college athletics are ripping off the national treasury at the expense of low and middle-income Americans
who are football and men's basketball fans but increasingly can't afford the extortion and high ticket prices charged
by universities.
NBC News last week examined another aspect of the "fleecing of America," how you the taxpayer are being
scammed by many of the 119 universities with athletics criminal intent.
Here's some history on the issue:
• Big colleges in the 1980s began making up-front contributions to the athletics programs a condition for
obtaining season tickets. As NBC News correspondent John Yang said: "The bigger the donation, the better the
seat." Donors began deducting those contributions on grounds they were charity.
• In 1986, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that donations tied to a benefit such as special seats or privileged
parking and free plane trips to games weren't deductible.
• Meanwhile, Congress was considering a major tax overhaul bill, and two influential lawmakers intervened to
protect their football fan buddies. When the tax reform bill emerged in its final form, the late Texas Rep. Jake Pickle,
a University of Texas alumnus and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and the late Louisiana Sen.
Russell Long of the Senate Finance Committee and an LSU graduate had succeeded in sneaking in a full deduction
for Texas and LSU donors who buy season tickets. In 1988, the deduction was extended to all universities but limited
to 80 percent of the contribution.
• NBC's Yang also reported that athletics departments were receiving millions of dollars from corporations for
stadium naming rights. The IRS in 1991 proposed taxing that revenue but backed off when the NCAA protested. And
in 1997, Congress amended the tax code to say naming rights were part of the school's educational mission.
Critics of the tax benefits say they enable universities to spend more freely on an athletics arms race pay coaches
exorbitant salaries and to build bigger and fancier stadiums and arenas, according to Eric Dexheimer of the Austin
American-Statesman newspaper.
"This year, football fans will pay about $15 million to the (Texas) Longhorn Foundation in contributions qualifying
them for season tickets," Dexheimer wrote. "That's a potential $12 million tax break for fans to watch (University of
Texas) football."
Luxury suite leases also qualify for the 80 percent tax deductions. Suites at the Longhorn stadium in Austin this
season will generate $10 million in revenue, or about $6 million in potential tax breaks for fans.
But Texas is not alone in this tax scam. Many SEC schools, including Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Florida
and Georgia, do the same thing. Athletics donors write off more than $100 million a year for luxury suites, NBC News
reported. NBC singled out Maryland and Texas, whose wealthy corporate and individual donors have been allowed
generous tax deductions for large contributions.
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley has called for an investigation of why, if at all, big-time sports universities qualify for
donor tax breaks.
"Colleges and universities are chartered to provide an accessible, affordable higher education to the taxpaying
public," Grassley said. "We need to understand how federal tax deductions that help build deluxe stadiums and pay
for skyboxes improve access to higher education and help students pay for college."
The answer Congress will find, if it subpoenas university officials to testify under oath, is that tax deductions don't
help students at all but do help the rich enjoy the perks doled out by mercenary athletics directors and university
presidents. They will also find that, in the absence of a requirement for supporting tangible evidence, they will
continue to have to take the word of these university officials that the professional athletes in their college sports
entertainment businesses are really legitimate students.
But the Chronicle of Higher Education reported recently that contributions to sports programs are eating up an ever-
larger chunk of donations to colleges.
Rep. Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat and member of the Ways and Means Committee, says he wants to make
certain that tax deduction contributions serve "the general welfare of people in this country."
Columnist Bob Gilbert, former Associated Press writer and retired University of Tennessee news operations director,
can be reached at rwgilbert@charter.net
Lou Gelfand: U athletes' education can appear secondary
Entertainment or academics? The tug-of-war persists between big-college sports and student
achievement.
Lou Gelfand, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11 November 2007
The ethical schism separating college athletic and academic scholarships was illustrated last month when a survey
of 2,000 faculty members from 23 major colleges ranked athletics next-to-last among 13 issues as campus priorities.
Only issues relating to fraternity and sorority life ranked lower. The results stimulated a six-hour debate at a summit
sponsored by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
The dean of the Indiana University School of Law, Gary Roberts, interpreted the survey for USA Today. "They're not
in the education culture anymore, they're in the entertainment culture," Roberts said, "and the values are very
different."
Nor does it seem they can alter the recruitment of gifted male hockey players at the University of Minnesota who
yearn for a year or two of college exposure to enhance their professional careers.
Which raises the ethical question: When does the role of big-time college athletics interfere with the traditionally
accepted primary mission of a college education?
A National Collegiate Athletic Association study released within days of the Knight meeting reported the Graduation
Success Rate (GSR) for athletes who entered member schools between 1997 and 2000. The GSR allows six years
to earn a degree.
The benchmark is 60 percent. Minnesota men's hockey scored 43. Graduation rates of 49 for football and 38 for
men's basketball further illustrate the challenging dilemma in recruiting talented athletes who have the skills to learn
in the in the classroom at the college level despite the demands of big-time sports. (Minnesota women's GSR
percentages were 78 in hockey and 67 in basketball.)
That throws the problem in the direction of the university's administration, which more than a year ago earned
faculty support for closing General College, a haven for gifted athletes who required less-challenging academic
assignments to stay eligible.
But college presidents require a competitive role for athletics to gain support from a strain of influential alumni who
associate sports championships with academic excellence and philanthropy.
The university's new football stadium will add to the hullabaloo for a winning team. In turn, the inevitable clash
between the significance of playing in the Rose Bowl and recruiting gifted athletes who can produce in the
classroom will come to the fore.
Bonehead U
Nicholas von Hoffman, TheNation.com, 8 October 2007
Good news at last. The nation's collegiate athletic deficit is being addressed. The disturbing neglect of college
athletics is finally being remedied.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, "In 1998 athletics gifts accounted for 14.7 percent of overall gifts.
By 2003 sports donations had reached 26 percent." Check it out: one-quarter of the gifts to our colleges and
universities is for catching balls, hitting balls, kicking balls, throwing balls and jumping in, over and through hoops.
The Chronicle goes on to say, "There's a fear among faculty members that there is a discrete amount of money that
alums and non-alums are willing to commit," says Dennis R. Howard, a professor of business at the University of
Oregon. "And the more the athletic program gets, the less there is to support the academic programs."
Not to worry. The money is for a good cause and people are rallying to it. Last year sports-crazed benefactors
donated $51 million for sports at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a place which has something of a
reputation--God only knows why--as an institution of higher learning, but the school cannot be too serious about the
learning if it is devoting such energy raising money for games.
