Apathy and other small victories

I often wonder how Coach Cutcliffe—the football coach, for all you ignoramuses—sees the debate over Duke basketball attendance. I then remember Cutcliffe’s starting salary was $1.5 million in 2007, and it most likely hasn’t decreased. That’s $500,000 for each win this year, for those of you less-hirable arts and humanities majors.

But, alas, supporting the Duke football team and putting out a “respectable” team is essentially a requirement for being a member of a major conference. Outside of the Big East, which houses approximately 285 non-football members including the local YMCA and even DePaul, being a member of a big conference means large investments.

Duke has lived up to that expectation, spending millions on building up an athletics department that goes well beyond its basketball team. In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Duke’s athletics’ budget was approximately $61 million. Athletics brought in $45 million in revenues, including $20 million from the athletics’ endowment and gifts from alumni. Duke’s athletics is in a hole and constantly needs to be bailed out—receiving a $15 million subsidy each year.

And you thought Duke Kunshan University (DKU) was bad (or maybe that’s just me). Attempting to take emotion out of this, Duke has an identity crisis. During a 2009 discussion about the size and reach of Duke athletics, Richard Hain, a professor of mathematics at Duke, asked “Do we want to be known for the exploits of our athletes or for the exploits of our students and faculty, or for some sort of balance?” This conflict is easily seen through scholarships at this university: Duke has 109 football players on scholarship and only 58 A.B. Duke Scholars. Want to go to this school and not pay a dime? Run a 4.6 second 40-yard dash and have a decent wingspan. You’ll have no problem.

At a time when money is tight and Duke is finding ways to stretch dollars, we need to question how athletics fits into the University’s overall mission. A serious attempt to be competitive in football has seen us win three games in a very mediocre Atlantic Coast Conference (did you see the Orange Bowl?). With all due respect to our other teams, the full or partial scholarships given to those players could help us attract and maintain top faculty, bolster our domestic and international financial aid or even give more academic scholarships.

With serious re-alignment—defined by television revenue rather than history—affecting the ACC, Duke needs to question its stance in the conference. Beyond our valuable rivalry with North Carolina and tradition, which we cling to like there’s no tomorrow come re-alignment talks, we add no serious revenues to the conference. Football defines big-time athletics, and we drag the ACC down—big time. Considering the ACC just took a founding member of the Big East, tradition doesn’t seem to be a top priority.

Those who state Duke basketball is essential to Duke’s brand, to our rankings and to application numbers need to look at Cameron’s attendance numbers. Simply put, it is very hard to maintain both high academic standards and sustained success in a major sport (sorry Stanford). Despite the negative trends, Duke basketball is the University’s biggest asset. And therefore, it’s time we considered becoming basketball independent a la Notre Dame. Getting into the NCAA tournament is more competition-dependent than conference-dependent, and it makes perfect sense considering where our team is today.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh coming is a lifesaver to the sinking Titanic that is the ACC. The conference has seen losses to schools like Holy Cross and Southern Conference powerhouse Wofford. Current projections have the ACC getting four teams into the NCAA tournament, a number less than the projected total for the Atlantic 10 (and this is not your father’s Atlantic 10). The lifesaver is much too little much too late, and we need to stay ahead.