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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1973)
r - i Commentary The big business of University sports By SCOTT SPITTAL They may not have changed their name, but they sure have changed their stripes. The name remains the same. Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, Norv Ritchey, Directory. The rap remains the same. The glory of competition The crunch of young bodies, the clicking of turnstiles, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Beat the Beavers. Quack. The stripes have changed. The most important color now is black. In the black. The ideal is money. Financial security. Not victory, not defeat, but please. God, let that good ol’ football team draw a sell out to Autzen and the bank will love us. It can’t be called corruption, or perhaps, even greed. It’s an honest effort by honest men to promote, prolong and insure the success of a program and morality they believe is essential to a healthy University moral. It comes for a cost, however. The action in making combination tickets mandatory belies the statement of Assistant AD Director Bill Landers: “We think our reason for existence is to give the student the broadest possible exposure to athletics.” What the action did was give 4,000 students the broadest possible ex posure, leaving the rest of the University’s 11,000 students to either live in a dorm to see basketball games on TV or listen to good oT boy Bud Sobei lay them in from the corner on radio, on radio. What the action did was insure the financial success of the student con tribution. Greg Leo knew they’d sell out basketball. Virtually every student interested in sports who scrambled for a ticket knew they’d sell out. So the AD had to know they’d sell out. They had to know it in the spring, when in sly maneuvering, they adopted the policy over an ASUO proposal specifying separate tickets. That’s not called “the broadest possible exposure.’’ That’s called getting cold with financial shivers and drawing every possible security blanket over the massive institutional belly. That massive belly gorged itself on a $1.8 million budget last year. And as evidenced by this year’s financial security maneuvering, its appetite is voracious. Take, for example, Norv Ritchey’s oft-repeated statement. “Every working day I have to come up with $10,000 for the program.” He came up with three days work last spring, a $30,000 profit from the students, when Greg Leo acceeded to a seemingly innocuous request. “I was smug. I said, ‘boy, aren’t I smart.’ There was no way I would have known...” said Greg. What he didn’t know was that in agreeing to the combination ticket policy to get the students out of a commitment to guarantee athletic ticket sales, he’d also handed financial security and more to an AD that already milks the students and the University for more than their share. In the last 7 years, the AD has gar nered at least $3.6 million over and above their operating budget for construction of new facilities. That’s in addition to an undetermined amount of contributions that annually flow into the department from loyal duck boosters. A massive contribution an nually. That’s the kind of money the University could have used to give scholarships to scholars—not to bodies. It’s the kind of money that could have been used for program expansion, research, and all the myriad things that don’t have a daily section in the newspaper to deify its ac complishments. But it went into Hayward Field Restoration and a stadium which is only used three months out of the year. There’s more, so much more that reams of paper could be filled with * details and statistics of the voracious financial appetite of big time University sports. To repeat the obvious is unnecessary. What is needed is to admit the ob vious—that athletics are no longer simple games played for simple motives. It’s big business now, a self perpetuating bureaucracy of sport that exists for the simple purpose 01 existing rather than existing for the simple purpose of serving. The AD still mouths the same platitudes, like a self-made millionaire who steps out of a tuxedo to worn-out tennis shoes and holy jeans when he visits the old neighborhood. But it ain’t the same. As long as the stripes are different the name may as well be, too. Something like “Duck Sport Company, Inc.” It would be a lot closer to the truth. Spittal is an Emerald staff writer who has recently researched AD ticket policy. Letters Just go away I resent Stephanie Rothman’s letter to the editor in the Friday, October 26 edition of the Emerald. Just as I resent and am dismayed by the entire movement to impeach Leo-Barnett. Ms. Rothman has decided for us exactly who and what a student of the seventies is, or should be. She seems to think that everyone in the 1970’s should believe exactly as she does. I resent the implication that only what she believes is appropriate to a “student of the seventies. ” She calls Greg Leo, “a smartly packaged fossil of the fifties.” This im peachment movement has from the very beginning resorted to name calling, stereotyping slander, and mass psychology. Greg Leo has been typed as an “ultra conservative reactionary.