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BY ALAN PITTMAN
Booster Bowl
It’s Phil Knight vs. Bobby Lowder for championship
F
orget the millionaire coaches and all those
superstar athletes running around, look
up to the executive skyboxes. The big
championship game between the UO and Auburn
Jan. 10 is really a showdown of the two schools’ top
boosters: Phil Knight vs. Bobby Lowder.
Here’s a matchup of the two public universities’
septuagenarian top power players:
POWER
Knight — The Oregonian last month gave front-
page credit to the secretive Nike billionaire’s “lavish
donations” for putting the Ducks in the national
championship. The year before, the paper’s sports
columnist John Canzano credited the team’s rise
to the deep pockets of “Uncle Phil,” saying, “The
Knight
Ducks could not sustain what they’ve done over the
past decade in conference play without Knight.”
transparency laws designed to avoid waste, fraud and abuse.
Lowder — In 2006, ESPN dubbed the secretive bank
Construction of the $250 million basketball arena, the $42
tycoon “the Most Powerful Booster of college sports.”
million “jock in the box” learning center and a planned,
Lowder “is arguably the most powerful person in the
perhaps $100 million new athletic offi ce building, the most
state of Alabama, let alone on the Auburn campus.” His
expensive and lavish buildings in the state’s history, were all
“fi ngerprints have lingered for three decades in the hiring
under Knight’s private control without open bids or records.
and fi ring of coaches and athletic directors alike — even
Knight successfully made a $100 million endowment
university presidents.”
contribution for the Athletic Department contingent on his
demand that the state Legislature quickly vote to approve
CONTROL
$200 million in state-backed bonds for the new arena.
Knight — Knight and top UO offi cials have denied that
UO President Richard Lariviere recently warned
the sneaker tycoon controls the UO, but in the past two
the State Board of Higher Education that the “negative
decades, Knight has allegedly used the threat of cutting
consequences” to fundraising would be “really, really
off contributions to control human rights stands, personnel
profound” if it did not immediately approve Knight’s
decisions and building construction at the school, according
private control of construction of the new athletic offi ce
to press reports in The Oregonian and elsewhere.
building, The Oregonian reported. After “some of the
In 2000, Knight threatened to withhold $35 million
starkest ever” warnings about Knight’s power, the state
to expand Autzen Stadium because he was angered that
board quickly voted yes, according to the paper.
student protests had lead the university to join a worker’s
Noting the “KGB” secrecy around Knight’s arena
rights group critical of Nike sweatshops in Asia. The next
deal, Oregonian columnist Steve Duin called the UO
year, the UO withdrew from the human rights group and
administration “100 percent servile” to Knight. Oregonian
Knight’s millions fl owed again to UO athletics.
sports columnist Canzano wrote of the UO president, “He’s
In 2001 Knight cut off donations to the UO track team
got the title, but Knight has the keys.”
to protest the coach’s perceived de-emphasis of distance
running. The coach soon resigned.
Lowder — Lowder and top Auburn offi cials have denied
In 2006, Knight criticized the UO athletic director
that the banking tycoon controls the public university, but
for decisions regarding track and for not retaining a
Fortune magazine reported, “Lowder has been accused of
staff member Knight favored. Knight said the director’s
making backroom deals with governors and treating the
perceived failings made him reluctant to contribute to
Auburn football program like a private fi efdom.”
a new basketball arena. Four months later, the athletic
Lowder’s estimated $20 million in contribution’s
director resigned with a $1.8 million severance package,
to Auburn pales compared to Knight’s estimated $300
reportedly requiring his silence.
million, but Lowder’s power comes less from raw cash
The AD was replaced by a booster friend of Knight’s
than political gamesmanship, ESPN reported. Lowder
who quickly rehired Knight’s favored staffer.
is Auburn’s longest serving trustee, at 28 years, and
Knight has made his private control of building projects
chairs the board’s powerful fi nance committee. When a
a condition of his donations, evading state open bidding and
governor tried to remove him from the position in 1995,
“FEED YOUR CRAVINGS!”
he contributed $25,000 to a replacement governor who
reappointed Lowder and allegedly gave him power over
other Auburn trustee appointments, ESPN reported.
In 2003 Lowder secretly fl ew the Auburn president and
other top offi cials on his private jet in a failed “attempted
coup” to recruit a replacement football coach,
ESPN reported. The ensuing scandal toppled the
Auburn president and athletic director and put the
university on probation with its accrediting agency.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
(SACS) expressed concern that Lowder controlled
the board of trustees through the appointment of
his personal and business associates and that the
university president did not have “ultimate control
over the athletics program,” ESPN reported.
When a fellow trustee angered him, Lowder
allegedly threatened to have him killed and canceled
funding for an economics program he favored,
Fortune reported. After the campus newspaper
angered Lowder, he allegedly retaliated by moving
the journalism department into the communications
Lowder
school, according to the business magazine.
One of the football coaches that Lowder ousted
has alleged that Lowder was involved in a pay-for-play
recruiting scheme in the past, ESPN reported. Last month,
Auburn star Cam Newton was suspended for pay-for-play
violations but quickly reinstated (24 hours later, in fact)
after the NCAA blamed his father for the scheme.
FUTURE
Knight — Knight’s power at the UO and in Oregon
only appears to be growing. He told The Oregonian last
month that he backs a UO plan to create a board of trustees
similar to Auburn’s with the power to raise tuition. But he
hasn’t given the Legislature an explicit threat that he’ll
cut UO contributions unless the plan is approved, yet.
Last year, Knight became one of the state’s top political
power brokers with more than $600,000 in contributions
to Republicans and to oppose taxes on the rich. While the
nation suffers record unemployment, Nike’s third world
sweatshops are humming with the corporation’s stock up
40 percent in the last three years. Knight’s age, 73 next
month, has apparently made him only more powerful as
UO offi cials “whisper” about the prospect of getting a
large part of his $11 billion estate when the Nike tycoon
dies, according to The Oregonian.
Lowder — Lowder’s power at Auburn appears to be
on the wane, giving Knight the edge in this booster bowl
matchup. Lowder recently stepped down from control of
Colonial Bank just before federal regulators seized the $26
billion institution in one of the largest bank failures in U.S.
history, Fortune reported. The bank and Lowder speculated
heavily in the real estate bubble, and Lowder now faces
civil and perhaps criminal lawsuits alleging that he mislead
investors and regulators, the magazine reported. Lowder
lost a personal fortune and $2.8 billion in Federal Deposit
Insurance money, but the booster still chair’s the Auburn
trustee fi nance committee.
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EUGENE WEEKLY JANUARY 6, 2011 9