Perhaps it’s time to make some cuts to Intercollegiate Athletics and make the division more student-centered.
According to the Knight Commission, institutional funding for Athletics per athlete has gone up 102 percent between 2005 and 2011. In contrast, academic spending per full-time equivalent student has stagnated at a measly 8 percent growth during those years.
A disclaimer though: I do not think student athlete scholarships should be touched. I have respect for my peers who are student athletes, and if anything, their compensation should probably be increased.
What I am concerned with is the constant additional help Athletics needs from the students in order to keep the lights on. Athletics are a nice auxiliary to have at the university, but they are not worth the amount of money students funnel into the program, which amounted to $429.72 per student in the 2012-13 academic year, according to a previous Post article. That number doesn’t even include student funding for the Walter Fieldhouse and trips to bowl games, which Athletics seems to benefit from more than students do.
Ever wonder why your football/basketball/volleyball/etc. tickets are free? In a roundabout way, students are already paying for those tickets. That is because Athletics is already so heavily subsidized by the General Fee; it doesn’t matter if you go to the games or not.
Students have some control over the General Fee, but I use the word “control” loosely. The General Fee Advisory Committee is made up of students, but it is nothing more than a recommendation to Ohio University President Roderick McDavis.
If the General Fee Committee were to recommend this year that McDavis substantially cut Athletics’ share of funding, I guarantee nothing would come of it.
The administration has pushed students around on the General Fee Committee before to assist Athletics. When Athletics needed money to finance the maintenance and debt servicing of the Walter Fieldhouse, they turned to former Student Senate executives Kyle Triplett and Chris Wimsatt, who decided by unilateral action that it would be a good idea to have students pay $822,000 a year to cover it, according to a previous Post article.
This occurred after Athletics had promised multiple times not to dip into the General Fee to build the center.
The news also broke a few weeks ago that the Walter Fieldhouse construction timetable has been delayed, and as a result will only be open for the football team in the spring and summer to practice.
For a building that is ostensibly under the jurisdiction of the Division of Student Affairs, there seems to be a lot more football affairs going on.
That also leaves the question of who has priority over using the space once it is open to all students. If the Quidditch Club reserves the fieldhouse for the Quidditch World Cup, can the football team push them out at a moment’s notice?
These are questions that should have been discussed publicly before breaking ground on the fieldhouse.
Maybe students really are enthused about paying hundreds of dollars per year to Athletics, and if so, I’d love to hear from you. Otherwise, it seems to me like we’re just pumping a lot of time, energy and money that could be spent elsewhere, or not spent at all.
Matt Farmer is a senior studying political science and education.
Do you think the university overemphasizes Athletics? Email him at mf291209@ohiou.edu.
