Oregon's fortunes in Pac-10 football have gone about as
Enwrtld Photo
well as Mike Owen'schances on the football field.
Can Oregon find happiness in the...
As another Oregon winter
settles down to its task
of dumping alternate
doses of wet and cold on
Eugene, Rick Bay sits in
his office as Oregon’s
athletic director and searches for
answers.
Answers to the question of how to
pull Oregon’s intercollegiate athletic
program out of the Pacific-10 Con
ference basement and turn the Ducks
into something more than a "good little
school.”
So far, Bay has found no ray of
sunlight to warm the chill of another ap
proaching winter, another year of being
battered and bruised by the USC’s and
UCLA’s of the Pac-10.
The situation, it appears, is not good.
There are only eight major sports at
Oregon after massive cuts a few years
ago. The football team is headed for its
third straight losing season, and hasn’t
been to a bowl game since 1963. The
basketball team hasn’t had a winning
season for four years, and the last
playoff appearance was in the 1976-77
season.
Amid the gloom, Bay keeps trying to
patch together an intercollegiate
athletic program that seemingly always
hovers near the edge of extinction.
But why keep trying? Why not join an
“easier” conference — like the Western
Athletic Conference — where schools
spend money on their intercollegiate
athletic programs at the same stingy
level that Oregon is forced to?
The answers to those questions are
complex, says Bay, and the find their
justification in academics as much as
athletics.
“It would be a serious mistake for the
University to get out of the Pac-10,” '
says Bay.
Bay isn’t the only one opposed to
leaving the Pac-10. University Pres. Paul
Olum is adamantly opposed, as is Vice
President for Administration and
Finance Dan Williams, the man Bay
reports to.
Bay, like Olum and Williams, cites the
carryover into academia as a prime
reason for maintaining conference ties.
“Our professors like to be associated
with the Stanfords and the Californias
because of their nationally known ex
cellence in academics,” Bay says.
“And people tend to classify your
academic strength based on the athletic
conference you're in,” he adds.
Although having Oregon in the Pac-10
satisfies innumerable professors,
students and Oregonians, the situation
leaves Bay frustrated with the lack of
resources he has to work with.
“We'll never even dream of
dominating the Pac-10 given our current
support base,” says Bay.
To Bay, the words "support base" are
critical in intercollegiate athletics.
Take Arizona State’s Sun Devils. They
play in 70,030-seat Sun Devil Stadium.
They averaged 65,338 fans in 1982 —
Oregon averaged 23,110. That difference
of almost 42,000 per home game
(enough to fill Autzen Stadium)
translates into hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of dollars in gate receipts
flowing into Sun Devil coffers that never
find their way into Oregon’s pockets.
Or take USC. Television executives
drool over USC’s Saturday afternoon
matchups against the likes of Notre
Dame or UCLA, and one spot on a na
tionally televised game can bring
$500,000 or more USC often gets two
spots a year.
Or how about the University of
Washington or UCLA? Both have student
enrollments over 300,000, and both
schools are located in metropolitan
areas that have greater populations than
the entire state of Oregon. More
students means more alumni and a
greater pool of potential donors. And a
large population means a potential for
higher gate receipts.
Perhaps a study done of the more
than 100 Division 1-A schools illustrates
the disparity best. Athletic department
budgets ranged from $5 million to $12
million in the study , the latter being the
Michigans of the college football scene.
Oregon, meanwhile, was at the low
end of the spectrum, with an annual
budget of $5.5 million, while the Arizona
State's of the Pac-10 operated athletic
departments on $10 million a year or
more.
Is the disparity really that great?
Yes, says Bay emphatically. Oregon’s
coaches are ninth or tenth in the con
ference in terms of pay, the Ducks have
more part-time coaches than full-time
coaches (the reverse is usually true),
and Oregon is operating with the
minimum number of major sports if it
wants to remain in the conference.
If that isn’t discouraging for Bay, he
must now look for ways to cut his
budget again, as he predicts another
deficit this year.
The most obvious places to cut are
the two biggest expenses — football
and basketball — but Bay finds it dif
ficult to cut the two.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he says.
“If you cut one of the two sports that
brings in most of your revenue, you risk
reducing that revenue."
Bay has cut the football budget each
of the last two years, but sees nowhere
to cut money from either that program
or any of the other areas of the athletic
department.
"We just can't cut anymore.”
And revenue production looks almost
as bleak. Although alumni donations
have increased, attendance has fallen
each of the last four years, from a
"high” of 37,000 in 1979. This year,
Oregon ranks ahead of only Oregon
State and Washington State in Pac-10
home attendance figures.
Chances of gaining a berth on na
tional television are nil because "you
have to earn your way on” with a good
record, Bay says. But even the chance
of getting on a regional broadcast has
been denied the Ducks, who had to
watch while Oregon State appeared
twice on regional television and picked
up $400,000 for the pair of games.
There is no money forthcoming from
the University or the state, either.
It is a seemingly never-ending
whirlpool for Oregon and Bay.
“I have grown cynical in the time I
have been here," says Bay. “I’m grateful
for the moral support we have received,
but we are dropping futher behind.
"To be perfectly brutal with the peo
pie who criticize our lack of success,
You are getting what you are paying
for,’ ” Bay says.
Money, says Bay, is what Oregon
needs to compete in the Pac-10.
“Unless we have money to improve
our program, it's unrealistic to expect
us to recruit en masse out-of-state
athletes,” he says. “We can't keep quali
ty coaches and ask them to compete
against schools that have things we
don’t have.
“It has to become a state pride and a
legislative concern,” Bay says. "People
have to put their money were their
mouths are.”
Bay professes delight and disappoint
ment in the support for Oregon inter
collegiate athletics. He is delighted by
the “many loyal individuals who support
a program that struggles” and yet
disappointed by the lack of state
support.
“If the legislature was really commit
ted to a strong athletic program, we
would do just fine,” Bay asserts. "But I
don’t sense any sympathy for Oregon’s
situation at the state legislature."
Bay believes Oregon's athletic pro
gram is an extremely valuable asset for
the state, but he .is at a loss to explain
why the state has made no move to in
vest in improving that asset.
“They don’t seem to understand the
situation,” he says.
But Bay plans to lobby them
nevertheless.
“I don’t know where else to go.”
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