Athletics’ growth provokes debate

When Chris Kennedy first joined the Duke athletics department, head basketball coach Bill Foster guided the team to the 1978 NCAA championship game. On top of his coaching duties, Foster taught a physical education course, said Kennedy, now senior associate athletics director.

Foster’s annual salary? Kennedy approximates the coach was paid $32,000 for his services.

“You can’t get a dogcatcher for $32,000 now,” Kennedy said. “All of it has to do with the explosion of interest in football and basketball. That level of interest and that level of publicity has all kinds of effects, but it’s all in the direction of expansion.”

Adjusted for inflation, Foster’s annual salary in 1978 comes to approximately $106,000 in 2009. Current head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski makes $3.7 million a year while head football coach David Cutcliffe came to Duke for a reported $1.5 million contract, according to espn.com. President Richard Brodhead earned $662,000 in 2008.

The disparity in coaching salaries between now and then is just one indicator of how the landscape of intercollegiate athletics has been transformed in the last three decades.

Figures reported by the athletics department in compliance with the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act provides another glimpse into the explosive growth athletic departments across the country have experienced, even within the last 10 years.

From July 1997 to June 1998, the operating budget of the athletics department was $20.5 million, said Mitch Moser, associate athletic director for business operations. The department spent $6,238,903 for scholarships and $399,322 on recruiting.

Now, the operating budget has almost quadrupled to $60.3 million, Moser said. Furthermore, the EADA form filed for 2008-2009 shows that scholarship costs have doubled to $13.3 million while recruiting expenses have nearly tripled to $1.1 million.

Heightened interest, propelled by 24-hour cable television networks, is largely at play in the commercialization of athletics. Coaches’ salaries have mushroomed as schools try to build winning programs. Universities are participating in a “facilities arms race.” In addition, in compliance with Title IX in 1977, the number of teams offered at Duke has also seen a significant increase in the 1980s and 1990s.

Paying for play

Some faculty members at Duke as well as outside observers have raised concerns about the escalating costs in college sports, especially in light of the current financial strain on university budgets.

Math professor Richard Hain said he became interested in the athletic department’s finances as chair of the math department in the late 1990s. As the math department struggled with an “acute space shortage," the athletics department was building a number of new facilities, many of them funded by private gifts, Hain said.

 “As athletics becomes bigger, its appetite for resources increases and the University has devoted a good amount of its fundraising to athletics already,” Hain said. “That comes at a cost of raising money for the endowment of say, Arts & Sciences and of Engineering.”

Some have also said that the growth of athletic departments could be detracting from the central mission of educational institutions.

Charles Clotfelter, professor of economics and law and Z. Smith Reynolds professor public policy, is writing a book about the “profoundest consequences” of big-time athletics at American universities. After studying numerous colleges with successful sports programs, he found that athletics have become an essential component of these universities’ operations.

“If you look at the mission statements of universities, there’s no mention of athletics. There’s a paradoxical situation there,” Clotfelter said. “It’s important for us to take seriously that universities like ours are in the entertainment business and go on from there.”

Orin Starn, Sally Dalton Robinson professor of cultural anthropology and chair of the cultural anthropology department, has been particularly outspoken in his criticism of big-time athletics at Duke.

“I’m concerned about the fact that it seems like a very strange world that we live in where the basketball and football coaches are making more money than the University president,” Starn said. “Duke has become part of this hyper-commercialized, ultra-competitive world of big-time sports.”

Observers acknowledged, however, that the practices of the Duke athletics department is part of a nationwide trend in multimillion dollar budgets and exponential growth. It is a problem that would be difficult for any single university to buck if the athletics program wants to stay competitive.

“There is really a national issue,” Hain said. “It’s very hard for Duke to deal with this in a vacuum.”

At other universities, faculty have taken a more proactive approach in calling for reform. Under mounting financial pressure and facing deep budget cuts, faculty at the University of California Berkeley are calling for a re-examination of the school’s athletic program and are demanding more administrative oversight.

Starn said he would like to see a similar conversation take place at Duke.

“We ought to rethink the place of sports in a college setting. I’d love to see Duke take the lead in this,” he said. “But I don’t think it’ll ever happen in a million years.”

Priceless

Still, administrators said the value of the athletics program goes beyond a dollar amount.

“The University has a really good feel for what a solid athletic department can bring to the community. I don’t think their investment in us is disproportional in any way,” Iron Dukes Director Jack Winters said. “You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Would we be where we are today without the athletic accomplishments over the past decade?’”

Indeed, administrators said participation in Division I athletics has played an instrumental role in building Duke’s brand.

“Athletics is part of the mix of ingredients that gives American higher education its unique dynamism,” Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in an e-mail. “There is no doubt that athletics is one of the things that makes Duke attractive to students from around the world—both as spectators and as participants. That’s why virtually all colleges and universities engage in athletics.”

In addition, officials pointed to the high graduation rate among the athletics program and rave reviews from student athletes about their experiences as evidence that Duke has maintained the right athletics-academic balance.

For White, there is no question that athletics add something unique to Duke.

“You’re asking the pastor whether he’s praying over the right religion,” White said. “[Athletics is] Americana, it’s pop culture, and I think many institutions have figured that out.... It’s an external entity that has the capacity to draw people to the central mission of a university and some institutions have figured out how to do it very well. Duke is near the top of that list.”