Because, throughout Division I, almost all of a school's fourteen teams lose money every year, the minimum team requirement locks athletic departments and universities into huge annual expenses. Within the context of American higher education, this NCAA rule is an anomalyâno other outside agency forces universities to spend money in this way. Only the NCAA, with its minimum team requirements, totally ignores the financial autonomy of colleges and universities. Currently, this situation occurs during a period of severe financial constraints within higher education, when many parts of the university are experiencing drastic cutbacks.
Ironically, the presidents and administrators who wield the sharpest financial axes at their schools, slashing undergraduate programs and services, are often the men and women on the gravy planes to NCAA events. When these administrators cut academic programs, and then underwrite ever-escalating athletic department costs, they weaken the educational fabric of their schools and increase the beer-and-circus aspects. Furthermore, in the last decade, not one of these officials asked the NCAA to consider changing its team minimum rules, allowing schools to spend less money on their college sports programs. This sends a signal to people inside and out of the university system that, at many Big-time U's, intercollegiate athletics comes before undergraduate education.
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Beyond the NCAA minimum team requirements, a huge part of the stake in the association's poker game concerns facilities, not only stadiums and
arenas but training structures and state-of-the-art equipment. For a school to remain in Division I-A, the NCAA requires it to have large stadiums and arenas, and to meet attendance levels (Chapter 3). In the 1990s, many athletic departments either upgraded their facilities or built new ones, often moving the expenses, including the debt-servicing, off their books and onto university ledgers. As always, athletic directors and coaches pressured presidents and administrators to approve the constructionâwhether the institution could afford the costs or not. Often the ADs and coaches enlisted the sports media and fans in their campaigns.
In 1999, University of Minnesota football coach Glen Mason lobbied for a new stadium for his team, arguing that his program needed to keep up with the recent stadium upgrades at Penn State and Ohio State ($100 million each), and new structures at other schools: “When you look at what is happening nationally with the amount of investments these great academic institutions are making in athletics and football, it's mind-boggling.” It is particularly mind-boggling when these investments are compared to the proportionally lower ones that these supposedly “great academic institutions” put into their undergraduate education programs.
Virginia Tech AD Jim Weaver was more honest than Glen Mason about his department's construction spree, not bothering to put academic ribbons on it: “If you are not upgrading your facilities, you are going backward. In college athletics today ⦠we're in the game of keeping up with the Joneses. I don't like it, but it's a fact.”
Sociologist Harry Edwards calls this the “Athletics Arms Race,” and although the Cold War competition ended, College Sports Megalnc. has intensified its version. According to ADs, coaches, and the executives who run their trade association, the NCAA, athletic departments must never stop expanding, and should never reach a spending equilibriumâeven though they run continual deficits. A former athletic official at the University of Nebraska explained:
When we won the national [football] championship at Nebraska in 1994, what we did instantly was continue to expand. That's when we started the project to build skyboxes and expand the stadium and continue to improve facilities.
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Colossal new football stadiums and basketball arenas, as well as luxury skyboxes, are the most visible symbol of College Sports MegaInc. In addition, in many college towns, big-name coaches build enormous mansions,
part of the harvest from their million-dollar annual incomes. As Tony Kornheiser indicated, every coach and administrator in big-time college sports is “getting rich,” if not already enormously wealthy. Predictably, the association in charge of College Sports MegaInc. also takes care of its own, and overpays its personnel, particularly its top officials. For example, NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey receives an annual salary of $650,000, plus multiple perks: his pay is about $450,000 more per year than the average salary of CEOs at America's two hundred largest nonprofit organizations, and his perks far exceed most of theirs.
The only consistent financial losers are the schools that belong to the NCAA and furnish the stadiums, arenas, and facilities for its operations. Contrary to one of the most tenacious myths in American society,
the vast majority of colleges and universities do not make money in big-time intercollegiate athletics
. But the myth will never die as long as university officials use it to justify their affection and need for beer-and-circus, particularly as a substitute for quality undergraduate education.
COLLEGE SPORTS MEGAINC. VERSUS UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
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hat does College Sports Megalnc. have to do with the undergraduate education programs of the host universities? This chapter considers this crucial issue through the opinions of students across the country.
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ASK JIMMY JOHN,
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Q. HEY JIMMY JOHN: Why is the University president's house so big?
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A. The president represents all that is important to our school as an institution of higher learning. These hallowed and noble academic grounds are the fertile fields upon which the future of our nation is grown. And the University president and the house he lives in must demonstrate to all the priority we place on this important mission.
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Q. Why is the coach's house even bigger?
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A. No comment.
âA college newspaper advertisement for
Jimmy John's Sandwich Shops
This ad for a Midwestern fast-food chain popular in college towns was written by a student. The ad copy is edgy, capturing undergraduate cynicism and unease with the current priorities of Big-time U's. The writer
mocks the official line on “higher learning,” and then uses a punchline based on the money reality of big-time college sports. But, at the end, like many contemporary undergraduates, this student refuses to engage the implications of the situation.
