Athletic Scandal

The University of Michigan and the "Auburn Excuse"

"Everyone else is doing it."

The New York Times college sports blog calls it the Auburn Excuse. Perhaps a better name would be the Auburn Truth: everyone else is doing it, but that, of course, is no excuse.

The Times website posting concerns the ongoing scandal taking place at the University of Michigan, where the Ann Arbor News has detailed the lengths that the university goes to maintain the illusion that academically unprepared recruits are legitimate college students. The four part investigative series details, in turn, how the athletics program relies on faculty shills to pass athletes, the system of sham majors in which athletes cluster, and the "academic support service" charged with keeping athletes eligible at all cost.

It is a problem common to all "big-time" programs. How do you keep an academically unqualified recruit eligible to play, and how do you eventually graduate them in order to keep up your graduation rates, a vital component of the facade of virtue which helps to shield the program from scrutiny?

The answer, invariably, is a shadow system of hollow courses, "independent study," cluster majors, faculty shills, tutors, "academic support," compliant faculty oversight committees, and other machinations that, all together, form an insulated world within the university almost entirely unrecognizable to anybody who resides outside of the confines of the Department of Athletics.

All "big-time" schools follow this playbook, to one extent or another. All "big-time" schools will also go to similar lengths to cover up what is, on its face, a shameful farce which seeks to manipulate the university and its charges for the altogether cynical and immoral ends of the imperial athletics departments, the well-paid coaches, and the football and/or basketball obsessed Trustees, Regents, or Governors.

Of course, not all programs are successful, all the time, at covering up the shadow academic machinery upon which they rely to produce 'winners.' The latest bombshell comes from the University of Michigan, a perennial Big Ten winner, and a university which is often held up as a successful glomming of academics and athletics, and a worthy model for Rutgers to emulate. It turns out that a single UM Psychology prof, John Hagen, taught 251 "independent study" courses to UM athletes over a three year period. Another member of his department referred to the "classes" as "cheap academic credit."

Faculty shills? Check. Fake "independent study?" Check. If only it ended there.

In 1997, more UM football players (29) graduted as "sport management" majors than any other subject. General Studies came in second, with 12 graduates. In 2003, after the major was overhauled and "toughen(ed) up," the polarity flipped. General Studies, described by the Ann Arbor news as "relatively unstructured" major won the next year's graduating UM football class 58 to 6. While athletes make up just 3% of the student population at Michigan, they make up just under half of the General Studies major.

Cluster majors? Check.

In 2006, Michigan dedicated the "Stephen M. Ross Academic Center." We can only presume that another building was already named the "Stephen M. Ross Athletic Center," which would have been a much more appropriate name.

What happens at the Stephen M. Ross Academic Center, you ask? Studying? Research? Paper writing? Nothing quite so grand, of course. The Stephen M. Ross Academic Center houses, presumably amongst other things, the UM athletic department's "Academic Success Program," a cheery place where "academics often take a back seat to sports."

At Michigan, they said, the first and foremost priority for the athletic department's support staff is to make sure athletes remain eligible to compete.

To achieve that goal, Academic Success Program employees appear to have found an unofficial path through the university, one that isn't written on any Web site or manual, but is evident in statistics, transcripts, interviews with athletes, faculty and in a 2007 audit conducted by the university.

That "path" through the university (more like a bypass than a through-way) is an informal system of reduced course loads, preferred courses, and the General Studies major, chosen for its "flexibility."

Academic support? Check.

And what do the players have to say about the university's claims that it is concerned, first and foremost, with the education of its athletes?

"Michigan, or any big-time program, they try to say that, and I think they do believe it," said Steve King, a former Michigan football player who later worked in the Academic Success Program. "But at the same time, too, as long as it doesn't interfere with the ultimate objective, which is to win football games, or to win in their sport."

Daniel Horton, who played basketball at Michigan from 2002 to 2006, was more blunt, laughing at the suggestion that academics came ahead of sports.

