[lbo-talk] FW: Big Mammon on Campus

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> Big Boosters Calling the Shots on Campus
> By SELENA ROBERTS
> January 2, 2005
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/sports/ncaafootball/02roberts.html?oref=lo
gin
> 
> HERE is a sticker price for a messiah coach. For $16 million,
> the University of Florida recently banished Ron Zook with a $1.8
> million buyout, paid the Utah Utes what amounted to a savior
> transfer fee of $250,000 and committed $14 million over seven
> years for Urban Meyer to compete with Steve Spurrier's visorly
> ghost.
> 
> Then the salary cloning began. Now there are messiahs
> everywhere, with Mack Brown on the verge of receiving a 10-year,
> $26 million validation hug from Texas, with Auburn's Tommy
> Tuberville agreeing to a $16 million makeup kiss after boosters
> plotted to fire him last season, with each man joining nearly a
> dozen others in the expanding $2 million club of college
> football coaches.
> 
> ...
> 
> The culprit is not the obvious. On the surface, the spiraling
> salaries seem like a clairvoyant snapshot of the foreboding
> "arms race" passage authored by the deep thinkers behind the
> 2001 Knight Commission report.
> 
> ...
> 
> The most meddling of the boosters aren't the cheap-suit fans
> tailgating on the back of a Ford pickup; some are Forbes-list
> executives buying vicarious ownership of their college teams.
> 
> ...
> 
> In 1997, Gator Boosters Inc. raised $16.2 million in
> contributions, according to its 990 tax filing, a form used by
> nonprofit organizations. In 2002, it brought in $23.7 million in
> public support - or more than a third of Florida's athletic
> budget.
> 
> Many variables influence giving, but Florida State may provide
> the most direct link between winning and wealth, pride and
> pocketbook. In the year before Florida State won the 1999
> national title, Seminole Boosters Inc. recorded $16.6 million in
> support. In 2000, contributions jumped to $31.4 million.
> 
> ...
> 
> Some athletic czars are being devoured by their own design. At
> one point, setting up athletic departments and booster groups as
> separate nonprofit 501(c)(3) charities seemed ingenious at
> universities like Clemson, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana
> State, Florida State and, most recently, Auburn.
> 
> As if athletic departments weren't already isolated from the
> university, with athletes existing in their own cultures. As if
> the greatest charity cause wasn't already luxury-suite lighting,
> with education as an afterthought. Fans were given a chance to
> dial-a-donation.
> 
> ...
> 
> There is nothing quaint about the current corporate booster
> structure. Many of the presidents and officers report six-figure
> incomes. The president of Seminole Boosters received $221,241 in
> compensation, according to the organization's 2002 990 tax form.
> 
> ...
> 
> Some incorporated clubs give a lump sum to athletic departments
> without any directive as to how it is to be spent; the Gator
> Boosters director, John James, says that is how his organization
> operates.
> 
> Other booster groups funnel money as they like. Peek inside some
> of the 990 tax forms and you'll find autonomy's splendor: In
> 2002, Louisiana State's Tiger Athletic Foundation paid Saban
> Enterprises LLC $290,000 for consultant work and provided
> unspecified coaches with $650,000 in supplements; in 2002, the
> Ole Miss Loyalty Foundation Inc. directly compensated the
> football coach David Cutcliffe $737,625, the basketball coach
> Rod Barnes $585,000 and the athletic director John Shafer
> $100,000.
> 
> Coaches at public universities may seem like state employees,
> but unofficially they are the kept men of the private donors,
> particularly of those who give up to seven figures a year to the
> programs. Some contributors are more than boosters; they are
> powerful trustees who mistake their gifts for entitlement.
> 
> ...
> 
> On its 2002 990 tax form, Seminole Boosters reported $260,000 to
> buy out coaches' contracts. If Meyer doesn't work out in three
> years as the Gators' chosen one, somebody will have to absorb
> the balance on the $14 million owed to him.
> 
> ...
> 
> "I think we're in a circumstance where we can't figure out how
> to deal with salaries because there are forces out there that,
> when a single institution is making a decision on hiring a
> coach, and knowing what the marketplace is, what decision are
> they making?" Coleman said. "I don't think they're going back to
> the Knight Commission report and reflecting on it."
> 
> E-mail: selenasports at nytimes.com
> 
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