out of nowhere, JoePa is going to be coaching his last home game for penn state? after 46 years, the all-time leader in victories suddenly bids adieu this saturday and it comes down to a scandal? listening to the media, i really have to feel for the guy. apparently, support for paterno has “eroded” within the university following a scandal involving former assistant sandusky who is being investigated for alleged inappropriate relationships with teen boys over about a 15 year period. it was said that paterno had known something, but “turned a blind eye.” the police investigation released him from responsibility, but critized him for only telling university officials and not reporting it to the police. they say he has a moral responsibility to tell police. in principle, i would agree that would have been prudent to tell police, but the part i don’t understand is that the police let him off the hook for no wrongdoing while university officials are bloodthirsty because he didn’t go to the police? the catch 22 of it is that he went to university officials in the first place when he learned of the incidents. they could have gone to the police. why was it paterno’s sole responsibility? so, the university wants him out for something that they are equally, if not more, responsible for? i can see why the penn state vice president and others are also being targeted, but man i feel sorry for JoePa. 
then, just when you thought 'bama-lsu was a good matchup, the pac-12 north will more or less be determined when oregon plays at stanford. third-ranked stanford is a 4 point favorite against sixth-ranked oregon, but this could be a blowout in either direction. too hard to predict. the entertaining part for me is the story that broke in the oregonian on sunday. i won’t say i told you so, but talk about incompetent university officials, i challenge any school in the country to beat the university of oregon in a game of immorality. the following is an outlined version of facts presented in steve duin’s article referring to the subsisdies the university of oregon athletic department receives.
the university has always maintained that the sports programs, specifically the football team, are self funded. that is, they are independent of the university general fund for support and as such, student fees do not cover any expenses. i am sure that as much as most of the students down in eugene love their ducks, none of them particularly want to fund it. however, the athletic department funding itself has always sounded suspicious. even when they make about $50 million playing in the national championship game, most of that must be dispersed to the other programs in the pac-10 (now pac-12) and a lot of the rest is spent getting to such an event. not a lot left to bring back to eugene.
duin’s article proposed that “hidden subsidies drive the myth that the UO athletic department is self-sustaining” with it’s $78 million annual budget. it gets tricky to prove because the university is quite adept at covering its tracks. but, consider these factors:
1. “overhead assessment”
each “revenue generator” on campus must pay a percentage of it’s budget to compensate the university for services provided. for example, groups like university housing, the health center and even associated students must give back 6% per year (going to 7% next year) to use buildings and other accommodations. the athletic department also pays an overhead assessment, however, in 2009, just two weeks before president frohnmayer left office, he signed a memo with then-athletic director kilkenny that allows the athletic department to pay only 3% through 2013. so, for the $1.378 million the athletic department spent in overhead costs last year, the 3% cap saved them $920,000. in 2013, that same subsidy will save them $1.84 million. that is money not going back to the university. who makes up for those losses?
2. “academic support”
from 2002-2010, the university funneled $8.5 million from the general fund to pay for academic support of athletes. it may be argued that athletes are students and need support like all others, but $1 million per year seems rather steep considering that most of the student body are not athletes while a large percentage of student support services are being given to people that aren’t necessarily accepted into the school based on their academic successes to begin with. why shouldn’t the athletic department fund the support of their own requirements for things like gpa, or at least a fair portion?
3. parking revenues
the athletic department banks the revenue from parking during sporting events. no figures were given, but try to use your imagination. if it only costs say $2 per hour to park during a basketball game and that game lasts three hours, each car pays $5. the arena holds 14500. if as many as half of the fans are students that don’t drive and four people carpool in each car that does drive there, a full arena would still pull in $8750 for one basketball game! and be sure that $2 per hour is a low-ball figure. why does the atheltic department get this break? when there is a linguistics symposium, does the liguistics department get to bank street parking revenue and, if so, is that revenue maximized because the university used general funds to promote that symposium to no end?
4. seating at autzen
the administration must pay the athletic department for use of 800 club seats and the presidential suite at autzen stadium. this comes to $375, 000 per year. where does that money come from? probably would get a convoluted answer if you were to ask the university.
5. seating at autzen (part 2)
prior to 2002, autzen stadium capacity was 42,000 and 5,800 seats were reserved for students. after the expansion, autzen now holds 54,000 (though it exceeds capacity by several thousand per week) and only 5,500 seats are reserved for students. students may not be paying directly, but they are definitely losing out and the athletic department is banking buckets of cash off seats that should be given to students for free. does any part of that money go back into the general fund or even offset the cost of the presidential suite?
6. court costs
currently, the university is under investigation for possible ncaa recruiting violations. the university general fund is paying 50% of the legal fees. exact numbers would be hard to guess, and the oregonian didn’t give an estimate, but trust that number is in the millions.
just eyeballing it, i see around $20 million the athletic department gets in “favors” from the university that student fees are paying for. that’s not even considering lots of other sources that we don’t even know about. i may be $58,000 in the hole for a degree i wasn’t allowed to finish, but at least i got to attend 4 football games and one basketball game to cheer for a team i don’t even like. yeah it was probably worth it. i’m not bitter. thankfully for that awesome university, not everybody sees this the way i do.
go stanford!
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