"There are consequences immediately if you don't show up for practice," Horton said. "The next day, you have to run or aren't going to play or something like that. There's no immediate consequences for not doing your homework or not studying that night. "It's a farce for the NCAA to say that academics should come first. It's good in theory. ... But it's not really like that, not just at Michigan, anywhere."

Guest Columnist

McCormick Qua Miracle Man

The following is by guest columnist Robert McGarvey, RC '70. He blogs on Rutgers issues at Stop Rutgers Stadium Expansion.

Call Rutgers President Dick McCormick the Miracle Man.

That is because he has done the impossible. He has made us mourn for the days of Fran Lawrence, his predecessor as Rutgers president (term of office 1990-2002). Impossible? You'd think, but Dick McCormick is showing he is the miracle man.

The sordid history is simple. Lawrence, in his day, was widely ridiculed as a Peter Principled martinet and, worse, his power was neutered early in his presidency when he unfortunately suggested that "genetic, hereditary background" of disadvantaged students was linked to poor performance on admissions tests. Why didn't the Board of Governors simply fire him? As we shall see, the Rutgers BoG has its uses for ineffectual presidents and, in that slip of the tongue, Lawrence moved himself into virtual redundancy, meaning he retained the title but ceased to have any powers. That left the BoG in charge and, hold the arm rests, the Rutgers BoG is and has long been composed of political hangers-on, lackeys, and the self-interested. A vocal, intelligent president — Mason Gross or Ed Bloustein, for instance — might ignore the BoG but a neutered figure-head such as Lawrence has no choice but to dance to the tune the BoG plays. Thus the stagnation that characterized the Lawrence presidency. Stagnant except for a drift into ever bigger time sports, with the hiring of an energetic athletic director and a charismatic football coach. There you’ve summed up Fran Lawrence’s dozen years on the banks of the Raritan. Sports supplanted academics and that was exactly as the BoG — a cluster of thick-browed mumblers — wanted it.

It puts us in mind of US Senator Roman Hruska's remark about a possible Supreme Court nominee: "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? And a little chance?" Hruska would have felt right at home sharing the Presidential football box with the Rutgers Board of Governors.

Onward to Richard McCormick and 2002. There was jubilation when McCormick -- the sitting president at the University of Washington -- agreed to take the Rutgers presidency. On its face that is a curious and lateral move, because Washington is by most measures a much better university than Rutgers. But Rutgers fans struck this up to personal ties. McCormick's father (also named Richard McCormick) had long reigned as a kind of iconic Professor Rutgers. A specialist in New Jersey history, this McCormick also wrote the definitive bicentennial history of the school. Young Dick, although he went to college at Amherst, literally grew up on the Rutgers campus and so for him to take the presidency was seen as a jubilant homecoming and, indeed, an occasion for toasting.

Well, perhaps too much toasting because not long after he landed on the banks of the Raritan there was the mugging as he walked out of a liquor store, the car accident where drink apparently played a part, the divorce from his wife of many years, and the show stopper revelation that — because he had been having an affair with an underling while serving as president of the University of Washington — the Washington regents actively encouraged him to take the Rutgers job.

Call it déjà vu all over again. In 2006 McCormick meekly accepted a $66 million budget cut handed down by Trenton politicians. Hundreds of jobs were lost, hundreds of classes canceled, but there was no peep from McCormick because, frankly, he had lost any power along with the disclosure that he was about to get booted by Washington when Rutgers emerged as the (dim-witted) savior of a career about to go very bad.

Now, in 2008, McCormick is presiding over a perfect duality — a new round of budget cuts that will nudge Rutgers further down the rankings of public universities — while at the very same time McCormick is spending like the proverbial drunken sailor to create a winning football team. $1.8 million in paychecks to a coach who has a lifetime losing record — done! $100+ million to add seats to Rutgers stadium — done!

As for the cuts in academics, they are triggered by Gov. Corzine's austerity budget which will slice around $38 million in funding for Rutgers and that will mean more lay-offs, more canceled classes, more deferred maintenance. What does McCormick do? In a prepared statement he said, "Although it promises to be painful, the governor's budget begins to lay the foundation for the state's long-term financial stability. The governor's plan for addressing New Jersey's financial problems calls for significant sacrifice across the state."

