Beer and Circus

by Murray Sperber

  This myth is the cornerstone of the consultants’ argument for emphasizing big-time college sports: Not only will it keep freshmen on campus, but they will become so attached to the campus community—their fellow students and the faculty—that they will remain until they graduate, and then they will evolve into loyal and generous alumni. Examining this myth is the best response to the second New R.

  On occasion, particularly when a school’s team wins a national title, the myth appears to be true; in reality, because of the idiosyncratic and artificial nature of the championship—the necessity of sweeping through an entire season and tournament, and the immense amount of media attention—at best, great sports success helps Big-time U’s develop random, occasional communities, not permanent ones. And annually, for every university with a NCAA Division I-A football title, more than 110 schools lose out; and for every Division I men’s basketball champion, more than 310 also-rans exist.

  The results to the questionnaire for this book revealed that at most Division I universities, undergraduates hold mixed and frequently incoherent attitudes about their school’s big-time intercollegiate athletics program, and the athlete/performers on the teams. Students increasingly endorse the maxim: Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. When the high-profile teams fail to win, undergraduates often become indifferent to their school’s entire intercollegiate athletic program. Even when the football or basketball teams triumph, students exhibit a high degree of doublethink and cynicism. In addition, the best of times for athletic departments often become the worst of times for student fans: athletic departments with top men’s basketball teams sell so many seats to alumni and boosters that large numbers of undergraduates cannot obtain tickets to games and become upset and angry. Added to these student grievances is the massive and ongoing undergraduate resentment toward “the jocks” and their many privileges and special deals: the resulting negativity heightens, rather than alleviates, student alienation toward Big-time U’s. It certainly does not help the retention rate.

  How does big-time college sports affect another key part of the university community—the faculty—and does it bring them closer to their students, aiding retention? At research universities, most professors live in the academic subculture and pay scant attention to their schools’ sports teams. They hold the minority of their colleagues who are fans in contempt, especially those academics who serve on Faculty Athletic Committees, and they are indifferent to their students’ college sports concerns. The one aspect of big-time intercollegiate athletics that attracts widespread faculty interest is the $1 million-plus annual income deals given to some of the coaches on their campuses. Unlike students who admire these men for their celebrity, most faculty regard them suspiciously, astounded by their entrepreneurial skills and the school’s concessions to them. For faculty, the old-time image of the avuncular, unpretentious coach has been replaced by the Armani-suited VIP traveling on a private jet to a $20,000-plus speaking engagement and, on the return flight, stopping and interviewing for his next job. (Some “faculty stars” at research universities show more envy than distaste for the contemporary celebrity coach.)

  Even a national championship does not entice research faculty into the temporary, feel-good camaraderie on campus. A University of Kentucky professor remarked after that school’s 1996 NCAA men’s basketball title:

  The students love the championship and went crazy about it. But as far as I’m concerned, it just makes my professional life more difficult. When I go to meetings, colleagues from around the country constantly ask me how I can teach at a university that emphasizes basketball over everything else. I tell them that that isn’t true, but they don’t believe me. I’m a specialist in my field, and I want to talk to people about my work, not the Wildcats … . I’m embarrassed and angry that this school is known more and more for sports, and nothing academic gets any attention. It gets worse after every sports scandal and after every championship. There’s no breaking the UK sports cycle.

  The Kentucky professor had to live through another NCAA basketball championship in the late 1990s, as well as a controversy about whether to build a new state-of-the-art arena to replace a large and serviceable one. Nevertheless, at the University of Kentucky, many faculty members still feel attached to the school; at some other Big-time U’s, a majority of professors are loyal to their research careers and little else. Whatever their feelings, big-time college sports definitely does not bind the faculty to the campus community, or attach them to their students, helping the retention rate.

  Finally, even the athletic department and its employees, especially the athletes, often feel alienated from the rest of the university. At most Big-time U’s, not only are the intercollegiate sports facilities on the geographic fringes of the campus, but the coaches create—and the athletes live in—a separate world. The physical part of Jockdom contains stadiums, arenas, training facilities, and athlete housing (usually off-campus apartment buildings or remnants of jock dorms). The mental aspect includes attitudes about work and frequent contempt for outsiders, particularly regular students. Coaches warn high-profile football and basketball players to avoid “jock sniffing” students; and coaches and most athletes harbor the traditional vocational contempt for “lazy collegians.” In terms of the community created by big-time intercollegiate athletics, the men and women who should form its core are often the people on campus most detached from it.

  Compounding this irony is the fact that the retention rate for freshmen intercollegiate athletes at most Big-time U’s is below the national average of 75 percent for regular first-year students. This occurs because many coaches, after viewing new recruits at the intercollegiate level, decide that some of them will not help the team win, and “suggest” strongly that the athlete transfer to another school, freeing up the athletic scholarship. In addition, some freshmen athletes do not get along with the coach or cannot adjust to the work demands and stress of big-time college sports, and leave the school.

