Fundraising can distort college athletics' mission

Joe Paterno sat in his kitchen one morning in March 2002 as a graduate assistant described a locker-room shower encounter he saw between a boy and a longtime friend and colleague of Penn State's football coach. Paterno slumped in his chair, "shocked and saddened," according to court testimony.

Mike McQueary's words couldn't have come at a worse time. Paterno was trying to fix the Nittany Lions' moneymaking football program he built on a motto of "success with honor," after the low point of his coaching career. The university was near the end of a $1.4 billion fundraising campaign, six years removed from the opening of a $55 million basketball arena and had just expanded the football stadium to the nation's second-biggest.

Paterno, in his 37th year as coach, told McQueary he had done the right thing describing what he saw involving Jerry Sandusky, a former Nittany Lions defensive coach. The biggest man on campus then sent the case to his immediate bosses and did nothing else. That set the stage for his firing nine years later, 11 days after his record 409th win, amid a scandal over alleged child-sex abuse and coverup that has echoed far beyond Happy Valley.

"The revenue opportunities are so substantial that the pressure placed upon the athletic department and coach, specifically, make it ever more difficult to pursue a school's mission," said Warren Zola, 44, assistant dean of graduate programs at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Paterno was unable to comment for this story because of health issues. He is being treated for lung cancer and broke his pelvis in a fall this month.

Sports fund all the rest

The dependence by universities on sports to help fund everything from money-losing women's sports teams to general scholarships has created a system where the needs of coaches and their programs supersede the educational values of their institutions, said Robin Harris, executive director of the Ivy League, whose schools don't give athletic scholarships.

"There is so much money tied into big-time college athletics that it forces some people to make bad decisions," Harris said. "They may be people affiliated with a program, or coaches and administrators who do things purposely wrong, or turn a blind eye, because they are focused on generating revenue and not necessarily the integrity of the enterprise."

Paterno and Graham B. Spanier, 63, Penn State's president, were fired Nov. 9, four days after Sandusky, 67, was charged with sexually assaulting eight boys from 1994 to 2009. While neither Paterno nor Spanier was charged in the case, the trustees said the two leaders should have done more.

Athletic director Tim Curley, 57, was placed on administrative leave and Gary Schultz, 62, a vice president in charge of finance and the campus police, retired after they were accused of lying to a grand jury.

System is broken

Winning generates money from television, ticket sales, sponsors and alumni, according to a 2010 report by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Networks will combine to pay the top five conferences and the BCS about $14 billion in rights fees through 2032. Football teams received a collective $281 million in bowl payouts last season, the NCAA said.

Winning requires universities to build facilities that lure top high-school recruits, and hire marquee coaches whose salaries often dwarf that of university presidents.

"We're talking big, big money here," said Jason Lanter, assistant professor of psychology at Kutztown University. "You need to have it to build the facility, to recruit, to get more money. It's a vicious cycle."

Of 53 universities surveyed by Bloomberg this year, 46 diverted money to sports in their fiscal years ended in 2010.

"There are a lot of people chasing the Holy Grail," Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby said. "Chasing leads to some bad decisions."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dp-sports/~3/30NL-wgWbzI/ci_19627999

mumia uss arizona memorial uss arizona memorial d day fun. words with friends words with friends