Where is the outrage about Rutgers' impossibly high tuition that is barring this door to some deserving students? Where is the pain that any friend of this once proud colonial school would feel as Rutgers takes yet another step away from the elite public universities and nearer the academic status of such Big East athletic brethren as Louisville and the Univ. of South Florida, where it often seems the classrooms are a Potemkin village required by the NCAA to maintain the sports teams? There are no such sounds from Dick McCormick and, surrender hope, there will never be. Not now, not ever as Rutgers plummets further down the academic rankings.

See what I mean about McCormick being the miracle man? Admit it: you have nostalgia for Fran Lawrence.

And that is why I believe in miracles.

Richard McCormick’s Washington

Victory and Ruins: McCormick’s legacy of scandal and shame

“McCormick, the former president of the University of Washington, has seen successful college sports up close.”

Mattew Futterman and Tom Luicci, “Rutgers president faces sporting challenge,” Star-Ledger, Sunday, April 20, 2003.

As noted here previously, Richard McCormick, before his tenure at Rutgers, was president of the University of Washington for 7 years. It was during his years as UW President that their football team, coached by the notorious Rick Neuheisel, went to the Rose Bowl after compiling an 11-1 record. It was a series of scandals which germinated during and prior to the Huskies’ miracle 2000 season that, ultimately, led to the downfall of Richard McCormick (along with a little help from his marital indiscretions) and to his being forced out of Seattle by the UW Board of Regents.

The rest of the story should be well known to our readers: upon being asked to leave, McCormick ran to a phone to call up the Rutgers BOG and accept the Rutgers presidency, mere hours before the job was to be offered to the board’s second choice. He was welcomed home as a returning son, and was quick to reassure boosters and sportswriters that he was going to work his UW magic at Rutgers.

As reported by the Home News Tribune in April of 2003…

McCormick believes academics and big-time athletics can go hand-in-hand. ‘A successful athletic program can raise the university’s profile in the public eye,’ said McCormick.

Greg Tufaro, “Challenge looms in sports arena”
Home News Tribune, 14 April 2003

Well, now we are finally beginning to see what a “successful athletic program” run underneath Richard McCormick’s authority looks like, thanks to the Seattle Times’ investigative series Victory and Ruins, and it isn’t a pretty picture. (The Seattle Times, it should be noted, was the paper that broke the McCormick infidelity story)

Last fall, Richard McCormick told the Daily Targum that he would not give the athletics department a “blank check.” He was speaking in response to a full page ad that RU1000 placed in the previous day’s Targum. Of course, our ad meant a financial check—McCormick’s willingness, like Lawrence before him, to allow any expenditure in the pursuit of big-time football at Rutgers. Thanks to the Seattle Times, it is now devastatingly clear that, under Richard McCormick, the UW Athletics Department did have carte blanche, in all manners of speaking, to do whatever necessary to win.

The story is an ugly one. It’s the story of a football team harboring at least twenty four criminals while scaling the heights of football success. It’s the story of coaches and administrators turning a blind eye to criminal behaviour, police investigations, and, ultimately, convictions. It’s the story of an almost endless series of “vouching fors” that are used to justify almost any amount of negligence by coaches and other officials. More than anything, however, this is the story of a “successful athletic program,” as overseen by Richard L. McCormick, 19th president of Rutgers University.

All bolded headings are also links to the relevant portions of the Seattle Times series.

Convicted of assault and accused of rape, star player received raft of second chances

Chapter 1 of the series describes the lengthy criminal history of Jerramy Stevens, the Huskies’ star tight end, who was brought to the UW despite a conviction for assault. While at UW, he was credibly accused of rape, and following the politically motivated decision not to prosecute, he went on to commit a hit and run—against a nursing home. (all emphasis is ours)

Stevens was charged with felony assault. A judge let him await trial at home, wearing an electronic-monitoring device. Stevens soon tested positive for marijuana, violating the terms of his home confinement. As a result, he spent three weeks in the Thurston County jail.