North Carolina is hardly alone. "Last year 27 athletics programs raised more than $20 million each, the Chronicle
survey found. Ten programs brought in more than $30 million each," the Chronicle reported. Nor is there any
apparent limit to the pandering institutions of higher learning are willing to do to get money to hire athletes to play
games in their names.
Get this tidbit from the Chronicle: "Three years ago, Wake Forest established the Moricle Society, for donors who
contribute at least $55,000 a year. The program has brought in an extra $1 million a year for the athletics
department. Society members fly free on teams' charter flights, are wined and dined, and get private 'chalk talks'
from coaches before games. 'We don't skimp on these people,' says Cook Griffin, executive director of the Deacon
Club, Wake's athletics fund-raising arm. 'You can't spend too much on them.'" So let's cut back on the math
department budget. Nobody is going to pay money to watch nerds think.
The all-time topperoo is takeover artist T. Boone Pickens' $$165 million gift to gussy up the T. Boone Pickens
football stadium at Oklahoma State. According to ESPN the gift, "'. . . isn't just about football or basketball or our
major sports,' athletic director Mike Holder said. . . 'It's about every sport, giving every coach here and every athlete
here the opportunity to strive for excellence.'" And the more excellent they get at OSU the larger are their necks and
the smaller are their heads. What those pinheads should do is change the name of the dump to T. Boone Pickens U
and kick out all the losers who can't make varsity. To be honest about the man, Pickens asks for no such honors for
he is quoted as saying "My name's on the stadium. I don't know what else they could do. I guess they could put it on
each one of the seats."
Pickens is not the only billionaire terrorizing campuses. ESPN's investigative reporter Mike Fish has described Nike
athletic shoe company founder Phil Knight lording it over everybody at the University of Oregon, including the
institution's president, Dave Frohnmayer, who had made the mistake of associating the university with the Worker
Rights Consortium.
The Consortium describes itself as "an independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations
of working conditions in factories around the globe. Our purpose is to combat sweatshops and protect the rights of
workers who sew apparel and make other products sold in the United States." Can you think of any reason why Phil
Knight and Nike would be upset by Oregon students being part of such organized, on campus wickedness? But
you'll be happy to learn that the University has come to its senses and disaffiliated from the Consortium. Attaboy,
Dave!
All, however, is not lost. Hillary Clinton, who is turning into this year's biggest pander bear, has proposed giving
every child born in the United states a $5,000 government bond to be used for college or a downpayment on a
house. She is not saying how she would pay for this strangest of entitlements. Maybe she can get T. Boone Pickens
or Phil Knight--or a couple of those other billionaires she and Bill friends with--to pick up the tab.
SkYBOX U. -- New York Times
October 28, 2007, The Business, By JOE NOCERA
Not so long ago, a middle-age freelance speech writer named John Pollack came by my office. Pollack, who once
wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, had a bone to pick with the University of Michigan, which he has been rooting for
since he was 6. One of the country’s most storied football schools, Michigan fielded its first football team 120 years
ago; was a charter member of the Big Ten when the conference was formed, 111 years ago; won the first Rose
Bowl, in 1902; and is the winner of 42 conference and 11 national championships. Michigan’s football team
generated around $50 million of the $87 million the athletic department reaped last year — figures that trail only
those of its archrival, Ohio State, in the Big Ten. Much of that money comes from such things as television rights,
licensing fees for the school’s logo and so on. But a lot of it also comes from selling tickets to games at Michigan
Stadium, which can hold as many as 112,000 people, making it the largest sports coliseum in the country. Not for
nothing is it called the Big House.
Michigan Stadium was the reason Pollack stopped by. A few years ago, Bill Martin, Michigan’s athletic director,
proposed renovating the Big House for $226 million. Given that it’s 80 years old, the place could use an update. But
included in the renovation plans — which the university’s trustees approved earlier this year — are skyboxes and
other expensive “premium seats,” something the Big House has never had.
Practically from the moment Martin submitted the plan for skyboxes, Pollack has been obsessed with defeating it.
His objections — shared by many Michigan faculty members and alumni — range from the financial (the skyboxes
cost too much and will not be paid off for more than a generation) to the egotistical (by capping future expansion,
the Big House may eventually lose its status as the country’s biggest stadium).
Mainly, though, Pollack argues that the University of Michigan simply shouldn’t be the kind of school that sells
skyboxes to high-rollers; it should be better than that. “Michigan doesn’t need to keep up with the Joneses,” he said.
“We are the Joneses.” He added, “One of the great things about college football, especially Michigan football, is that
it is a great public space — a place where autoworkers and millionaires can come together to cheer on their team.”
Martin, however, claims that selling skyboxes and premium seats to well-heeled alums and corporations is the most
sensible way to pay off the debt needed to complete the renovation. “The other option,” he says, “would be to add
$15 or $20 a ticket.”
What’s more, all of Michigan’s chief competitors in the Big Ten, including Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State
and Iowa, already have skyboxes. In fact, with the exception of Notre Dame (the only school in the country with its
own multimillion-dollar television deal), pretty much every big-name football school in the country has them, or is
planning them. In Florida, the University of Miami has agreed to abandon the Orange Bowl for Dolphin Stadium,
where it will take in millions more per year, in no small part because Dolphin Stadium has luxury boxes and the
Orange Bowl doesn’t. Elsewhere in the state, four large universities have spent millions of dollars to create Division I
football programs in the last dozen years.
In each case, the start-up costs were financed in part by donations from wealthy alumni or nearby residents. But still.
The schools now have to pay millions a year to keep their programs going, and donors alone won’t cover the costs.
Two of the schools — the University of Central Florida and Florida Atlantic University — have also run up multimillion-
dollar debts building expensive stadiums. Naturally, the new stadiums will have skyboxes, giant television
scoreboards, naming rights and all the other “revenue enhancers” that were long thought to be the hallmarks of
professional sports franchises. That’s the whole point.
In short, behold the college football arms race, where the rich (like Michigan) continue to get richer and the poor
(the University of Central Florida) try to claw their way to a place where they can stand alongside the rich. Given this
state of affairs, there is simply no way Michigan is going to be left behind. In Division I football, either you buy into
the sports equivalent of mutually assured destruction or you drop out entirely. With the singular exception of the Ivy
League, there really is no middle ground. In any arms race it’s easy to get lost in the internal logic. Big-time college
football is now so divorced from what actually goes on at a university as to be a kind of subsidiary, not even
tangentially related to education.
