Wonders never cease when it comes to the amount of money that’s thrown away in Kentucky through the athletic departments of the state’s universities. The only athletic departments that are said to pay their way through income derived from ticket sales, TV, and other sources are at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville. In all the rest of the schools – Murray, Western, Eastern, Morehead, Northern Kentucky, and Kentucky State – millions of dollars are lost each year on a relative handful of students who just happen to be big or strong or fast or all of the above.
No one denies the importance of sports and competition, but there comes a time when taxpayers have a right to suggest that the tail should never wag the dog. In the latest case, that of the firing of football coach David Elson at Western Kentucky, the financial profligacy is glaring. Elson signed a contract extension last January that named him the coach through 2016 – that’s just last January. He’s already been fired by the same guy, athletic director Wood Selig, who gave him that extension. The team has lost every game this year, its first in the premier top-tier NCAA Division I, putting it in the company of such teams as Alabama and Florida, the best in the nation. The knee-jerk reflex was simply to fire the coach.
According to USA Today of 06 October 2008, Elson’s income this year is $250,000. He accepted a buyout of $500,000 for the privilege of being fired, even though without any raises at all (unheard of) he would have made $1,750,000 by the year 2016. One can’t know the provisions of his contract, but wonders what he could have received if he had just decided to sue Western for the whole amount. Billy Gillispie, former basketball coach at UK, just settled a firing orgy by athletic director Mitch Barnhart for a whopping $3 million, and he only had a “memorandum of understanding,” i.e. never a signed contract.
In the USA Today article, mention was made of the fact that Western had been very successful in its former division – I-AA, winning a national championship in 2002. Athletic director Selig was quoted as remarking the fact that even then Western was losing nearly $2 million a year. That’s tax money being sucked down the drain. The wonder is that the University of Kentucky stays in the black since it gave Gillispie $3 million as a buyout; former football coach Hal Mumme a cool million a few years ago to be fired, and former football coach Bill Curry $600,000 in the 1990s to be shown the door.
In order to do its “step up to the next level,” Western renovated its football stadium to the tune of $50 million, never mind that it was losing heavily on football every year. That outlay was not earned by any sport...it was made up of taxes. The change meant that the number of full football scholarships was increased from 63 to 85. At about a conservative $15,000 each to educate, feed, house, and equip a player, that meant another $330,000 to add to the $945,000 already spent, for a total of $1,275,000 in scholarships each year, whether or not the player could write three consecutive grammatically correct sentences or figure simple interest.
There’s something wrong here. A good place to start looking for the cure is in the offices of university athletic directors and presidents. These are actually the people who do the hiring and firing, even though a committee has been appointed to secure a new coach at Western. Has anyone ever heard of that? The athletic director is on the committee, though not the chairman, and he will have the final say, notwithstanding his erratic behavior.
Smart and talented students graduate from high school every year – straight-A folks – but, especially in this recession-damned economy and amidst ever-upward-spiraling tuition and board costs, are forced into jobs instead of professions, while those who are athletically blessed just game the system, aided and abetted by the educators(?), whose elevators don’t seem to reach the top floor. Who pays? The taxpayer pays, along with those who are deprived simply because they can’t run fast enough or aren’t equipped to knock the stuffing out of other people on Saturday.
Yes...the tail wags the dog in the state of Kentucky, but that’s the way it is throughout Division I. The University of Kentucky aspires to “top twenty” status, but the lie is given to its efforts by its enriching its athletic directors and coaches, while the academics and non-athletes can eat cake and the entire academic program remains in the shadows. The same is true at Western, and nothing is likely to change.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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