At the time, Stevens had already accepted a football scholarship to the UW. The felony charge appeared to place his scholarship in jeopardy — but three UW coaches wrote the judge, saying the UW’s offer was still good.

Soon after Stevens’ arrest, Barbara Hedges, the athletic director, told reporters that the UW would conduct its own investigation of Stevens, to see if discipline was warranted.

But the university never did.

In her lawsuit against Stevens and the UW, Marie identified herself by her initials, not her full name. That’s not unusual in lawsuits alleging rape or molestation.

But the UW filed a motion in October 2003 demanding that her full name be disclosed in the court file, which would be available to the public. The UW argued that the public has an interest “in knowing all the facts involved”; that transparency is crucial when the defendant is a public entity; that “centuries of law … forbid secrecy (to any degree) in our judicial proceedings.”

A freshman when the incident occurred, Marie had become “extremely depressed” and left the UW soon after. She couldn’t face the possibility of seeing Stevens or his friends on campus. She couldn’t stomach how the UW had taken no action against him, letting him continue to play football. She attended a community college for five quarters, and returned to the UW after Stevens left.

Now, she couldn’t fathom what the UW would gain from making her name public. The university knew her identity. It could dig into her background all it wanted. Her claims would be tried in open court. But she didn’t want other students staring at her, whispering about her. She also feared “physical danger” from people upset at what she was alleging.

“I am dismayed that the University of Washington, where I am a student, would so deliberately and needlessly make my life difficult in this manner,” Marie wrote.

Two weeks before filing this motion, the UW made the opposite argument in a case in which it paid millions to settle a medical-malpractice claim. The entire file of that lawsuit was sealed, with the UW and other parties extolling the value of privacy.

Key UW linebacker played entire season after his bloody print was tied to shooting

Of course, the saga of Mr. Stevens is not nearly the end of it. Have we mentioned that this is a series in 4 parts? Also playing on the 2000 Rose Bowl team was Jeremiah Pharms, investigated for the shooting of a drug dealer, and ultimately charged with robbery. The young man had other hobbies besides for football or shooting and robbing drug dealers: raising and abusing pit bulls, for one. He left UW for the NFL, without a degree, before being arrested. He was subsequently released by the Browns.

To Huskies fans a tragic hero, to the courts a wanted felon

When Williams played against Idaho, he had a warrant out for his arrest. He’d been arrested every year he was here: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. He was a convicted felon who’d served time for choking his wife. Two other assault charges were pending against him. He was accused of cutting his wife’s face, breaking her arm, breaking her nose.

Prosecutors filed two more charges against Williams — pushing the total to five since he arrived at the UW. He was arrested and stayed in jail for 15 days.

Williams was let out after two assistant UW coaches went before a judge and vouched for him, urging his release.

Lambright wanted Williams’ scholarship taken away, so that he could give it to someone else. He provided the university with a report that cited Williams’ problems “socially, academically and athletically.”

Though light on details, Lambright’s report noted Williams’ felony conviction, saying he’d had “an altercation” with his wife. Lambright said the team had ordered Williams to attend counseling — only to discover he’d blown off most of his appointments.

At the UW, the Athletic Financial Aid Committee decides whether a student-athlete’s scholarship can be revoked. The committee was headed by Eric Godfrey, then an assistant vice president, now vice provost for student life.

In September 1998, Godfrey wrote Williams, telling him the committee had ruled in his favor: His scholarship would not be lifted.

Linebacker discovered joy of learning but had to buck football program that emphasized eligibility, not education

The final chapter of this whole sordid affair is supposed to be a feel good story: Anthony Kelley enrolled at the UW as a “special admit,” and bucked the usual “academic support” machinery that uses tutors and remedial courses to keep “special admits” academically eligible. After a term abroad in South Africa, he returned with a passion for learning. What is most revealing, however, are the descriptions of that very machinery that, far from lifting opportunity cases up, keeps them instead locked into a cynical cycle of low expectations and an inability to measure up.