There are schools like Duke and the University of Chicago that get on quite well, thank you very much, without a
serious football program.
As Sheldon Steinbach, the former general counsel of American Council on Education, puts it, “The most basic
question of all is, who decided to get higher education into the intercollegiate athletic business?” But at this point,
major universities are not about to shut down a big-time football program, the way the University of Chicago did in
1939. There’s too much at stake. “These are schools that have thousands of students and tens of thousands of
alumni,” says James Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, speaking of its member universities. “At a
school like Michigan, whether you like it or not, college football is part of Midwestern culture.”
As a result, schools erect the fanciest stadiums, build the most up-to-date weight rooms, fly expensive chartered jets
to away games — spend money on all sorts of things — in order to attract the best athletes.. “Since the players don’
t get paid, you can’t just go out and hire the Tom Bradys of college sports,” Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist
who teaches at Smith College, says. “So instead they throw money at everything else.” One of Zimbalist’s favorite
examples is the salaries of top college coaches. “They get paid pretty much the same as coaches in the N.F.L.,
about $2 to $3 million,” he says. “It doesn’t make any sense from a normal economic point of view, because the
average revenue of a top-30 college football team is about $30 million, whereas the average N.F.L. team takes in
$200 million.” But it happens anyway because when it comes to recruiting, Zimbalist says, schools “want to be able
to say that they have a coach with a national reputation, someone who has sent kids off to the N.F.L.”
A similar rationale holds for stadiums, according to Zimbalist: “They say, ‘Come play for us because you will be in an
N.F.L.-quality stadium, with a big new scoreboard with your picture shown whenever you make a good play.’ ” But,
he adds, while every school builds, or renovates, a stadium with the belief that it will ultimately make money and help
defray the cost of the program, this doesn’t happen all that often. “They get into these arms races, in the hope that
they can have a winning team, which will bring in more revenue, which will help pay their escalating costs,” Zimbalist
says. “But of the 119 Division I colleges in any particular year, only 30 or 40 football programs probably run a true
surplus.”
Is Michigan one of the handful of schools where the economics make sense? Actually, it is. The athletic department
operates like a not-so-small business, and it is highly unlikely to lose money on the skyboxes. The $87 million in
annual revenue the entire department produces not only covers the costs of all the non-revenue sports like women’
s volleyball but also generated a surplus of $17 million last year. The escalation of costs poses very little risk to
Michigan. Even if its football team has a string of bad years, it still has an immensely loyal fan base, it will still secure
the financial rewards that come with being in the Big Ten and it will still fill Michigan Stadium every time the team
plays a home game. Look at Notre Dame: on the field it has lost some of its luster in recent years, but it remains a
financial powerhouse, with a packed stadium, a nation full of fans and that TV deal with NBC. According to the
Sports Business Journal, its football program alone generates more money than any other program in the country —
over $60 million in 2005-6, the last season for which figures are available. Schools with great football traditions can
afford to enter the arms race.
On the other hand, the Florida newcomers in Division I — Florida International and Florida Atlantic, along with South
Florida and Central Florida — lack long-term football traditions and generations of fiercely loyal alumni. The only
way they can fill their stadiums is to build winning teams — and to continue winning, year after year. They have
jumped on a treadmill that they now can’t afford to get off. It is doubtful that any of them are breaking even at this
point — not even the University of South Florida, which joined the Big East Conference in 2005 and has climbed into
the top 5 of the college rankings this fall. Its total football revenue, according to the Sports Business Journal, was
$8.8 million in 2005-6.
But given its ambition, its costs are likely greater. Keith Tribble, the athletic director of the University of Central
Florida, which had $7.8 million in revenue in the 2005-6 season, predicts that the football team will break even in the
next year or two. His calculation of what constitutes breaking even, however, does not include servicing the debt of
the school’s newly opened 45,000-seat “Bright House Networks Stadium,” which cost $54 million to build.
So why do these schools do it? Partly because they’re in Florida, perhaps the most football-mad state in the
country. Partly because football is believed to be the best single marketing and advertising program any university
can have. “Most institutions look at what attracts alumni, what makes them contribute,” Tribble says. “Without fail, it
all comes back to football. Most of the great institutions in the country are tied to the hip with athletics.” The four
Florida schools are mostly commuter schools, so having a big-time football program makes them feel as though they
have joined the big time — right alongside mighty Michigan.
Maybe the best thing that can be said about pouring money into football is that, as Sheldon Steinbach told me,
stadium construction is hardly the worst thing that goes on in college sports. “Skyboxes are not the most cancerous
elements in most athletic departments,” he says. And what is? His reply: “How about the recruitment of athletes who
do not have the ability to benefit from a college education?” Hey, someone has to take the field in all those fancy
new stadiums. .schools ‘can’t just go out and hire the tom bradys of college sports,’ one economist says. ‘so instead
they throw money at everything else.’
Joe Nocera is a business columnist for The New York Times.
At Boston College, Blurring the Student-Athlete-Professional Line
Lindsey Luebchow | November 6, 2007
"If there is a hybrid form of football somewhere between the NFL and college football, it is being practiced at Boston
College."
-Ivan Maisel, ESPN
Last week, we highlighted a couple of big-time college football teams struggling on the field but excelling in the
classroom. We suggested it might be difficult, if not impossible, for teams to maintain stellar athletic and academic
records given the time constraints and pressures on student-athletes. Are there examples of big-time football
schools that are having both athletic and academic success this season?
The most obvious answer is Boston College. After its first loss this past weekend, BC’s football team is still ranked
#1 in the ACC and #8 in the national polls. And its football players graduate at higher rates than any other team
ranked in the top 25.
Unfortunately, upon further research, we discovered that BC's current football team isn’t exactly the model example
we were looking for. Instead, this season's team is a perfect example of the growing professionalization of college
football. BC is one of a growing number of schools that have discovered ways to game the NCAA’s academic
eligibility rules so that football players can spend the minimum amount of time in the classroom and the maximum
amount of time on the practice field and in the media spotlight.
If you look at BC’s academic numbers, you would think that its football players are spending a fair amount of time
attending class and studying for exams.