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Greg did not vote for Nixon last fall. Mr. Leo is a liberal Republican working (instead of name calling) on constructive change. But what I resent most about Ms. Roth man’s letter and the impeachment movement in general is their amazing lack of understanding of ASUO government. Stephanie claims Greg to be a “champion of the Athletic Department.” Hie Athletic Department will be funded no matter what Greg or the Incidental Fee Committee decides. President Clark has veto power over the Incidental Fee budget. He would never approve any budget that cut the AD by any substantial amount. This year’s support of the AD is certainly in line with the increased student interest in athletics on this campus. Like it or not, a major source of income to the University is the Development Fund (donations from University alums and friends). The Development Fund is greatly affected by Oregon’s ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE. The impeachment group seemed to think Leo was against the idea of Day ’Care. Greg told me several times, he thought that Day Care was an excellent program. The main problem was the magnitude of funds required for the program, without Federal support, This year’s increased incidental fees at least partly reflect the magnitude of Day Care funding. For those interested enough to really investigate, there are many good things happening in ASUO under the direction of Mr. Leo. We will now have for the first time student representation on the State Board of Higher Education. The Co governance issue will soon be before the ASUO. Greg, personally, has been closely working with a group, trying to find ways to make the ASUO government financially self-sufficient. This is done in the hopes of someday being able to lower incidental fees instead of continually raising them. These are only a few examples of the constructive ideas in the ASUO this year. The Impeachment Committee has no real grounds for impeachment. But im peachment proceedings seem to be the thing to do nowadays. Unfortunately, the entire impeachment group seems cap tivated by their own mob psychology. The ASUO would certainly be better off if that group would just go away. Any interested student can help by just ignoring them and their childish antics. Lance Gilmore Senior, Business Ad. Misrepresentation We, the worker-owner-managers of Starflower Company feel that the October 19 article by Jamie Hartshorn, “Star flower: natural foods, naturally’’, was a misrepresentation of the spirit of our collective. We are wholesale distributors of natural foods. But what is different about Star flower Co. is in how we are trying to func tion as a business. All members of the collective are equally-paid part-owners and part-managers of the corporation. We are attempting to work without a hierarchy of power and position. We do not divide labor according to sex. Most of us are women. T. Cormier for the collective Search for understanding I would like tc respond to the com mentary by Mr. Fink in the October 24th edition of the Emerald. I have just joined the Search team and have a class for Winter term. I too wish to get the Search program off and running in hopes of finally achieving some of the early objectives of the entire program. Wholeheartedly I agree with Stan on the idea of poor structuring in the presenting of classes. However, I wish not to belittle people and damn them for their handling of classes. Rather it would be much better to help them understand what Search can be and should be. Two objections to Stan’s commentary should be discussed. First his comment on JUSTICE RAPED LAW CONFIRMS BEING VIOLATED AS CITIZENS WATCH IN SHOCK. AM' DOM'T ,f£\ (SAY NUTTIN' /A'V' THE COPS' “just another way to get stoned’’. I beg Stan to read Andrew Weil’s “The Natural Mind.’’ Maybe he can understand that there are other ways to get “stoned” than simply by pot or coke. If one has never been “stoned” by music then he has never experienced music. His comment that nothing is happening in the music scene in the year of ’73 is admitting ignorance. I will not list some possible albums that Stan could appreciate but rather extend an invitation to come to my house and experience them. Neither mine nor Stan’s approach to education is the best. But maybe, just maybe, Search can join hands and achieve the final objectives we want. Michael Foley Appeal to Lee We emphatically disagree with the unreasonable charge of $2.00 to STUDENTS for the upcoming November 20 Varsity-J.V. basketball preview. This game is a non-NCAA event and should be opened to interested students FREE of charge, particularly in light of announced profits of $24,000 in excess of originally anticipated student support. Once again the students are asssuming the burden of athletic costs over and above the generous allocations provided by the ASUO budget and related ticket sales. The athletic department has already this year received a $15,000 increase over last year’s $135,000 incidental fee subsidy. It is evident that the AD administration is more interested in profit than offering a FAIR and REASONABLE service to the students Of this university. We appeal to your immediate con sideration and support regarding this matter. David Knight R.A. Bean East Ext. M74 William Stoat R.A. Tingle Ext. M3*