One player on the 2000 team left the UW barely able to read or write, Winter says. She would go through textbooks with him, looking at pictures, reading captions, trying to capture main ideas. For essays, he would dictate while she typed.

The Shellhouse became a safe haven for players, a place they could vent. Some players walked in and dropped their heads on their desks, exhausted. “They were scheduled from before the sun came up until 8 or 9 at night,” Winter says.

After the 2000 season, Winter quit. She saw only hype surrounding “special admits,” a misplaced belief they were rising above. “They are running a business at the expense of the kids,” she says. “I felt like I was feeding the business, rather than helping.”

Board of Governors insanity

BOG Chair Howard to students: Pay homage to me, or shut up

Why, pray tell, does the good Reverend William Howard remain in an expired seat on the Board of Governors (as Chair, no less!) when it is obvious to all that he has no idea how to run a university in an open, accountable, and responsible manner?

As reported in today’s Daily Targum, the Rutgers University Student Association released a statement hours before the BOG’s vote on Tuesday to approve the stadium expansion, criticizing the almost complete lack of university input into the stadium expansion (the largest capital project ever undertaken by the university). Readers will remember that the university administration was badgered by RUSA into running two “open forums,” which McCormick, et al. were allowed to turn into barely concealed pep rallies. At these forums, the administration has done nothing but evade and distort, and their disingenuousness has been roundly condemned, both at Rutgers and in New Jersey newspapers.

William Howard’s response is that the university community is allowed to speak before BOG meetings. That should be plenty enough debate and discussion for everyone, right? Well, let’s take a look at the published rules and procedures for BOG meetings, to see what this would mean:

Speakers who are recognized by the Chair will normally be permitted to speak for three minutes. Time limits may be revised at the discretion of the Chair of the Board. Due to time constraints, ordinarily the number of such speakers at any one meeting will be limited to five.

Five speakers at three minutes a piece would total 15 minutes. William Howard thinks that 15 minutes is sufficient public input into the largest capital project in the university’s history? It’s no surprise, then, that the process surrounding almost any other project of any significance can be favorably compared to the university’s attempt to railroad through a $100+ million football stadium expansion. Let’s recap:

• The plans were leaked in New Jersey papers in late August, 2007. The university refused to discuss any details, and open records requests filed by NJ papers and Rutgers 1000 seeking additional records relating to the project were denied.

• A vote was initially planned for the BOG’s December, 2007 meeting, a scant 3 and a half months after news of the project first broke.

• After a campus debate erupted following the publication of a full-page ad in the November 12 Daily Targum by Rutgers 1000 calling for Richard McCormick to halt the stadium project, the administration was badgered into holding a single “forum” where details of the project would be released—3 days before a vote was to be taken. This was the first time any details of the project were released by the administration.

• In response to mounting criticism, the Board of Governors called a shotgun meeting for November 26, ostensibly to discuss serious problems facing Rutgers as a university. The meeting turned out to be a vehicle for the BOG to rededicate themselves to wasting even more money on big time sports, while ignoring the need for real solutions to problems that threaten the long-term health of the university. The BOG continued to ignore mounting dissatisfaction with their leadership.

• Following Governor Corzine’s withdrawal of state money for the stadium project, Howard said that he didn’t “know if it is even feasible or responsible to make a decision in a rush.” But make a decision in a rush he would…

• With an eye towards short-circuiting organized opposition, the BOG called a shotgun vote immediately after the university returned from winter break. This was the second emergency meeting called by the BOG in two months intended solely to prop up the stadium expansion project.

• This shotgun vote was preceded, yet again only days before, by another “open forum,” and the administration’s behaviour was yet again roundly condemned for failing to honestly engage students or address their complaints. Reports indicate that a majority of the crowd was opposed to the stadium expansion, yet there is no sign that this outpouring of opposition made any dent in the collective consciousness of the administration or BOG.