BC’s "Graduation Success Rate" (a NCAA number that includes transfer students) for football players is 93 percent,
while its federal graduation rate is 87 percent (for players entering between 1997 – 2000). Those numbers put BC
at the top of the ACC. The school's only competition in graduating players is Duke University, which is 1-7 this
season and has won only three games over the past three seasons, two of which were against Division I-AA teams.
[Disclosure: The author of this blog post went to Duke and is proud of its football team’s academic achievements.
She doesn't, however, have anything nice to say about its athletic performance.]
BC also has a high "Academic Progress Rate" of 976—a real-time measure of how players are progressing towards
a degree—for its football players that puts it in the 90th to 100th percentile of all Division I-A football teams.
And this season, BC is more dominant on the football field than it’s been in a long time. While the team has typically
been strong, posting only three losses in each of the last three seasons, this year it only has one loss (and was
undefeated and ranked #2 before an upset this weekend) and is at the top of the college football world. Not since
quarterback Doug Flutie’s "Hail Mary" pass in his Heisman trophy year in 1984 has the team garnered so much
national attention.
Seems like BC should be applauded, right? Well, as Ivan Maisel, an ESPN.com columnist points out, 12 starters on
BC’s football team—including star quarterback Matt Ryan—actually aren’t hitting the books too hard this semester.
In fact, they’ve already graduated, and while they still have to be enrolled in classes for a minimum number of hours
(only six hours, or at BC the equivalent of two classes) to be eligible, they are basically taking a couple of courses at
night, doing little work, and spending most of their time preparing for Saturday’s game. And BC is paying for each of
these players’ "education" this year—likely a full scholarship covering tuition and room and board (worth
approximately $6,600 in tuition, if the players are taking the minimal six credit hours, plus $7,600 room and board =
around $14,200).
As Maisel puts it: "If there is a hybrid form of football somewhere between the NFL and college football, it is being
practiced at Boston College."
It’s great that these players have graduated. And we’re not singling out BC for red-shirting football players, a
practice that allows college athletes to spread their four years of athletic eligiblity over five years. A redshirt student
can practice with a team for five years but only play in official games for four. Red-shirting is a practice commonly
used when a player needs more time to develop physically or has an injury. .
But it’s the professionalization of these players that should raise some eyebrows. Just read Matt Ryan’s description
of a day in his life to the Boston Globe:
"Let’s see," said Ryan with a laugh. "I did Fox Sports Net New York, I did Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia. I was on
the radio in Philadelphia and Houston. I talked to a guy from the LA Times. I talked to a guy in Houston. I did ‘Rome
is Burning.’ ESPN the Magazine, USA Today later on, the Sunday Globe Magazine."
Or, from ESPN.com: "The whole day, we’re hanging out, watching film, working out. I think that helps tremendously. I’
m sure that’s part of the reason we’re in the position we’re in."
This is a student-athlete? He’s participating in an activity that the NCAA argues is solely meant to "enhance [his]
educational development" and is not primarily a form of entertainment. Let’s not pretend. Ryan is simply using this
year as a launching pad for his NFL career. And BC is using him and the other already-graduated players as
stepping stones in its climb up the football rankings. At $14,200 each, it's not a bad deal for BC, given that the
football program brought in $16.5 million in revenue in 2005-06.
BC offers an example of how the line between college football and the NFL is fading. The growing popularity of
academic arrangements like BC’s ultimately could jeopardize the non-profit status of big-time college sports. If
players drop the "student" part of student-athlete, college football becomes a profit-making entertainment
enterprise, pure and simple.
HIGHEREDWATCH.ORG
Are Tax Deductions for College Athletics Worth the Price?
Sen. Grassley (R-IA) Expresses Interest in Reopening Probe
Lindsey Luebchow | October 9, 2007
"Can you imagine what even a small portion of the $50 million raised for athletics last year by the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill—the most in the country—could do for academics? In place of basketball coach Roy
Williams' $1.6 million salary, you could hire 12 full, tenured professors."
-Lindsey Luebchow, New America Foundation
Last year, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens broke the all-time record for gift-giving to a university athletics program when
he donated $165 million to Oklahoma State University, his alma mater. Not only did OSU's sports program benefit,
but Pickens himself received a large subsidy from the government because he was able to deduct that contribution
from his income taxes. Donations to college athletics programs are tax-exempt because government officials have
long believed that college sports contribute to the educational purpose of higher education. When alumni give
money to sports, the theory goes, they are contributing to students' educational experience beyond the classroom.
But does the theory match reality? That's certainly a debatable point when you look at where Pickens' money is
going. Much of his donation has been earmarked for facilities construction and improvement to the giant football
stadium that already bears his name —a new football turf, a spruced-up locker room, and most importantly a new
brick exterior.. His contribution will also pay for building a 100-acre athletic village to house Olympic-type sports
facilities (displacing 1,300 local residents, according to the Wall Street Journal), plus a new equestrian center, a
baseball stadium, and outdoor practice fields. Of course, OSU already has most of these things, but now it will have
new shinier ones—which, of course, the educational experience wouldn't be the same without!
The question of whether contributions to college athletic programs should be tax deductible is not just academic.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the largest athletics departments raised more than $1.2 billion from
alumni in 2006-2007 for multimillion-dollar facilities and seven-figure coaches’ salaries. The enormous success in
athletics fundraising efforts, however, may be coming at a cost. Alumni giving for academic programs at Division I-A
schools has been stagnant in recent years. As a result, the Chronicle found that "contributions to sports programs
are eating up an ever-larger share of donations to colleges," from 14 percent at these schools in 1998 to 26 percent
in 2003.
This begs the question: is this $1.2 billion taxpayer-supported revenue stream furthering the educational, tax-
exempt purpose of higher education? And if not, might contributions to academic programs increase if the tax
deduction for athletics wasn't available?
College officials generally argue that increased spending on athletics, and in turn winning sports teams and
increased school visibility, translate into satisfied alumni and more donations for the school overall. Unfortunately,
this "happy alumni" hypothesis doesn’t appear to hold true. Studies of alumni giving have found that winning sports
teams don’t have a significant effect on colleges—and even in situations when donations do increase, they are
typically athletic donations, not general academic donations.