Similar responses characterized a plurality of replies to a statement in the questionnaire for this book: “Your school emphasizes its intercollegiate athletics program more than its undergraduate education program.” Neither positive nor negative answers achieved a majority, and the neutral plurality reflected student uncertainty, cynicism, and doublethink on this issue. Many of the positive responses were also in the doublethink mode.
Men and women, often for different reasons, registered almost identical numbers on the question, but the entire pool of respondents divided sharply according to type of school attended. All of the positive replies came from students at big-time college sports universities: 16 percent “agreed” and 13 percent “strongly agreed” that their schools emphasized sports over education, though some males in the latter cohort added in P.S.'s that they liked it that way. A Clemson senior male articulated a frequently repeated “strongly agree” position:
Rooting for our teams teaches me a lot more than I've ever learned in class. I've seen coaches and athletes do great things, and I've seen the same people cheat and steal. College sports has introduced me to the real world and, thanks to the Tigers, I'm ready to leave this place and enter that world.
But not all students at Division I-A schools agreed with the questionnaire statement. Negative answers came from undergraduates throughout the Pac-10, Big Ten, and other conferences, particularly students at Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Northwestern, Duke, and Rice, but a majority of negative respondents attended Division III schools. The total “disagree” number was 11 percent, and “strongly disagree,” 24 percent. Some P.S.'s from the latter group also “dissed” the question: “This is dumb,” wrote an Emory woman, and “You can't be serious,” from a NYU man.
This left 36 percent who “neither agreed or disagreed.” Almost all of these respondents were at Division I universities, some at so-called Public Ivies (North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, and UCLA), but most at other ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-10 institutions. In the P.S. notes of these respondents, many wrote versions of “It's a toss up here,” and, “Maybe yes, maybe no, I can't say for sure.” Even some honors students at these universities could not decide, a University of Maryland male remarking: “The
excellent honors classes begin to balance the mammoth athletic department, but when you consider all the terrible regular courses and the awesome tailgating, it's difficult to say which way the emphasis goes.”
Many “neither agree or disagree” respondents also expressed cynicism, offering versions of a University of Kansas junior woman's comments:
KU knows that being a Jayhawk fan is a lot more fun than going to classes. It doesn't care what we do as long as we pay our money for season tickets, tuition, and everything else. It lets us choose our life here, although sitting at games is a lot more pleasant than sitting in lectures. But we get to choose.
In the entire survey, no other question prompted as high a number of neutral responses. But neutrality on this issue also gives a signal. When students refuse to affirm that their school emphasizes undergraduate education over intercollegiate athletics, they make an adverse comment about their universities. If an institution of higher learning truly carries on that activity, then undergraduates should not have to reflect on this proposition, or respond cynically, or call it a “toss up.”
Not a single student at a Division III school agreed with or claimed neutrality on the statement. Some echoed a DePauw University student who remarked, “Classes here are not as great as the administration claims, but the school sure doesn't make a big deal about our college sports teams, even the guys playing on them don't.” But most Division III undergraduates offered a version of this Emory junior male's comment: “It's clear that academics come first here. If you don't want it that way, this isn't the school for you.”
On the other hand, a majority of respondents at universities in the SEC, Big 12, and Big East conferences, as well as lesser leagues like the Atlantic 10 and Big West, agreed with the statement that their schools overemphasized sports at the expense of education. However, many of the P.S.'s from these positive respondents, particularly women, complained rather than praised this situation. A freshmen female at Kansas State noted, “They treat the jocks a whole lot better than they do regular students here, and it just shows their priorities.” A sophomore woman at UMass (Amherst) commented, “This school has brand-new intercollegiate athletic buildings and meanwhile classroom ceilings fall on you. That's where this place is at.” In fact, a majority of women who assented to the statement criticized their school's stress on college sports.
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The answers to another question on the survey-one requesting a written responseâalso reflected the mixed reactions of Division I undergraduates to their institutions' big-time college sports programs:
When you are in your hometown or traveling, and you tell someone that you attend your school, what is her or his first comment?
Almost all respondents at Division I universities with famous football and/or basketball teams offered a college sports-related answer. “How's the team look for the coming season” recurred, as did comments about famous coaches. Most Indiana University students offered versions of “Inside the state of Indiana, people say âI love coach Knight,'” or, “I'm from out-of-state and the first thing non-Hoosiers say is âBob Knight is an asshole.'” Some IU students added, “I always reply, âI love him because he's an asshole, that's why he wins.'”