• Shockingly, it was revealed at the “open forum” that the Athletics Department had already spent $5 million on the stadium project, without authorization or a vote by the BOG to proceed with the project.

• Finally, on January 29, a mere 5 months after the first newspaper reports, the Board of Governors voted through the stadium expansion project, even though they lacked $30 million required to complete the project. If that isn’t making a decision in a rush, what is? If that is a responsible act, then what isn’t?

This entire process was unprecedented. At no point did the university make any attempt to make information permanently available to the university community, besides for press releases and statements to newspapers. The customary and almost obligatory university website detailing the project, along with background and historical documents, never materialized. Information, when it was released, was dumped on students at so-called “open forums” which were the only officially sanctioned forum for the administration to hear student concerns. Students and the opposition had no chance to review documents or to prepare a response.

Compare this process to:

• Undergraduate reorganization
  • The entire process lasted two years from inception to ratification of the task force’s proposals by the Board of Governors.
  • A continual web presence informed as well as highlighted dissenting proposals and encouraged a free, open debate on the university’s future.
  • A major report was released almost a full year before the BOG vote which highlighted the proposed changes and which was open to extensive debate.

• Vision for College Avenue Campus
  • It’s been over three years and not a single ceremonial mound of dirt has been dug.
  • The $15 million for a “first phase” has yet to materialize.
  • The project was accompanied by an extensive website presence detailing the planning process and the history of campus planning at Rutgers.
  • A design competition was held which emphasized public input.
  • Numerous forums and informational and feedback sessions were held, attended by senior university officials.

The disparity between the amount of time and process put into a $15 million campus fix-up, which benefits the entire university community, and the rushed and secretive process put into a $100+ million stadium project to give a handful of football boosters expensive club seating and luxury skyboxes is a major embarrassment to Rutgers as a public institution, and as a university.

Howard, of course, doesn’t care about any of this. A good part of the impetus for this project is, of course, the need of most of the BOG—today composed almost entirely of local business executives and other mediocrities—to inflate their own sense of self worth by associating themselves with a big-time football power. It is no surprise, then, that he thinks what is most important is the public comment period at the BOG meetings:

The Rev. M. William Howard, a board chair (sic) who was unaware of the statement released by RUSA, said students had many opportunities to express concern about the expansion. The board, he said, allows students speaking time to answer any questions they may have concerning issues the board discusses.

Yes, at the very meetings at which Howard and his cronies cast the ceremonial votes that have long since been set in stone. Why doesn’t he simply admit the truth: Howard thinks student and public input should only matter to the extent that they are willing to supplicate themselves and to pay homage to him in exchange for their three minutes at the microphone, as his gavel hovers over the table and threatens to rule out of order anyone who speaks out of line. Public input, to William Howard, is only important to the extent that it plays its role in the ongoing ego trip that is his membership on the BOG.

Of course, the unspoken truth here is that every single student and faculty member in New Brunswick could line up outside of Winants Hall the morning of every single public meeting, and Howard still wouldn’t care what any of us thought. Except, of course, for his fellow Scarlet R Club members, who are already well represented on the board.

Is it any surprise that he wasn’t even aware of a statement by RUSA condemning the process that he and his cronies set in motion in order to approve the stadium project as quickly and in as much secrecy as possible? No. To be fair, however, RUSA obviously didn’t line up for their three minute audience with Lord Howard, so why should he even care?

Rutgers 1000 Op/Ed

Stadium Expansion:
Why “No” is the Only Answer

Ed.: bumped

The Daily Targum has declined to run the following op/ed, penned by RU1000 members Niti Bagchi and Adrian Barr, and we reproduce it in its entirety here.

At the forum on stadium expansion on January 24, President McCormick and his team of officials sought to assure students that the lavish project would– hopefully – be self-financing. When asked what might happen if the football team “did a Notre Dame” in coming seasons, resulting in smaller crowds, President McCormick acknowledged the obvious. “There is some risk,” he noted. Indeed there is. When the football program borrows $70 million, it uses the university as a guarantor. Should the team lose, should the crowds thin out or drift away, should the big donations not materialize, should the forecast recession really bite, then it is we, the students of this university, who will be left to bear the burden of this debt.