There's also another type of tax-deductible athletics donation to consider: those that provide alumni with direct,
personal benefits, such as skyboxes or courtside seats at sporting events. Most big-time sports schools require
ticket holders to make a large athletics contribution in order to even get the right to purchase tickets. Donors are
allowed to deduct 80 percent of that contribution (because somehow the IRS arbitrarily decided their personal
benefit is worth 20 percent?). For example, the University of Texas sells private suites to its football games for
$50,000 to $80,000. Somehow we don’t think these donors are too concerned about the educational purpose of
college athletics—or the fact that they get a tax deduction for it.
Can you imagine what even a small portion of the $50 million raised for athletics last year by the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill—the most in the country—could do for academics? In place of basketball coach Roy
Williams’ $1.6 million salary, you could hire 12 full, tenured professors. You could build four new Institutes for Arts &
Humanities with only half of UNC’s annual athletics fund-raising total. [Disclosure: The author graduated from Duke
University.]
To be fair, not all schools are spending their donations frivolously on extravagant facilities and preposterously high
coaches’ salaries.
Most Division I-A athletics programs operate at a deficit, and generally only the top-tier schools have millions of
dollars to spend. But there’s definitely room to question whether taxpayers should be subsidizing Pickens’ pet
athletic projects, or the tickets for luxury skyboxes at football stadiums. Last year, Congress—specifically Rep. Bill
Thomas (R-CA) and the House Committee on Ways and Means—started to investigate the tax-exempt status of
NCAA sports. Thomas sent a harshly worded letter to the NCAA requesting information, and was planning a hearing,
which never transpired.
However interest may be growing again in Congress. After seeing the Chronicle article about athletics donations
crowding out academic donations, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a written statement: "When I hear stories
about top donors to college athletic programs getting a free seat on the team plane, I wonder what the public gets
out of that. We need to make sure that taxpayer subsidies for college athletic-program donations benefit the public
at large." Grassley hit the heart of this issue: What is the public getting out of subsidizing athletics donations? We
will return to this question, and others surrounding the NCAA’s tax-exempt status, in the future.
Recruiting 101: What colleges seek in high school football prospects
Dick Dullaghan, Indianapolis Star, 09 November 2007
Editor's Note: Here is a compilation of the nine-part "Recruiting 101" series by former Ben Davis coach Dick
Dullaghan on what college football programs look for in high school prospects. As the series came out, a number of
people asked for a complete set of entries in one spot.
This is a multi-part series on what college recruiters are looking for in prospective football players. I'm basically
going to discuss this from the perspective of what NCAA Division I-A coaches are looking for, and the requirements
for size and speed may be a bit less each step down -- I-AA, Division II and NAIA and then Division III.
Part 1: Academics
The first thing that a college coach wants to know even before looking at video of a player is whether he is an
academic qualifier.
The preferred player at the I-A level is someone with a 3.0 GPA or better. The reason that this requirement has
risen in the past few years is because schools now are being graded on graduation rates. A higher GPA in high
school implies better study habits and a better-disciplined student ... someone who is more likely to graduate.
On the ACT, colleges prefer that the prospects have a score of 24 or better. On the SAT, they want to see a score
of 1,000 or better in math and verbal combined.
Next, they want to know what curriculum the player has taken. By looking at his transcript, they usually can predict
that he can pass the NCAA Clearinghouse at the end of the seventh high school semester. But they also want to
know if he looks like he will do so at the end of the sixth semester. Has he taken the correct classes?
The last key component in this area is the recommendation by the high school coach - No. 1, that he feels the
player can play at this level; and No. 2, that this player is someone who is serious about his education and that he is
someone who will graduate someday.
I would recommend that an athlete very early in his high school career go to his guidance counselor and inform the
counselor that he wants to become a college athlete and be a qualifier. By doing so, the athlete is making a
commitment that academics are important and that he will strive for excellence in the classroom.
College Sport Research Institute announces initial Advisory Committee Members
CSRI, 9 November 2007
MEMPHIS, TN – November 8, 2007 – The College Sport Research Institute (CSRI) has announced its initial 12
Advisory Committee members who will invest their time and energy to support CSRI efforts to educate students,
scholars, athletic administrators, college athletes, coaches, and the general public regarding college-sport issues.
The 12 initial members have varied backgrounds in collegiate sport and will each bring a unique perspective to CSRI
activities.
The initial advisory committee includes:
Mr. Dale Brown, former LSU men’s basketball coach; Mr. Patrick Byrne, Director of Sales and Marketing, AutoZone
Liberty Bowl; Dr. Jon Ericson, former Drake University Provost; Mr. Ramogi Huma, former UCLA linebacker and
current Director: National College Players Association; Mr. Mark Isenberg, author; Money Players: A Pro Athlete’s
Guide to Success in Sports, Business, & Life Dr. Joe Luckey, Director: The University of Memphis Center for Athletic
Academic Services; Dr. Robert Malekoff, The College Sports Project; Mr. Dave Meggyesy, former NFL football
player and author: Out of Their League; Ms. Kathy Redmond, Founder: National Coalition Against Violent Athletes;
Dr. Frank Splitt, former McCormick Faculty Fellow McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Northwestern University; Mr. Sonny Vaccaro, former Vice President of NIKE, Reebok, and adidas.
CSRI Director Dr. Richard Southall noted the importance of the Advisory Committee for CSRI activities, “College-
sport research retains minimal value if it does not foster a greater understanding regarding how theoretical concepts
can be applied to the ‘real world’ of college sport. We are happy to have strong support from prominent
professionals in the field of college athletics.”
The CSRI Advisory Committee will meet April 16-19, 2007 at the inaugural Issues in College Sport Conference at the
FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis. The CSRI Advisory Committee will continue to add new
members as CSRI expands its engagement with those involved in college sport.
Sports, the Stanford way
Bowlsby's top athletics program runs with top-notch academics
Jack Salisbury, Stanford U. Daily, 7 November 2007
In just his second full year as Stanford’s Athletic Director, Bob Bowlsby has already made waves. After last year’s
horrendous 1-11 football campaign, he pulled the plug on second-year coach Walt Harris and hired upstart Jim
Harbaugh, a move which already appears to have paid dividends. Bowslby, 55, seems to have a knack for big-time
football hires: while at Iowa, he was responsible for hiring Kirk Ferentz.
Bowlsby sat down recently with The Daily for a question-and-answer session, discussing various topics ranging from
life on The Farm to Mike Montgomery to Jim Harbaugh.
Stanford Daily: Try to describe the pressures of working as the Athletic Director at the big-time, Division I level.