  In contrast, the retention rate of athletes at Division III institutions is in the 90 percentile range. A female discus thrower at Ohio Wesleyan explained: “The Division III philosophy puts academics first. When I told my coaches that I was really interested in studying abroad” this summer, “their answer wasn’t, ‘You’re going to miss preseason [practice],’” as it would be in Division I, “it was ‘go ahead.’” As a result, this truly amateur student-athlete felt an attachment to her school that transcended the world of the athletic department, and she connected to the traditional and authentic values of college community. In Division I, the athletic department priority is to produce winning teams; in Division III, it is to allow athletes to develop as students.

  In this way, Division III schools attempt to build communities based on shared values and goals, and to encourage open discourse among members. Sometimes these communities are fragile and they dissolve, but often they coalesce, providing all participants with extremely valuable experiences. In contrast, the best that a Big-time U can produce is the superficial coming together of fans in a stadium, arena, or bar for a few hours’ time. If their team wins, they enjoy and share the experience; if it loses, the synthetic community quickly evaporates. If these fans consume enough alcohol in conjunction with the sports event, they achieve the false euphoria of a group of party-goers, some also lapsing into unpleasant or dangerous behavior.

  Of all the justifications for universities to spend millions of dollars on big-time college sports programs, the second New R—it builds community and helps retention—is the shakiest.

  Then there is the third New R—renewal. Many myths about intercollegiate athletics endured through the twentieth century and beyond, but the one most deserving of a silver stake through its heart is the contention that universities need big-time college sports programs to attract alumni donations, and the more the teams win, the more money the alums give to Old, now New Siwash.

  Repeat after me: There is no empirical evidence demonstrating a cor
relation between athletic department achievement and [alumni] fund-raising success. A number of researchers have explored this putative relationship, and they all have concluded that it does not exist. The myth persists, however, aided by anecdotal evidence from sports reporters who apparently spend more time in bars than in development [fund-raising] offices.

  —Richard W. Conklin, vice president

  of the University of Notre Dame

  Many studies indicate that alumni giving is independent of college sports success or failure, and has no relation to whether a school has a big-time intercollegiate athletic program or not. Yet, the myth continues; central to its perpetuation are the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Currently, many members of the sports media claim that because the famous Notre Dame football program is in a “down period,” ND alumni are angry and closing their checkbooks to the school’s fund-raisers. This is not true. Notre Dame alums feel intense loyalty to their university, in large part because of its historic emphasis on undergraduate education and the bonds that, as students, they established with faculty, staff, and fellow undergraduates. As a result, ND alums support their alma mater during good times and bad, and they give as much money—often more—during losing football seasons as during championship years. As Richard Conklin suggests, the sports media should exit the saloon and examine nonsports parts of the university.

  A major element of Notre Dame’s fund-raising success is its concept of “Notre Dame Family.” The freshmen class, less than two thousand men and women, join it and remain within it for the rest of their lives. Many Big-time U’s also try to use this concept of “family” but fail; they attempt to include legions of freshmen into a “family” of twenty-five thousand or more students on campus and a multitude of graduates. Freshmen at these schools cannot feel attached to more than a hundred thousand of their “closest friends.” For many students at Big-time U’s, alienation begins at entrance, continues through their undergraduate careers, and turns them into indifferent, often hostile, alumni. The size and success of the school’s intercollegiate athletic program rarely changes this attitude.

  Contrary to the myth that big-time college sports equals alumni donations, the formula for extracting maximum dollars from alums involves education. In addition to establishing an authentic sense of university family, a school must provide undergraduates with a quality education. Subsequently, if its graduates are pleased with what they learned and proud of their degrees, they want “to give something back” to their alma mater and continue a lifetime relationship with it. The “Alumni giving” rankings in U.S. News’s annual college issue indicate that schools using this formula raise much more money from their alums than do Big-time U’s that neglect undergraduate education. For example, the magazine rates Notre Dame fourth in “Alumni giving” (it also ranks ND nineteenth on its national university list, and notes that the school has a 97 percent freshmen retention rate).

  The proponents of the third New R should examine the U.S. News “Alumni giving” rankings. Other than Notre Dame and Duke, no other NCAA Division I-A football school makes the top-ten list (and some observers question whether Duke plays I-A football). Instead, the usual suspects—institutions famous for their quality undergraduate education programs and relatively small student bodies—dominate the “Alumni giving” list. From Number 1 to 10 are: Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Notre Dame, Harvard, Cal Tech, Duke, MIT, Penn, and Brown.

  The schools through the teens also feature non-big-time college football teams, and although several are in Division I-A, only one, Stanford, has had outstanding football success in recent years. From Number 11 down are: Rice, Lehigh, Wake Forest, Emory, Chicago, Cornell, Stanford, Washington of St. Louis, and Brandeis. Again, all of these universities have relatively small student bodies and provide their undergraduates with a first-rate education.