This “borrow and hope” scheme gambles the already tenuous financial future of this university on the success of a football team. However, there is another reason to oppose this project, one that does not rest on financial but on ethical grounds. Quite simply, the McCormick administration’s obsession with making it “big time” in football is harming this university.

To make this case, one has simply to have been on campus to be aware of the deteriorating physical condition of the buildings and classrooms in which we, the students of this institution, learn. We invite you then, in your mind, to join us on a tour. We could start at one of the centerpieces of our university, the Alexander Library, with its dirty, uneven carpets, its squalid study spaces and its rickety wooden desks, covered with graffiti and pornographic scrawling that dates back to the late 1980s. We could move on to the Ruth Adams building on Douglass, with its missing floor tiles, crumbling entranceway, and, when I was last there, missing glass on toilet doors. And this is just the beginning. We could cover most of Livingston, run-down even by Rutgers standards, and much of Busch. In President McCormick’s tenure, the amount of deferred maintenance at Rutgers has risen sharply, as has the allocated funding for the football program.

It is to the football program that we now turn. One has only to walk into the granite-clad opulence of the Hale Center – funded in part by private donations, but also by university funds – to realize we are dealing with a quite different beast here. Our university struggles with providing such basics as proper heating and air-conditioning. Yet, the last few years have seen an explosion of wasteful spending on football—spending that is simply obscene when compared to the financial conditions under which the rest of the university operates. There was, for example, the $88,000 spent on ‘Insight Bowl’ rings. There is the $180,000 spent per year on putting the team up at the Hilton for home games. There are the helicopter recruiting trips for our Coach Schiano, the prime-time Times Square ads for Ray Rice, and much more. Rutgers still loses millions on our football program, money that could otherwise be spent renovating libraries and classrooms – spaces all students use. In the tale of football versus academics at Rutgers, the former is a prince, the latter a pauper.

President McCormick has said repeatedly that this is a question not of competition but of coexistence, yet his actions do not tally with his words. In 2006, when the university suffered the most severe budget cuts in its long history, football’s funding was increased. To help fund the ever-growing demands of the football program, some of our oldest sports were axed. Meanwhile, a broke university makes shortcuts on maintenance, cuts classes and staff positions, yet continues to increase the football budget. We, the students at Rutgers, the 8th oldest university in the United States, have become second class citizens in our own institution.

And it is of this schism, this increasing divide between the demands of the football program and the needs of the university that the stadium expansion is symptomatic. The flourishes and grand promises regarding the College Ave redevelopment have dried up. Yet the stadium expansion is rushed through as secretly and as urgently as possible. Had it not been for Governor Corzine’s refusal to commit public funds to the project, the expansion would already be underway. If the expansion goes ahead, it will stand as a memorial to President McCormick’s tenure thus far at Rutgers. His presidency has been one in which libraries and classrooms crumble while the ever-increasing demands of athletic director Mulcahy are rushed to the front of the queue. And it is this inequality, this injustice that makes opposition to this grandiose and misguided project an ethical, rather than a simply fiscal matter.

A tale of two universities

On stadiums, Rutgers and UW play by the same playbook

In 2000, while harboring at least two dozen criminals, and at least one star player under criminal investigation for rape, Richard McCormick's University of Washington Huskies were flying high, finishing their regular season 11-1 and winning the Rose Bowl. In the excitement and thrill of victory, few might have guessed that neither big time football success, nor Richard McCormick, were long for Seattle.

By 2007, UW football fortunes had all but collapsed. They finished their season with a 4-9 record and missed a bowl game for the fifth year in a row. Their average attendance at Husky Stadium plummeted from 71,500 in 2000 down to 57,500 in 2006. Recently, a booster has offered $100,000 for the termination of the UW coach's contract.