Bob Bowlsby: I don’t know. I’ve been managing a Division I-A athletics program for most of the last 20 years. The
things that go with it are the things that go with it. It has its pressures like any other thing on campus, or any other
job. I don’t spend much [time] thinking about it to tell you the truth.
SD: What was the change like coming from Iowa to here? What motivated you to come out West?
BB: There’s some things that are a little different about living in California. We live on campus — we really enjoy
being close to campus and close to the activities.
More than anything else, what attracted me to Stanford was the merger of world-class academics and world-class
athletics. Our programs are comprised of outstanding students and it’s a new set of challenges. Some of the things
that were easy at Iowa are difficult here and some of the things that were difficult at Iowa are relatively easy here.
SD: What major changes, if any, have you enacted since taking over for Ted Leland in April 2006? What is the
biggest difference about Stanford now that you’re around?
BB: I wouldn’t say it’s radically different. What I found here was a culture of high achievement, a culture of doing
things the right way. Those are both difficult to create if they’re not already there. That’s a great foundation for a
program, and it probably existed before Ted got here, but he certainly enhanced it and nurtured it. We’ve made
some changes to fundraising and the business aspects of the program, but fundamentally, there haven’t been
radical changes required.
SD: What changes would you still like to see made?
BB: There are lots of things we’re working on. I don’t believe we’re as good technologically as we need to be. I don’t
think our Web sites are as good as they need to be. I think how we interface with various publics needs to be
improved. I think some of the services we provide to our various publics could be more efficient.
It doesn’t matter how good the organization is: there are always ways it can be made better...Even as successful as
we’ve been, there are ways we can get better.
SD: Talk about Jim Harbaugh. What was it about him that made him the right guy for the job?
BB: He made the considered decision to move from professional football to learning how the college game worked
with his move from the Raiders to the University of San Diego.
What I heard repeatedly about Jim was that he was a person who made everyone around him better. I think that’s
about as good a trait one could ask for in a coach. I liked his energy and the success he had. More than anything
else, I kept hearing he was a guy that made everyone around him better, and I think we found that to be true.
SD: Where were you during the USC victory? What was your initial reaction and how do you view the win now?
BB: I was at the game. Part of the time I was in the press box, the second half I was [watching] from the sideline. I
was about 30 feet from Bradford’s catch in the end zone. It was a huge win. Some have called it the biggest upset in
the history of college football, so it’s significant from that standpoint. It was fun to be a part of that — I think it gives
us hope for the future with what Stanford football can be, but it still leaves us with a lot of work to be done.
I was happy for our players, particularly, and obviously for our coaches. The players have been through a lot the
last two to three years, and some of them longer than that. It was nice for them to have a chance to get some
positive feedback.
SD: Comment on former Stanford basketball coach Mike Montgomery’s role in the Athletic Department.
BB: Mike’s a big part of Stanford athletics history. We’re very glad to have him back and he’ll be working with our
staff on fundraising activities and working on a public relations standpoint. I expect he’ll be serving on some NCAA
committees and providing them with the benefit of his years of experience — his years of experience will serve well
as a resource to draw upon.
SD: The recent Brook Lopez suspension raised the ever-present issue of college athletes and their place as
students. At a school like Stanford, how do you balance between promoting big-time athletics while keeping intact
the fundamental motives of the University?
BB: I think that’s what makes Stanford special; we don’t compromise in any area. We demand that every one of our
student athletes is competitive in the classroom. It’s one of the things that appeals to me about Stanford, [and] it
appeals to our coaches and our student athletes. I think our standard doesn’t change much from sport to sport or
season to season or person to person. We expect high achievement in both areas; when that doesn’t happen we
have to take the necessary steps.
SD: Is your position at Stanford the pinnacle for you in terms of your career? Do you have loftier career aspirations?
BB: I certainly don’t expect to be going any place. I’m 55 and I don’t know how much longer I’ll work, but I expect that
it’ll be at Stanford. I hope that it will.
SD: Comment on your thoughts about life at Stanford as a whole.
BB: This university is an extraordinary place. I think that anybody who comes here — whether you’re the AD or a
faculty member or a student or somebody affiliated in some other way — it’s important that you embrace what
Stanford is.
You can’t come in and resist what Stanford is, you have to embrace it. It’s an extraordinary place populated with
amazing people doing some remarkable things. From the athletics perspective, it’s very unique in the way we go
about what we do. Our student athletes graduate at the same rate as the rest of the student population, our student
athletes take on lots of extra time in the pursuit of excellence of their sport but they are expected to do the same
thing in their classes.
Robert A. Bowlsby: Keeping score on academics
NCAA should be lauded for balance
Robert A. Bowlsby, Dallas Morning News, 03 November 2007
It is a fun time of year. As the college football season reaches its crescendo and as America prepares for the
holidays (and the football bowl season), it is easy to forget that our weekend heroes are college students during the
week.
There has never been more competitive parity than is currently the case in college football. Be that as it may, there
remains a need to realize a high measure of academic parity as well.
In the past, the balance between athletic and academic experiences has been tenuous, at best. In several sports,
the graduation rates are alarmingly low and the transfer rates alarmingly high. College athletics continues to be a
source of great opportunity for our nation's youth, but that opportunity is only fully realized when a solid education
accompanies an exciting athletic experience.
Recent NCAA initiatives to devise, implement and manage the academic progress rates of collegiate athletes have
brought some much-needed sunshine to academic success rates in all sports.
The APR, as it has come to be known, is an objective measure of how each institution in the NCAA succeeds, or
fails, based on who was recruited to campus, how recruits did while they were there and whether they left with a
degree when their playing days were over.
For the first time, institutions are being held accountable through penalties ranging from public warnings for the first
incident of unsatisfactory academic performance to withdrawal of NCAA membership privileges for the fourth incident.
In between are the potential for the loss of scholarships, restrictions on playing and practice seasons, and the loss
of eligibility to participate in NCAA postseason tournaments and bowl games.
In short, the academic progress rate keeps score in areas where the score has not always been kept. The penalty
structure begins by dealing with those institutions that are performing most poorly, but it also seeks to motivate all
institutions and all sports within each school's athletics program.
NCAA President Myles Brand and the association's board of directors should be congratulated for their leadership.
They have made some tough choices, but much work remains.
A student athlete should never have to choose between an education and participation in athletics. The vast
majority of institutions can take justifiable pride in the dual successes on the field and in the classroom.
