It's All About the Money Stupid

It’s All About the Money Stupid

Last Monday saw the culmination of the college football season with the crowning of a new national champion.  Many people watched this contest and came away with the mistaken idea that the winner was Alabama.  However, the real winners Monday night were Vanderbilt and all the other members of the Southeastern Conference who sat home and got to watch along with the rest of us. You see LSU and Alabama each earned seventeen million dollars for being in the championship game but that smooth thirty-four million has to be shared with the rest of the conference.  Regardless of where the money goes let me repeat that there was a $34 million dollar payday for that one game.  It leads to, what is to me, the obvious conclusion that this sport is no longer about school pride; “it is”, to paraphrase James Carville, “about the money stupid.”

If you are still of the deluded conclusion its about winning one for the “Gipper” consider the following report from the September 24,2011 Charleston Post and Courier:

“Over the past 25 years, professors' salaries at major college football schools rose 32 percent. Presidents at those institutions received increases of 90 percent. And football coaches' compensation grew 750 percent, according to an inflation-adjusted study of 44 schools by Duke University economist Charles Clotfelter.”

Consider this fact: Les Miles, head football coach at LSU, the team that lost and still earned $17 million has a salary pegged at around $3.9 million. The Chancellor of that same university has a salary of  $750 thousand.  Although none of us would sneeze at $750K, I have to wonder what this says about our priorities with regard to education in this country.   “It’s all about the money stupid.”

Closer to home here in South Carolina is the following April 2011 report from an online service called Fitsnews.com:

The University of South Carolina‘s board of trustees quietly approved a forty percent salary increase for head football coach Steve Spurrier.  Under the terms of the agreement, the 66-year-old head coach will make $2.55 million in 2011, $2.87 million in 2012 and $2.95 million in 2012. He will also receive a one-time payment of $1 million at the end of the 2011 season – pushing his salary for that year to $3.55 million.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the Chancellor of the University of South Carolina has a total compensation package of about $300 thousand.  “It’s all about the money stupid.”

Most of Spurrier’s compensation comes from non-taxpayer sources i.e. people and companies that want a winning football team.  Perhaps the new business mantra should be:  “Millions for sports but not one cent for education”, to paraphrase Robert Goodloe Harper, a South Carolina Federalist.  Of course Darla Moore here in South Carolina did give millions to build an International Business Program that is recognized consistently as one of, if not the, best in the country.  As a reward for her largess she was removed from the Board of Trustees.  Of course she probably can’t run a 4.5 forty.

These examples at Penn State, LSU, and South Carolina are not unique; just look at Southern Cal, North Carolina, and Miami to name just a few more.  Indeed I would guess that few major college programs could stand much close scrutiny.  Why?  “It’s all about the money stupid.”

The horrific events that occurred at Penn State becomes the cautionary tale as to what can happen when we, as a society, allow our priorities to get so out of kilter that sports programs run educational institutions.  We seem to have lost sight of the fact that colleges and universities exist as institutes of higher learning, not farm systems for the NFL and NBA.

I am not opposed to college athletics.  On the contrary I am an enthusiastic college sports fan and those that know me are sure my blood runs Tarheel Blue.  However, when you see that the U.S. rankings in world education is rated average, coming in 14^th out of 34 countries studied, I think it is time to take a serious look at our priorities.  While we don our school colors; living and dying on the outcome of a game, our educational system is really dying.  In ancient Rome the Coliseum Games were a distraction to the people to keep them from dwelling too much on reality.  Perhaps we are approaching that point ourselves.

“It’s all about the money stupid”, but it shouldn’t be.

As Time Goes By.