But the University of Washington had a plan! They would convince the state of Washington to fork over $150 million in tax revenues, raise $90 million from donors, and.... renovate Husky Stadium! Yes, that's right: 7 years out from their near perfect season, with a .307 record, and a 14,000 decline in stadium attendance, and now's the time to spend $300 million on a stadium upgrade. It is a truth that "big time" football reads from a single playbook, no matter the circumstances: spend, spend spend.

Now, after Rutgers University's own 2006 Cinderella season, and perhaps the beginning of its own similar slide into irrelevancy, Richard McCormick and the Board of Governors are spending $100 million that they don't have to upgrade Rutgers Stadium. It will take 30 years to pay down the debt, which they claim will pay for itself, assuming a "conservative" minimum 85% attendance at home games.

Let's put that in perspective. UW Husky Stadium has a capacity of 72,500. It's average attendance in 2006 was 57,500, an average of 80% capacity. That is 5% below the magical McCormick break even line, just six years after a wonder season capped by a Row Bowl win. Now, McCormick wants us to believe that he can guarantee profitability for Rutgers football for 30 years, just two years out of a season capped by a win at the Texas Bowl.

Richard McCormick says that the stadium isn't taking money away from academics or requiring tuition to be raised. BOG Chair Howard, a holdover sitting in an expired seat, says that the stadium is completely unrelated to tuition, courses, or other parts of the university desperately in need of money. They are either extremely deluded, or they are being intentionally disingenuous.

The fact is that when the stadium fails to pay for itself, as "big time" football has failed to pay for itself at Rutgers since its inception, the BOG will dutifully fork over the debt service from the University's budget, just like it continues to fork over between $2 and $3 million a year to finance our adventure in "big time" football. That money is money that will have to be made up somewhere. It will be made up in higher tuition. It will be made up by vacant faculty slots. It will be made up for by delaying maintenance, and by cutting more courses. It will be made up by the death of a thousand cuts that has been eating away at Rutgers for twenty years: in cancelled library subscriptions; in malfunctioning heating systems; in missing ceiling tiles; and in bare, litter strewn campus walks that bare not just litter, but the disdain that Richard McCormick and the Board of Governors feel for Rutgers, its students, its faculty, and the people of New Jersey.

As for the University of Washington, there is a happy ending, or at least a happy resting place. A key lawmaker has come out against financing a renovation of Husky Stadium, and the proposal appears dead in the water.

The only sane member of the BOG

Thank you, George Zoffinger!

Why is it that Rutgers seems to have a limit of one sane person on the Board of Governors at a time? A few years ago, it was Dr. Vagelos, and today it’s George Zoffinger, a once-controversial appointment who has proven to be a godsend. While the rest of the board, along with Richard McCormick and members of his administration, were scheming to railroad through an insane $100 million stadium expansion, Mr. Zoffinger has consistently opposed the project, and in doing so has stood up for Rutgers at a time when it most needs real leadership. Today, he stood alone in voting against the stadium expansion, which was approved without even a plan to fully fund the construction, let alone a realistic plan to pay down the $73 million in debt that the university will be taking on to finance the expansion.

George Zoffinger deserves the thanks and praise of all who truly care about the future of Rutgers University as an academic institution of higher learning. Thank you, George.

The University of Washington is

Richard McCormick’s
House of Scandal

Richard McCormick is intimately familiar with big-time football success. In 2000, when he was president of the University of Washington, the UW Huskies were flying high, and ended their season at the Rose Bowl. Now, it’s revealed in the Seattle Times that he is also intimately familiar with the dark side of big-time football: The UW Rose Bowl team had, amongst its ranks, 24 criminals. That year, a star football player was accused of rape. The UW’s response was to harass the accuser in court and to protect the football star at all costs. Such was big-time football at Richard McCormick’s University of Washington.

Of course, the only “dark side” of big-time football that Richard McCormick cares about is what happened to the team’s fortunes in the years following its Rose Bowl appearance: seven years later, the UW Huskies finished their season 4-9, and haven’t been to a bowl game for five years. Tragic.

Read all about it at the Seattle Times