Those institutions that cannot will now be called upon to answer in very tangible ways for having failed to deliver the
balanced experience that our nation's student athletes deserve.
Robert A. Bowlsby is the Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics at Stanford University.
Academic restrictions still an issue
Mark Norris, SMU Daily Campus, 30 October 2007
One part of Phil Bennett's Monday press conference delved into an issue intensely familiar to those loyal to the SMU
football program - the restrictions the department still operates under in regard to admissions and academics on
campus. And Bennett spoke honestly about what he felt was a thorn in his side during the six years he has been on
the Hilltop.
"This is a tough job, let's not lie about it," he said. "To say we're on equal footing with our competitors in a lot of
areas would be a lie."
Restrictions put in place in the post-Death Penalty era have been the bane of every head coach at SMU, but
Bennett and Athletic Director Steve Orsini differed on whether the issue is still a problem for a football program that
is still searching for footing.
"Steve knows it, Gerald [Turner, SMU's President] knows it, that to get this thing where it needs to be there's got to
be some concessions made in a lot of different areas," Bennett said. "Both academic, financial. From start to finish -
the commitment."
Restrictions have been slowly loosened since the football program returned in 1989. Bennett said the situation is
better than when he arrived at SMU in 2002 and that he knew what he was getting into.
But he was frustrated by the lack of progress in making it easier to get transfers into the program. He said it was
hard to get potential junior college recruits to come to the university because of the difficulty in transferring hours
into SMU.
"The fact is that it could make it a little bit - a lot - easier than what it is," Bennett said.
Bennett spent more time than he expected dealing with restrictions and at some points it would take him away from
what he was trying to do on the field.
"You end up spending a lot of time on it when you could be focusing on some other things," he said.
Orsini said that SMU is nationally competitive as far as admissions is concerned, but that not every change he wants
to make has been done yet.
Orsini wants to be involved in the process if any athlete is having troubles being admitted to the university, and told
every coach to ask him for help. Orsini hasn't been asked to help out in one case.
Bennett and Orsini did agree on the need for more majors that would attract potential athletes to SMU.
Bennett lamented the lack of progress in developing the School of Education into a place that would house majors
more friendly to athletics.
"A lot of kids like the fact that they can become coaches and teachers and educators," Bennett said. "And at one
point there was a little movement here that that was going to happen, and it's slowly faded away."
Orsini said the majors list at SMU is not as broad as the other universities the school is competing against.
"We're trying to broaden the curriculum here for helping a lot of students, not just student athletes," Orsini said.
A timeline to ensure that there are no barriers to student-athletes coming to SMU is being created, Orsini said, with
the goal of any athlete wanting to come to SMU being able to.
College Football Powers Prove Academic Bonus Payments Worthless
Curtis Eichelberger and Mason Levinson, Bloomberg.com,29 October 2007
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Football coaches have long earned more when their team did well on the gridiron. In the
1980s, stung by charges that athletic stars were ill-educated, colleges began paying extra for grades and
graduation as well.
Yet these so-called academic bonuses of as much as $300,000 aren't buying colleges much. On-field performance
rewards that reach the hundreds of thousands, and salaries in the millions, dwarf even the largest educational
payouts. The latest available four-year average graduation rates show football players still trail peer athletes and
overall student graduation rates.
Coaches say even substantially more money won't overcome the reality of the game they play.
``The bottom line is, if you don't win, you are going to get fired,'' says University of Georgia coach Mark Richt, who
will earn a salary of $2 million this season with a potential $200,000 in on-field bonuses and $50,000 in academic
incentives.
Richt says if half his salary was based on academic performance, ``you'd recruit guys you know would get 4.0s.
They might not be able to play, and then you'll get canned because you can't play on the field.''
Data published last year by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the college sports governing body, show
that from 2001 to 2006, the four-year average graduation rate for top-division football players rose to 55 percent
from 52 percent. The graduation rate for all student athletes at those schools, including football players, increased
to 63 percent from 58 percent, and the rate for all students, athletes and non-athletes, advanced to 63 percent from
59 percent.
`Shell Game'
``It's public relations; a shell game,'' says Phil Hughes, associate athletic director at Kansas State University, which
doesn't offer academic bonuses. ``It's a feel-good story that suggests we somehow care about this.''
David Graham, 38, Ohio State University's director of student-athlete support services, says the academic bonus
isn't a motivator.
``A $50,000 bonus on a $2 million contract isn't what gets them moving in the morning,'' he says.
Ohio State coach Jim Tressel earns a salary of $2.2 million, and has an academic bonus of as much as $300,000.
An examination of the 2007 coaching contracts at 81 of the biggest football programs at public universities shows
that 29 of the 81 don't offer academic bonuses. The contracts are public records under state laws.
Top coaches often earn at least $1 million in salary.
University of Alabama coach Nick Saban, 55, earns a minimum $3.52 million. His academic bonus is as much as
$100,000, or less than 3 percent of his salary.
Tedford's $3.3 Million
Jeff Tedford, 45, coach at the University of California at Berkeley, makes $3.3 million, and a maximum academic
bonus of $25,000, or less than 1 percent.
Greg Schiano, 41, coach at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, will earn at least $1.6 million and
could get an academic bonus of as much as $45,000, 2.8 percent of his salary.
The four-year average graduation rate published last year for the football team at Cal-Berkeley was 37 percent,
trailing the school's overall average of 86 percent.
Rutgers graduated 50 percent of its football players, according to last year's report, compared with the student body
average of 72 percent.
Gerald Gurney, 56, the University of Oklahoma's senior associate athletic director for academics and student life,
says the academic bonuses are hypocritical and should be eliminated.
The Defenders
``The size of these incentives compared to those for going to bowl games or winning games are miniscule,'' says
Gurney. ``So the incentives really aren't meaningful at all in terms of changing behavior.''
The bonuses have their defenders.
University of Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds, 70, increased the maximum academic incentive in football coach
Mack Brown's contract earlier this year to $150,000 from $100,000. His salary is a minimum of $2.9 million.
``I think it's a reminder to coaches that there is more to this than winning,'' Dodds said in an interview. ``It means a
lot to the university and Board of Regents.''
University of Maryland Athletic Director Debbie Yow said academic bonuses go beyond pleasing a university's board.
``It's a personal value for me,'' Yow said in an interview. ``So it's in there for that reason.''