  Undoubtedly, that education helps their graduates gain good jobs, earn lots of money, and give some of it back to their alma maters. Yet, if big-time college sports universities also provided quality educations to all of their students, wouldn’t they head the “Alumni giving” list? After all, these institutions graduate thousands upon thousands of students every year, and simply by weight of numbers, they should bulldoze the smaller schools in “Alumni giving.” Instead, such Big-time U’s with top college sports teams as Wisconsin (Madison), Michigan, UCLA, Texas (Austin), and the University of Washington rank, respectively, 126, 128, 134, 136, and 144 on the U.S. News “Alumni giving” list.

  These statistics contradict the myth that big-time college sports generates alumni dollars. One of the reasons for the reality is the fact that many successful alums of Big-time U’s obtained their education despite these institutions, not because of them, and these men and women were alienated as students and remain so as graduates. A University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) alum reflected on her experience:

  Minnesota was the meanest institution that I ever dealt with. It was large, impersonal, authoritarian, and downright mean. I managed to get a good education there, but I developed zero affection for the school … . These days Minnesota fund-raisers call me up all the time for money and I have given the school exactly $1 in the almost twenty years since I graduated. As for the football and basketball teams, I wish them well, but they have nothing to do with the academic parts of Minnesota and never have or will.

  According to U.S. News, only 8 percent of Minnesota alumni give annually to the school, and its national ranking is off the magazine’s charts.

  Nevertheless, the big-time college-sports-equals-alumni-giving myth continues, in part because athletic departments claim to raise millions of dollars in donations to the university every year, and the media never examines this money, or asks why it is given, or where it ends up in the institution. This money trail begins with the alumni and the boosters.

  At Big-time U’s, a small percentage, usually in single digits, of alumni contribute annually to the school’s intercollegiate athletics program (a similarly low percentage donate to its educational programs). However, often the main contributors to athletic departments are boosters—rabid sports fans who, unlike alumni, never attended the institution and whose interest in it focuses almost exclusively on its college sports teams. Within the context of college sports finances, because of the constant deficits, every alum and booster dollar obtained by an athletic department remains in its cashbox, soaking up a bit of red ink.

  These alumni and booster dollars are clearly not gifts to the academic parts of the university, but are they donations at all? Only if one accepts a College Sports Megalnc. tax scam. In reality, the majority of this alum and booster money goes to purchase seats at football and basketball games. At schools where ticket demand outpaces supply, athletic departments call season tickets “priority” items, adding a large “priority” surcharge to the low face value of the seat and pricing the package as high as the market will bear. Because of the NCAA’s lobbying power in Congress, 80 percent of the surcharge is now deemed a tax-deductible donation to higher education, and a similar deduction applies to the “priority” rental and purchase of skyboxes in college stadiums and arenas. No matter what the Congress, the NCAA, and member universities want to call this money, because Joe Alum and Booster Bob would not obtain their seats or boxes without paying the “priority” surcharge, their dollars are simply the cost of admission to a sports event—definitely not gifts to higher education.

  Nevertheless, many Big-time U’s claim these “priority” purchases as alumni donations and use them to inflate their fund-raising statistics. This ploy adds stadiums and arenas full of “priority” fans to the institution’s “Alumni giving” totals. Yet, most of these Big-time U’s still do not break into U.S. News’ Top 100 in this category.

  The final irony of the big-time college-sports-equals-alumni-giving myth is that, at many schools, the athletic department actively undermines efforts to raise money from alumni for educational programs. Often athletic department fund-raisers compete with r
egular university development (fund-raising) officers for dollars from the same alum. Because of the “Athletics Arms Race,” intercollegiate athletic programs always need new and bigger facilities, and they try to get wealthy graduates to pay for them. After Joe Alum gives $250,000 for the “Joseph J. Alumnus Weight-Training Vestibule,” usually he has no desire to donate $250,000 to the College of Arts and Sciences.

  Big-time college sports hurts alumni fund-raising efforts in other ways. As many universities have discovered, publicity from intercollegiate athletics is a two-edged sword, generating attention and feel-good camaraderie when the teams are winning; but when a scandal occurs, the sword swings back, drawing buckets of negative media coverage and public scorn. During times of scandal, some alumni become embarrassed by and angry at their school; they blame its administrators for lack of control of the athletic department, and they close their checkbooks.

  The alumni of Southern Methodist University, after enduring major football scandals in the mid 1980s, punished their alma mater for a number of years, contributing much less to its educational programs than they had during prescandal times. Moreover, the winning-while-cheating years at SMU had not produced an increase in alumni donations, but the scandals caused a significant decrease. (In addition, boosters, not alumni, caused the SMU debacle, and although athletic departments like to call these people “Friends of the University,” boosters are usually the most dangerous and unreliable of associates, often causing scandals and other maladies, and doing nothing positive for the academic side of the university.)