Another common response concerned the nickname of the school: University of Texas (Austin) students wrote that, as a first comment, many people say “Hook 'em Horns,” accompanied by the hand signal; University of North Carolina undergraduates wrote, “Go Heels”; but some students at schools with off-the-field athletic problems encountered negative nicknames. For example, a Florida State senior noted that, instead of “Go Seminoles,” many people say, “Go Criminoles.” This FSU student also made a cynical prediction: “I tell people that, in today's America, Peter Warrick will soon be doing ads for Dillard's, telling people about the store's special discounts” (Warrick, a FSU football star, was involved in a shoplifting incident at a Dillard's department store).
Students at NCAA Division I institutions with less-controversial championship football and/or basketball teams than FSU's received frequent congratulations for the victories, which they valued. But if their schools' teams were mediocre or worse, they often encountered derision, and despised these remarks. In addition, a significant number of undergraduates, particularly women, at schools with losing
and
winning squads added P.S.'s, typically, “I wish this place was known for something other than its sports teams.” Some of these students also commented: “When I go for job interviews, sometimes they only want to talk about the _______” (the team's nickname), and “I wonder if people think that my degree from this place has any value?” In interviews for this book, other students at Division I schools made similar remarks (Chapter 15).
Students at Division I universities that clearly emphasize academics provided more mixed responses to the open-ended question. A typical Rice
University answer was, “In the Southwest, people say, âYou must be really smart,' but in other places they say, âI hear Rice is getting good as a school.'” Some Notre Dame students encountered, “Your university is so hard to get into,” but many others heard “Go Irish,” as well as people singing or humming the “Notre Dame Fight Song.” A number of UC-Berkeley undergraduates were asked, “How do you compete against the Asian kids?” and Stanford students, “Have you met Chelsea Clinton?” The latter query contrasts to all the undergraduates at big-time college sports universities who receive, “Have you met ________?” (the name of a famous coach).
Another frequent first comment received by students, particularly those at beer-and-circus schools, were versions of: “Is the tailgating as great as everyone says?”; “Are there still kegs on all the frat house lawns every football weekend?”; and “Has the party scene really moved off-campus?” Students at some big-time U's also encountered location and appearance-of-campus remarks, especially if their school had invested heavily in the look of its buildings and grounds. University of Wisconsin respondents mentioned, “Your campus is really beautiful,” as well as alcohol-related remarks, “I hear that beer flows like water at Wisconsin.”
In contrast to the Division I responses, students at Division III institutions almost never heard a college sports comment first. Most often, variations on “Your school has a great ________” (the name of an academic program) occurred: a Middlebury College senior filled in “foreign language program”; a number of Emory University students wrote “pre-med” and “business school”; and a Washington of St. Louis sophomore put, “school of architecture.” Only one Kenyon College male contradicted this pattern, writing, “great swim teams.” In addition, a few Division III students received party comments: a Washington & Lee male wrote, “I hear you guys drink like fish.” And some Division III students offered location remarks, usually “Where's ________?” (the name of their small college), especially if in the Midwest.
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Finally, despite the mixed nature of the first comments for Division I schools, the overwhelming number of college sports-related remarks about these institutions (87 percent) proves that the NCAA and Division I athletic programs have triumphed. For many Americans, the big-time athletic department is the university, and its teams have so imprinted their images upon the public that intercollegiate athletics eclipses the academic programs of the host universities, even those with well-known research departments.
Since the beginning of college sports in the late nineteenth century, a
majority of Americans have known more about the football and basketball teams of many universities than about those institutions' educational programs. Nevertheless, for most of the twentieth century, the general public believed that the academic parts of Big-time U's should have priority over their sports entertainment divisions. In the twenty-first century, thanks to the wall-to-wall television coverage of college sports, the traditional education-first view seems to be fading, particularly among younger Americans.
The president of Kansas State University recently remarked that college sports is “the window through which your particular university is viewed. Not that it should be that way, but that's the way it is.” The media maintains the window, opening it wide for big-time college sports events and the accompanying festivities, but only offering glimpses of the academic side of these universities. The three-to-four-hour telecasts of major college football games, with their two-minute promo spots on the academic aspects of the schools, indicates the disparity in emphasis. The subtext for viewers is: At these universities, college sports is far more important than undergraduate education.
Kansas State president Jon Wefald understands this phenomenon, and, in his years as head of this school, he has spent millions of dollars on intercollegiate athletics and proportionally little on undergraduate education. As a result, his Wildcat football team managed to achieve national fame in the 1990s, and his general undergraduate education programs continued to limp along. A brief examination of the impact of the K State athletic department on the rest of the university charts the distance between media/public perception and on-campus reality.
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The
Chronicle of Higher Education
spotlighted Kansas State in a feature article in 1999. Reporter Welch Suggs discovered that the football team's bowl appearances and high poll rankings had
not
prompted a Flutie Factor jump in admission applications, or a discernible increase in alumni contributions to the university's undergraduate education programs. (See chapter 21 for a discussion on whether big-time college sports programs actually prompt alumni donations.)