On-Field Bonuses
Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, 60, will receive $110,250 out of potential academic incentives of $231,525 for
achieving a 71 percent graduation rate last year, according to Yow. His salary for this season is $1.75 million, with a
potential on- field bonus of $347,288.
Bonuses for a winning record, bowl invitations, ticket sales and coach-of-the-year honors often are many times the
size of an academic bonus, according to the contracts.
Arizona State's Dennis Erickson can earn $1.1 million in on-field bonuses and an academic bonus of as much as
$45,000. His salary is at least $625,000 this year and will increase to more than $1.4 million next year.
The University of Iowa's Kirk Ferentz, whose minimum salary is $2.84 million, could earn $700,000 in on-field
incentives and as much as $75,000 in an academic bonus.
Athletic directors say academic incentives first appeared in contracts in the 1980s when the NCAA began setting
academic standards for athletic participation. The Indianapolis-based NCAA has no say in how coaches' contracts
are written and doesn't keep data on salaries or bonuses.
No-Bonus Schools
Academic bonuses are given for reaching a specific graduation rate, meeting a goal for the team's overall grade-
point average, matching an NCAA academic progress rate or some combination of the three.
Among the schools that don't offer academic bonuses are the University of Nebraska, the University of Tennessee,
Texas A&M University and the University of Virginia.
``We think academics and graduating players is a part of what any coach or administrator is hired to do,'' Virginia
Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said. ``We don't think this is an extra part of one's responsibility.''
Cal-Berkeley's Tedford and Rutgers's Schiano said they don't know how much their academic bonuses are, and
even if they did, it wouldn't force them to change how they recruit players or support their athletes' academic
pursuits.
`Recruit and Develop'
``Our saying around here is `Recruit and develop,''' Schiano said. ``It's not always the guy with the best high school
grades or the best SAT score that's successful in college. It's the guy who is willing to pay the price because they
love what they get to do at college.''
Tedford agreed.
``To recruit good students is a priority,'' he said. ``But also, if the marginal students have the will to work, and the will
to take advantage of resources that are here, that's what we focus on.''
Maryland's Friedgen says that when he's recruiting, ``I ask the kids, `How much do you study today in high school?'
They say half an hour, and I warn them it's going to be two hours a night in study hall plus tutors. `
``I'm looking for kids who not only want to be successful players, but want to be successful in life,'' he said. ``Low
maintenance, high productivity.''
`PR Messages'
Hughes, of Kansas State, says academic bonuses are window dressing.
``I'm fascinated by the efforts to put these PR messages into contracts,'' says Hughes, who is also president of the
National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics, a non- profit organization that includes college faculty,
counselors and athletic administrators who support academic achievement for student athletes.
``The enemy is us,'' says Gurney of the University of Oklahoma. ``As a society, we view winning as so ultimately
important -- it is the nature of Americans -- that we are willing to pay whatever it takes to ensure a winning program.''
NCAA COACHES' SALARIES AND BONUSES
[NOTE: See the story and this table formatted properly at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=aNlcBVGQ.jb4]
Guaranteed money is base salary, defined income from radio and television appearances, apparel and shoe deals
made with the school, and deferred compensation among other items. The on-field and academic bonuses that are
also listed are paid to a coach when he achieves goals defined in his contract.
The figures don't account for country club memberships, benefits or vehicles provided by the schools for the coach
or his immediate family. On-field, or football-related, bonuses don't count money paid for winning the national
championship. They do include money for participation in the Bowl Championship Series championship game.
Assembly calls for athletic reforms
Faculty panel wants more control over University sports
Emily Barton and Andy Kroll, U. Mich. Daily, 23 October 2007
The University's main faculty governing body voted yesterday to endorse a set of reforms that would increase the
University central administration's oversight of athletic programs.
The Senate Assembly's endorsement recommends four main areas of athletics reform outlined in an initial report
submitted to the University's Board of Regents last month.
The suggested reforms draw on the recommendations of a June report from The Coalition on Intercollegiate
Athletics, a group comprised of the faculty senates of 56 schools with Division I athletic programs.
One of the main reforms in the report calls for the integration of the University Athletic Department budget into the
University's general fund.
Current University Board of Regents bylaws say that "separate accounting and financial statements will be made for
department funds."
At a meeting of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs earlier this month, Athletic Director Bill Martin
said the Athletic Department's budgeting process is "totally integrated" with the University's.
Additionally, Martin said the Athletic Department budget is subject to annual review by University Chief Financial
Officer Tim Slottow, University President Mary Sue Coleman and the University Board of Regents.
Athletic Department spokesman Bruce Madej yesterday referred comment to Martin, who was unavailable for
comment.
Along with the potential integration of the Athletic Department's budget, the report calls for higher academic
standards for student-athletes and increased student-athlete participation in campus life.
Classical Studies Prof. David Potter, vice chair of the Senate Assembly's Government Relations Advisory
Committee, said that while the COIA report is valuable as a set of broader guidelines, not every recommendation
necessarily applies to the University of Michigan.
Les Thornton, an associate professor of education at the University's Dearborn campus, cast the lone dissenting
vote in the Senate Assembly's endorsement of the proposed athletic reforms. In his dissent, Thornton cited the
report's first recommendation, which states that student-athletes should be admitted to universities based solely on
their potential for academic success.
Thornton said this reform would hurt the chances of certain black student-athletes who may be admitted based on
their potential for athletic success despite poor academic success in high school.
Thornton said many of these black students often go on to achieve considerable success in the classroom -
success they might not have otherwise had without participating in athletics.
"For many African-American student-athletes, that's the only way they would've gotten into college," Thornton said.
In response, Potter said he didn't think COIA authors intended to hurt the opportunities of black students or limit
their abilities to attend universities.
The faculty-endorsed reforms also recommend that the chair of the University's Advisory Board for Intercollegiate
Athletics - a governing body comprised of faculty members, students, alumni and staff - be a "senior (tenured)
faculty member," not the athletic director.
University regent bylaws stipulate that the athletic director - a job currently held by Martin, who is not a faculty
member - chair the board.
The proposal also recommends that the overall growth rate in the Athletic Department's operating costs be no
greater than the University's.
The University's general budget increased 1.9 percent between the 2006-2007 fiscal year and the 2007-2008 fiscal
year. The Athletic Department's budget, meanwhile, increased 17.6 percent d